{"id":37791,"date":"2015-12-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prod01.tradonline.fr\/uncategorized\/the-chimera-of-international-english\/"},"modified":"2023-12-28T12:42:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T11:42:40","slug":"the-chimera-of-international-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradonline.fr\/en\/blog\/the-chimera-of-international-english\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chimera of International English"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

When a client comes to us with a site internationalisation project, we often get the request to translate into international English- <\/strong>because clients think it will get them the wide audience they desire. Unfortunately, international English is a myth, and we\u2019re going to explain why.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

International English: where art thou?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

First of all, let us say that we understand the very legitimate request to translate into one language instead of two or three variants: the cost of a translation project can be quite significant and it would certainly be easier to have one language that responds to all the Anglophone world\u2019s needs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After all, English speakers seem to understand each other very well and communicate as well as the French do with Belgians or the French-speaking Swiss. However, translation is sometimes<\/span> always a matter of accuracy. In speaking English, it\u2019s different: there is less rigour and you can be approximate when you\u2019re a US English native talking to an Aussie native (and this can be identified in case there\u2019s an abrupt silence in the conversation!). In writing there is no such flexibility. The content needs to be perfectly adapted to the culture of that English-speaking country, to inspire confidence in the reader. Therefore, international English is a bit of a chimera.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What are the different variants of English?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The difficulty in the case of English is that, while it comes from the UK, it has evolved in very different ways in the old English empire\u2019s colonies. British English is the standard in Europe, but the United States variant of English has some important differences: its simplified spelling, for example, and let\u2019s not forget they still use the imperial units of measurement. Old British colonies (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand notably) use British spelling, but they are under the heavy influence of American media at the same time, so this fact will also put its mark on language usage in these countries. To sum up, we have British English and US English which are very obviously different, and other variants according to country.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This probably explains the fact that the English language isn\u2019t \u201csupervised\u201d by an authority like the Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise for French; there is no official \u201ccorrect\u201d variant, merely different usage of English from one country to another.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What\u2019s the problem if we use different variants of English in one text?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"M\u00e9langer<\/a>From the point of view of spelling, <\/em>this would result in a poorly-written text, where the same word may appear with two different spellings, e.g. colour (UK) \/ color (US), cheque (UK) \/ check (US), catalogue (UK), catalog (US), analyse (UK) \/ analyze (US), among others. US English tends to simplify.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

From the point of view of grammar<\/em>, what looks okay in one variant will look like a mistake in the other. The British English will say \u201cthe government are\u201d (plural) whereas Americans will say \u201cthe government is\u201d (singular). Use of prepositions varies wildly from British to American English; for example, the Brits say \u201cat the weekend\u201d, for Americans it can only be \u201con the weekend\u201d.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There is also the important matter of vocabulary. <\/em>The list of differences is longer than you might think: you\u2019d use gas<\/em> to make your car run in the US, and petrol<\/em> in the UK; \u201cthong\u201d designates skimpy knickers\/panties in UK English and US English (of course \u201cknickers\u201d are \u201cpanties\u201d in US English), while in Australian English thongs are flip-flops, and let\u2019s not forget flip-flops are \u201cjandals\u201d in New Zealand. There are many flavours of English around the world.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Without the option of international English, how do I pick the right variant?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We\u2019ve seen how not sticking to one variant can lead to confusion. Whichever type of English you should choose in the end, the main thing is to keep consistency, and think of which market you are targeting. Other considerations to take into account are: which measurement system to use (metric\/imperial), date and hour formats (12\/08\/2015 is December 8th<\/sup> in the US, and the 12th<\/sup> of August in Europe). The ground floor (bottom-most floor) is \u201cground floor\u201d in the UK and \u201cfirst floor\u201d in the US.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Besides translation, it is localisation<\/strong> that allows you to adapt your content to your target: it is for this reason that we pick our translators for the quality of their work as well as for their ability to adapt the translation to the variant of English of your choice. As an example, for a translation into American English, we would call on our preferred American translators.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Now that we\u2019ve banished the notion of international English, pop over to this page<\/u><\/a> so we can advise you!<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a client comes to us with a site internationalisation project, we often get the request to translate into international English- because clients think it will get them the wide audience they desire. Unfortunately, international English is a myth, and we\u2019re going to explain why. International English: where art thou? First of all, let us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":32623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Chimera of International English - Tradonline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A true international English is one of the most common requests we get as a translation agency. 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