Uncreative and safe

Corporate Japanese language, the descriptive lingua that tells what a corporation does, is standardized , uncreative, and very much welcome as it is. Take French as a contrast. I did a test some weeks ago, looking for various French corporate sites, watching how the description went as far as what these firms were active in. Many I could not figure out right away. I had to dig in, get rid of the marketing fluff, the poseur sticky like slime catch phrases and all those smiley people to understand at long last what these corporations were doing. You don't have trouble understanding what a Japanese company does when roaming a web site. Even if some fluff and hot air is visible on the top page, you click on About this company and get a stiff administrative listing of what these people are doing in plain language. It is no surprise that interpreting a corporate presentation from French to Japanese can be daunting.

You have heard or practiced paraphrasing a text as an introductory exercise to bend and warm and get the rendering machine flexible. It is more difficult I believe in Japanese, because the original is so plain. When starting from corporate stance French, paraphrasing is often a mandatory exercise whose purpose is to lay bare the core meaning behind marketing hyperbolic, and at last be able to interpret it. That is why there are extra reasons to suggest clients to use plainer than usual language and avoid the cool catch phrases.