Five Models Agreed and Were Still Wrong: A QA Playbook for AI-Translated i18n Files
You added forty new strings, ran your AI translation step, and every locale file came back green. Then a Spanish-speaking user asked why your startup description sounds like a gift box. AI translation is good enough to ship by default, which is exactly why unchecked output is risky. Tools like Interceptor fill missing keys while you develop, and that speed is a real win. The cost is that nobody…
Five models were used to translate strings, but they all produced incorrect translations. The QA playbook for AI-translated i18n files provides guidelines to catch these mistakes. Agreement between models does not guarantee correctness. Four failure modes were identified: surrender, fragmentation, false consensus, and register match.
To prevent these issues, developers should lock placeholders and syntax, give every key context, translate whole files, and review disagreements. High-stakes strings should be sent to humans for review.
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