This sign spotted on a Czech train, which does the Prague-Copenhagen run regularly, reminded me that native English speakers have a responsibility to use simple English especially in this case which relates to an emergency situation when a non-native English speaker might not be thinking clearly. Why not
“Do not go in the direction of the tunnel opening alone…?
instead of
“under your own steam”
… which translated literally would be of no help at all.
When I do work in Denmark under the banner of English teaching it is usually more related to coping strategies for dealing with convoluted English written by native speakers without a thought for the fact that what they write will often be used by non-native English speakers.
A tool such as Rewordify might help but not in the secure and closed IT environments preferred by most commercial enterprises where copying huge chunks of a densely worded pdf manual would ring all sorts of alarm bells. Best to catch the problem where it starts; at the point of writing!
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2 responses to “Simple English please!”