Some of us copywriters (me) often write for an international audience.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you will know that my specialism is plain English. It’s this skill that means writing for an international audience is not a tough gig for me.

We’ve all seen horribly translated copy right? Whether that’s a restaurant menu on hols, (and I had a hand in making some of these much easier to read way back when I worked in a Parador in Spain) or product descriptions, or my bete noir, product manuals, there’s incomprehensible word salad with heavy dressing aplenty.

Plain English means simple, accessible, accurate, clear, easy to comprehend, with zero jargon and is an all-round efficient way to communicate if you want/need to get your point across.

It also means copy that is easy(ier) to translate IF that is the/a goal for the copy.

Fancy schmancy, flowery, verbose, pun-filled, colloquial heavy copy might be the house style/tone of your brand/business but it’s not going to work (as well) if the intended audience is not a native speaker.

I totally get that some people/businesses/brands think plain English is flat, or boring, or not spicy enough. I (obviously) vehemently disagree. If you want people to be informed enough to make a buying decision, or to take any other kind of action they first and foremost need to be able to understand the offer/concept/product/service. Not boring – good business sense.

Plain English does not equal boring. Plain English equals easy to comprehend. It means no ambiguity. It means less chance of alienating your audience. It means things don’t get lost in translation.

If you need help writing copy for an international audience and/or copy that will need translating into one or more languages do get in touch.

It’s my bolsa/sac/bag.