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The craft of writing well to be read well
If each company has a style and technolect in the modern communication of our globalized world, there is also a style for the creation of texts intended for translation into the languages of the new markets to be conquered.
Our more than thirty years of experience with multilingual writing have shown us that we must not overly restrict the client's writing in the source language. The only writing “constraints” must be fundamentally limited to traditional standards of good writing. Here, for example, are a few rules as a guide to a “translatable” writing style:
a. Sentences should not be more than 25-30 words long
b. Paragraphs should contain a maximum of three to four sentences
c. Forms should be essentially active and possibly exclude gerunds
d. Even terminology that is very rare and technically “problematic” may be used, provided
that explanations are given via precisions or glossaries designed for the purpose and that
the meaning is accessible to readers with average general knowledge
e. An effort is made to give headings and subheadings and to conceptually divide presentations,
so as to simplify them to the maximum extent possible
f. Collateral and balanced use of illustrations, captions and catchwords to get across the content's
essential information
g. Synthesize writing to reduce redundant elements to the greatest extent possible and
make them intentionally useful or necessary.
b. Paragraphs should contain a maximum of three to four sentences
c. Forms should be essentially active and possibly exclude gerunds
d. Even terminology that is very rare and technically “problematic” may be used, provided
that explanations are given via precisions or glossaries designed for the purpose and that
the meaning is accessible to readers with average general knowledge
e. An effort is made to give headings and subheadings and to conceptually divide presentations,
so as to simplify them to the maximum extent possible
f. Collateral and balanced use of illustrations, captions and catchwords to get across the content's
essential information
g. Synthesize writing to reduce redundant elements to the greatest extent possible and
make them intentionally useful or necessary.
After that, you have to place your trust in top translators, adapters and localizers. Translation, despite its limits, can produce miracles. The great writers of the 18th century (from Goethe to the encyclopaedists) were already aware of the most astonishing phenomenon that linguists today call universals: common communication structures with wording that is present in every language (independently of their morphology).
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