
If you’re writing text that will eventually be translated, it’s ok to repeat words throughout your text. When developing translations for marketing purposes, glossaries are an effective way to keep your brand voice consistent. This provides greater clarity and eliminates ambiguity for the translators, and helps ensure consistency across all of your materials. A glossary compiles your company’s key terminology in the source language and the approved translations for that terminology in the target language(s). Your translation agency can work with you to develop a glossary, which will enable you to make decisions about the appropriate use of brand-specific words and phrases upfront. To effectively communicate your company’s unique voice, your corporate language conventions and brand-specific terminology must remain consistent across all content. In cases where you opt to keep a phrase that may lead to confusion, add a note for your translation agency so they can ensure the linguists translating your text understand your meaning and can adapt it appropriately for your audience.Ĭorporate or brand-specific language can be challenging in multicultural advertising. Sometimes the elements above do add color to your writing, and you may decide to break the rules. Take Advantage of Your Translation Agency Always double check to make sure your text uses proper grammar and correct punctuation. It may sound obvious, but proofread your text thoroughly.Active sentences, in which the subject of the sentence is performing the action, have a better flow and make it clear who is doing what. Passive sentences often have a more complex sentence structure, use more words, and tend to be vague.
#Atext text expansion abbreviation adapt message how to#

It rarely translates well and can easily lead to confusion or misunderstandings. Other examples include “when pigs fly,” “a penny for your thoughts,” “piece of cake,” “barking up the wrong tree,” or “burning the midnight oil.” Your Japanese audience is unlikely to understand that “Elvis has left the building” has nothing to do with Elvis, it just means the end of the show. Such phrases may sound natural to native speakers of a particular language, but they do not necessarily translate across cultures. An idiom is a group of words or phrase that is not intended to be taken literally.Keep your writing succinct from the start to help with layout issues down the road. When translating a website or app, text expansion can have a significant impact on your layout. Some languages, such as Spanish, can take up to 25% more space than English. Fewer words to translate will also help you with text expansion. Short, clear sentences are easier to translate and leave less room for misunderstandings. Avoid ambiguous phrases or redundancies and find the most direct way to express your ideas.It saves time and money to do it right the first time. Don’t wait until you’ve translated your website into five languages to clarify an ambiguous statement. The problem compounds as you begin to increase the number of languages. The quality of your source content directly impacts the quality of your translated content.

When writing content that will eventually be translated for people in other cultures, write with a global audience in mind from the start. How do you write in a way that is clear to people with diverse backgrounds and can be easily translated, so that your message is not diluted for those who are not native English speakers? Write For a Diverse Audience From the Start

Writing for audiences across cultures has its challenges. Everyone understands this refers to a heavy rainstorm, right? Maybe not someone from Ireland, where it’s more common to say, “It’s throwing cobblers’ knives.” Or for a South African who uses the phrase, “It’s raining old women with clubs.” Then there’s the Norwegian saying, “It’s raining female trolls.”
