Global Talk

by Michael Whitman, Senior Member Northern New England chapter and ITC SIG

Translation should no longer be an afterthought… ever. Companies gain a competitive advantage when all writers employ a clear, simple, “global” style of English.

As manager of translation projects, I used to spend a lot of time “editing for translation” instruction manuals and marketing brochures whose English had been created without sensitivity for the needs of the translation process.

After I began working “upstream” with document writers, teaching what was difficult for our translators in our English documents, I needed to edit less and less.

In any company, however, there are always new folks who need to learn, so I have developed two pages of the most frequently needed changes. Often writers only need be made aware of these points, to improve their text so it is more “world-ready.”

These suggestions may also be helpful for some newer technical writers, since clear, unambiguous text serves well as a communication medium, whether or not it will be translated.

Here are the tips I developed:

Lay it out for all the world

Make sure to design documents with plenty of white space. The A4 page used in international markets is a little taller and narrower than the U.S. 8-1/2 x 11″ page.

Avoid constrictive framed or boxed text. Add extra vertical space in narrow columns.

Most date, address, and number formats differ from one country to another.

Be aware that icons differ across borders. Many symbols are accepted internationally, but a U.S. mailbox looks very different from a U.K. “postbox.”

Anticipate language expansion

Many languages require more space than English, so the foreign-language text will be longer. Plan to accommodate text expansion of about 25%. Asian languages, however, contract.

For touch-screen software, allow extra space in prompts and messages to avoid awkward abbreviations, which impact readability.

Use consistent terminology

Avoid creating new technical terms: use existing terms.

Create a translation glossary to assist your translator. Don’t include “dictionary” words, but only those that may have unique meaning in your industry. If there are several synonyms for one term — “air cylinder” can also be known as a bottle, a pressure tank, a pressure vessel, and so on — pick the one most often used in your area. When the glossary is reviewed before use by a translator in each language, each reviewer can make their own choices among synonyms.

Avoid abbreviations and acronyms wherever possible. They can confuse both readers and translators. When an abbreviation or acronym is required, write the full phrase the first time it is mentioned, followed by the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses.

Remember basics and specifics

Clear writing is a great start toward good translations. Write well, since translators must truly understand every word.

Be clear and succinct. Use a simple writing style and short sentences.

Avoid using ampersands (&) and slashes (/) to combine terms. A slash really means “or,” which makes the American phrase “and/or” seem quite strange.

Do not use jargon, slang or biz-buzzwords.

If a term is not listed in a current dictionary or your glossary, don’t use it.

Use the active voice for verbs, not the passive. Help reduce translation costs!

Limit the volume of words. Translation costs are based on the number of English words, and if you translate into 20 languages, each English word increases translation costs 20-fold.

Do not embed text in graphics.

Re-use text from a previous document when you can, and don’t make any unnecessary minor language “tweaks.”

For example, don’t say “Click here for more information” in one place, and then “Click the following for more info” in another. Translation will count those two sentences as 11 unique words. Using “Click here for more info” in both places makes a word count of 5 unique and 5 repeated words, which will reduce the translation cost by 50%.

Two reminders from an editor for translations

(1) Conciseness is important, but text without articles, prepositions or relative pronouns may cause translators extra work to understand the meaning.

The meaning of the source text for the translation must be clear, because our English is the second language (or third!) for each of our translators.

(2)  Words that end with “-ing” are an Anglocentricity (the noun form of a verb, such as “including”) that can cause problems because this construction (a gerund) doesn’t exist in other languages.

Although it is not easy to avoid using gerunds completely, they seem to cause the most ambiguity when they are used immediately before a noun (”Using plasma for cutting metal”), or immediately after a noun (”A power supply running constantly…”). Often the infinitive or another form of the verb can be used, as in “Use plasma to cut metal” or “A power supply that runs constantly.”

These tips were adapted from several sources by Michael Whiltman for Hypertherm, Inc., Hanover, NH, http://www.hypertherm.com

This entry was posted on Monday, September 4th, 2006 at 3:58 am and is filed under Features, Translation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.