Keep your language lean

I wrote some times ago about how the Westerner presenter should avoid flowery language. There are deeper meanings and consequences in business. Assessing that keeping the discourse lean and flowerless is for the sake of the interpreter's work load reduction is too easy an explanation, at least between Japanese and French or English. When one is able to read technical Japanese, which includes business Japanese, there is quickly an impression that the Japanese used in articles as well as business presentation is clearer than equivalents in the opposite languages. It is often not an impression but reality. In business, in technology, Japanese presenters would avoid flowery language. Not that the language does not allow for jingle and catch-phrases like formula, but "faire de l'esprit" is fairly inappropriate when presenting companies, stuffs and things.

At school, when working from Japanese using recordings of real corporate presentations, the only trouble that may arise is when the speaker evokes corporate "philosophy". Those airy flowers tend to be thorny. But besides working for a better world, descriptions of services are straightforward, leaning on dullness as is often the case as seen form a Westerner's point of view with formalistic Japanese.

The other side is usually more challenging, loaded with catchy bits of trendy expressions, the getting traction shunning at the now miserable momentum. French too can be awfully complicated by presenters getting enthusiastic. For fairly high level students of French, the challenge is tremendous. Tongue in cheek means the interpreter may stall. There is an extra layer of deciphering the language, that is turning it into duller stuff when going Japanese. Adding spices on the reverse is usually welcome, otherwise, the listeners may think the interpreter, not the speaker, is oversimplifying.

The consequence of growing flowers into speech can have inappropriate effects on the business, by generating a haze of permanent misunderstanding. This issue deserves more than a single entry.