Using a Pivot Language – Necessary or Extra Faff?

If you’ve never worked in the world of translation, the term “pivot language” may not be familiar to you, so here’s a definition: 

A pivot language is used as an intermediary language when translating between two different languages. 

Language A > Pivot language P > P to B (and possibly C, D, and E).

Again, if you’ve never worked in translation, you may be wondering why languages can’t just be translated directly into one another, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of using a pivot language, so let us walk you through it! 

*But first, we’ll address the elephant in the room: the voice in your head doing a very accurate impression of Ross from Friends shouting “PIVOT” every time you read the word. You know that scene where they’re carrying the sofa up the stairs, and have to PIVOT to get it around the corner? Though they didn’t manage it, yep, that’s how a pivot language works, easing the smooth transition between one set of stairs (language) and the other.

So, why use a Pivot Language?

In short, pivot languages are necessary when translating between two languages for which it is difficult to find professional translators. Though many people worldwide have English as a second language – or Spanish, French, or Russian – when thinking about less “common” languages, it gets tricky to find professionals to translate between them. If you needed to translate from Estonian to Romanian, for example, you’d be pretty lucky to find a native Romanian translator who specialises in Estonian, and this becomes even more of a challenge depending on the subject area. 

Say you have a medical study conducted in Estonia that will be groundbreaking in Romania – the already small (if not inexistent) pool of potential translators dwindles even further as you need to ensure the subject-level expertise of the professional you choose to do the job, as well as their linguistic abilities. 

This is where pivot languages come in: adding manoeuvring space between two languages to ensure meaning can be smoothly transferred from one to the other.

See, when you use a pivot language – English, for example, is the most commonly used – your pool of potential translators suddenly widens considerably. Plenty of translators translate between Estonian and English and then between English and Romanian, which means that you’re more likely to find subject-level experts able to accurately produce a faithful text that fulfils the purpose it was meant for. 

The Benefits of Using Pivot Languages

In fact, though using a pivot language adds a step to the workflow, which sometimes means longer timeframes are required, they often ensure greater consistency and clarity, especially when translating into several languages. (Beyond the obvious advantage of the greater availability of specialised translators that actually make the translation possible). 

Let’s go back to our Estonian medical study. Instead of just translating it into Romanian, imagine you also need the study in Czech, Slovak, and Icelandic, so instead of setting out to find medical translators with each of those language pairs, you decide to use English as a pivot language. This first step of translating into English allows any kinks to be worked out in the source text, questions to be asked, and niggling questions answered to produce a text that is as clear as possible, ready to be translated into the other languages, ensuring consistency between the target texts, as well as their overall quality.

Using Pivot Languages Is More Common than You Think

Did you know that most machine translation tools (Google Translate, for example) use pivot languages as standard when translating between less common language pairs? In fact, English, French, Russian, and Arabic are often used to bridge the gap between languages, which is how the machines are able to provide such a wide range of language pairs. However, if you’ve ever tried translating between a less common language pair, you’re likely to notice the steep drop in quality compared to translating into or out of a standard pivot language. This drop in quality can often lead to things getting (literally) lost in translation.

Why?

Because two automatic translations are being carried out without any quality checks between them, if any contexts are misinterpreted, words are mistranslated, or concepts are muddled in the first translation, these mistakes will automatically be carried over into the final target text, allowing for much more room for error. 

Top tip: If machine translation is part of your workflow, use a pivot language as standard – adding a step in which the MT into the pivot language is reviewed by a professional linguist - ensuring greater accuracy and that nothing is lost.

But wait, if using a pivot language decreases machine translation quality, is that also true for human translation? 

We’re pleased to say that, no, it isn’t. 

Whereas machine translation is not often able to consider context and translate accordingly, this isn’t true for human translators who can:

• Adapt contextually, interpreting meaning beyond what a machine can interpret. 
• Ensure terminological consistency through the use of glossaries and style guides.
• Revise and fact-check the text in the pivot language alongside the original, correcting any errors and ensuring they are not propagated to the next step. 

It all comes down to how well the process is managed, and the quality of the translators, to ensure high-quality results – all of which MT (machine translation) is unable to do alone. 

Drawbacks to Using a Pivot Language

Though the benefits and necessity of using pivot languages are certainly clear, there are also some drawbacks, the main one being the extra time required for the extra step in the workflow (mentioned earlier), which could be significant if urgent amendments are made to the original.  

Beyond any extra time, though cultural and linguistic nuances can get “washed out” in any type of translation, adding an extra step makes this more likely. This is particularly true when a direct equivalent exists between the source and target languages but not in the pivot language – whether of idioms or even specialised industry-specific terminology. The use of the pivot language, in this instance, may reduce the quality of the final translation, as a more accurate equivalent could have been used if the text had been translated directly. 

This can also be said of certain regional concepts or terms that don’t exist in the pivot language. These may be simplified in the pivot language, leading to an incomplete rendering of the concept in the target language. 

Is Using a Pivot Language more expensive?

Though you may assume that using two translators instead of one is always going to come out more expensive, we’re pleased to say that using a pivot language often doesn’t increase the price of a translation. In fact, it may even bring the overall cost down. 

How?

Well, the translation market works just like any other market – the greater the demand for a skill or service, the more you can charge for it. When you consider language pairs and specialisations, a native Romanian translator who specialises in Estonian healthcare can charge a significant rate for their service, whereas far lower rates can be found in the more competitive Estonian>English and English>Romanian markets. When you apply this principle to several languages, it’s easy to see how you keep the costs from skyrocketing, not to mention the money saved in quality checks, which can be reduced when working with experienced, industry-specialised translators.

How to Overcome the Drawbacks of Using a Pivot Language 

While there may be drawbacks to using a pivot language—and certainly quality aspects to consider—the good news is that these can be overcome with expert project management. If industry-specialised linguists who are well-versed in the subject area and familiar with the terminology are paired with the right choice of pivot language, the drawbacks become minimal, and quality is ensured throughout.

The key to ensuring a streamlined process – and the highest quality result - is always to have an open conversation with the service provider you choose, highlighting any concerns you may have and discussing the options available to best suit your needs. 

Here at Diskusija, we’re well-versed in using pivot languages to navigate complex language combinations, ensuring we select the best linguists and languages for each project. Based in Lithuania, we have extensive experience working with Central and Eastern European (CEE) languages—many of which are considered minor languages with relatively small speaker populations. In cases where direct translation options are limited – due to a lack of qualified translators in certain combinations - a pivot language becomes a game-changer, helping bridge this gap and enabling us to maintain high-quality translations across diverse regional languages.

Whether you’d like to learn more about how we operate or already have a project in mind, get in touch—we’ll be more than happy to help!