A guesthouse near the mountains posts in Polish for local guests and in English for visitors. The English posts are translations. They are correct, and they sound like a manual.
The problem isn't the grammar. A joke that works in one language falls flat in the other. A form of address that feels warm in English feels stiff in Polish, and the other way round.
A voice can live in two languages. It just has to be written twice, from the same decisions.
01The decisions
Decide what travels and what doesn't.
Some voice decisions are about the brand and survive any language. Others are about how one language works.
Travels
We name the detail. We don't promise results. We keep sentences short.
Doesn't travel
Wordplay, idioms, how formal “you” is, the rhythm of a punchline.
Write the first group once. For the second, each language gets its own short section with its own examples.
02The draft
Start from the idea, not from the sentence.
Translating a finished caption copies its structure and its jokes. Writing from the same idea lets each language find its own way to say it.
The same Sunday idea, in Polish.
Translated
Niedzielny obiad. Naczynia kogoś innego.
Literally “someone else's dishes”. Correct, but nobody talks about washing up this way in Polish.
The written version keeps the voice decision, a familiar chore and a short punchline, and lets Polish choose the words.
03The guide
Keep approved examples in each language.
A writer in the second language needs examples in that language. Approved English posts don't show how the brand sounds in Polish.
- A short section per language.Form of address, punctuation habits, words to avoid.
- Approved posts.Two or three per language, with the reason they work.
- A native check.Someone who writes the language every day reads the post before it goes out.
If the second language only ever gets translations, it never gets a voice of its own.
04The setup
One brief, two languages.
Keep both languages in the same brief, so a change to an offer or a rule reaches both. In Kanso, a brand's Brand Brain holds the shared decisions, and drafts can be written natively in each language the brand posts in.
Before you split the voice by language, make sure the shared part is solid: the decisions behind the voice and the list of what the brand never says.
