Problems with English
English is a rich language. That richness causes problems both for people who do not read English well and for machine translation software. This section explains some of the largest problems.
Different words for the same thing
According to Oxford University Press, English has more than ¼ million words (www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/numberwords).
For business purposes, one simple word can be used as an alternative to different words that have related meanings. For example, the word 'think' can be used as an alternative to 'believe', 'consider', 'deem', 'feel', 'reckon', 'regard', 'suppose', and 'suspect'.
International English has a small number of basic words, plus your product-specific terms.
Sentences with more than one meaning
Some sentences can be both grammatically correct and have more than one meaning. For example, "Find the man with a dog" can have either of the following meanings:
- Use a dog to find the man.
- Find the man who has a dog.
Possibly, the context lets readers know which meaning is correct. Possibly, machine translation gives a correct translation, but possibly, it gives an incorrect translation.
International English has only one meaning.
Sentence structure
Both of the following sentences are grammatically correct:
- Set up your computer.
- Set your computer up.
International English keeps the parts of the verb together. Keeping the parts of a verb together increases consistency, improves machine translation, and helps readers who do not know a particular verb.
English can have long and complex sentences. However, sentences that have many parts can be difficult to understand.
International English has short and simple sentences.
Idioms
Sometimes, business texts contain idioms that English people understand. For example, most English people know that 'out of the blue' means 'unexpectedly' or 'suddenly'. However, many international readers do not know English idioms. Frequently, machine translation of idioms gives incorrect translations.
International English does not use idioms.
Syntactic cues
A syntactic cue is a part of language that helps a reader to analyse the structure of a sentence.
Sometimes, syntactic cues are optional. For example, both of the following sentences are correct:
- The machine on the left is broken.
- The machine that is on the left is broken.
The second sentence contains the optional words 'that is', which help to make the sentence clear both to people who do not read English as a first language, and to machine translation software.
International English always uses syntactic cues.