A message goes out with three questions in it and one answer comes back, addressing the last one. A specification is sent and the factory builds something adjacent to it. A polite hedge — « we would probably want to look at moving this forward » — is read as an instruction, or as nothing at all. None of this is a language problem on the other side; it is a writing problem on yours, and it is the cheapest thing in a cross-border project to fix.
One idea per sentence, and the subject in front of it
The single change that improves everything is to put one subject, one verb and one object in each sentence, and to stop. Long sentences are not harder because they are long; they are harder because each clause suspends the meaning of the one before it, and a reader working in a second language has to hold all of them open until the end. Cut a sentence in two at the comma and nothing is lost but the elegance you were the only one enjoying.
Two companion habits do the rest. Repeat the noun instead of using a pronoun: « the mould » three times in a paragraph is clearer than « it », which could refer to the mould, the part, the order or the drawing. And avoid double negatives and negative questions — « you do not have the file, do you ? » produces an answer nobody can interpret, because the convention for agreeing with a negative question is not the same in both languages.
What machine translation breaks
Assume your message will be put through a translation engine, because it will be, often by someone who reads your language perfectly well but wants to be sure. The engines are good now, which is precisely the danger: they do not fail visibly. They produce a fluent, confident Chinese sentence that says something slightly different, and nobody downstream has any reason to doubt it. Writing for the engine is therefore not a concession; it is quality control on your own instructions.
- Phrasal verbs. « Put off », « run through », « get back to », « look into » are the hardest words in English for a non-native reader and for an engine. Use the single verb: postpone, review, answer, examine.
- Idioms and sport. Ballpark, touch base, the ball is in your court, a tight ship. Each one translates into something literal and strange, and the reader concludes they have missed something.
- Hedges that carry the real meaning. « It would be good if », « we might consider », « ideally ». In English these often mean « do this ». Translated, they mean « optional ». If it is a requirement, write it as one.
- Rhetorical questions and irony. « Do we really want to ship before the sample is approved ? » will be answered, sometimes with a yes, and you will have asked for the thing you were warning against.
- Internal jargon and acronyms. Your project names, your three-letter internal codes and your supplier nicknames mean nothing outside your building. Write the thing out the first time, every time, in a thread that new people join.
- Long chains of nouns. « Supplier quality escalation process owner » cannot be parsed and cannot be translated. Break it into a sentence with a verb in it.
One question per message, and number it
A message with several questions in prose gets one answer. This is not carelessness: in a hierarchy, a reply that only half answers is worse than a reply that answers the last point clearly, so the reader picks the one they can settle. Numbering the questions changes the behaviour completely, because the shape of the reply is then obvious — a list with the same numbers — and a missing number is visible to both of you. Where a question matters on its own, give it its own message, with a subject line that names the object rather than the project.
The same logic applies to the thing you are asking for. « Please advise » is an instruction with no content. Replace it with the action, the object and the moment: what you need, from whom, in what form, by when. And ask closed questions wherever a closed question will do — a question answerable by yes, no, or a date comes back the same day, where an open question about feasibility comes back as a paragraph that commits nobody.
- Read your message once as a list of questions. If you cannot count them, the reader cannot either.
- Delete the first paragraph. It is almost always context you wrote to warm up, and the request is in the second one.
- Replace every phrasal verb and every idiom with the plain word.
- Turn every hedge into either a requirement or a deletion. Decide which, because the reader will not.
- Check that each date is unambiguous and each unit is named, and that nothing depends on a convention the reader may not share.
- Put the request in the last line as well as the first, in one sentence. It is the line that gets read.
What is not words
A drawing settles in a second what a paragraph negotiates for a week. A photograph with an arrow on it, a screenshot with the problem circled, a sketch of the assembly order: these cross a language boundary intact, and they are the reason a technical exchange with a factory is often easier than a commercial one. The same applies to a small table — the element, the value, the decision — which can be read by someone who would not attempt the prose version.
Two formatting details earn their keep. Write dates with the month as a word, or in the year-month-day order, because the numeric orders used in Europe and elsewhere are not the same and the error is invisible. Name every unit and never leave a measurement to be inferred from a drawing scale. And be careful with the opposite excess: bold text everywhere, capitals, red type and exclamation marks read as anger rather than as emphasis, and a message that shouts gets a defensive answer in any language.
Writing French, when French is the harder choice
Most Chinese professionals who work with Europe read English, and many read it considerably better than French. French adds difficulties that have nothing to do with the reader's ability: agreement rules that change the shape of words, an impersonal « on » that hides who acts, a conditional mood used for politeness that reads as uncertainty, and a formal register whose elaborate courtesies occupy the space where the request should be. If the relationship is in French because your company is French, then write short French: active voice, named subjects, the request in the indicative, and the courtesies reduced to one line at each end.
Before you send anything that matters, read it as the other person: a reader who is tired, working in a second language, on a phone, with a dozen other messages open. That reader will see the first line and the last, and will answer whatever is in the form of a numbered question. Write the message that person can answer, not the one you would be pleased to receive.