International English for an international market

To sell to an international market, the best solution is to translate your website. But, translation is expensive. The next best solution is a website that is written in international English.

International English is specially written for people who read English as a second language. International English solves the problems that plain English has.

The following people benefit from international English:

People who can read English, but who are not good readers.
People who use machine translation. With international English, machine translation gives good results.

The benefits of international English

For your customers, international English has the following benefits:

The text is as clear as possible.
If your customers cannot understand the text, they can use machine translation.

For you, international English has the following benefits:

You have no cost of translation. To translate English into a different European language costs approximately £0.10 a word. Translation memory systems help human translators. If the source text is clear, for subsequent translations of related text, costs can be decreased approximately 30% to approximately 80%.
You have an advantage compared with competitors that do not use international English.
You have no problem with updates, because there is only one version of the text (the English version).
If translation is a good business strategy, then the cost of translation is minimized, because international English helps human translators.

Problems with international English

International English is not a complete solution to all your translation problems. You must be clear about your business requirements.

International English does not have small differences of meaning. For example, 'azure', 'navy', and 'cobalt blue' are all types of blue. In international English, the word 'blue' is sufficient.

Sometimes, compared to the average marketing text, international English is boring. If you need "scintillating copy that sparkles with intrinsic energy, slowly, meticulously, and subtly seducing your readers to realising that your product is the best thing since sliced bread," do not use international English.

When text is translated by human translators, the text is usually also localized. For example, colours and images are changed to conform to local preferences. International English cannot conform to all local preferences.

If you use international English on your website, the following problems can occur:

The text does not appear in search engines that use languages other than English. Therefore, you can lose possible customers.
The text does not contain synonyms. Therefore, people who use search engines possibly will not find your website. For example, this website uses 'international English', but 'global English', 'internationalized English', and 'worldwide English' are equivalent terms. If people use 'global English' in a search engine, they will not find this website.

One solution is to have a glossary. For each technical terms, include a professional translation in the languages of the target markets. Include synonyms in the glossary.

Sometimes, you must supply information in the languages of your customers. Ask your legal adviser.

TechScribe can change your English text into international English. For more information, contact TechScribe.

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