Our company adheres to multiple standards and recommendations, including the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF), and the recommendations of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
VS
Our company adheres to the following standards and recommendations: • Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) • Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) • International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF) • Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
In the world of investor relations and global communications, we sometimes become so focused on what we need to communicate that we forget to consider how best to convey our messages. Writing clear, professional English isn’t always about what you say, but how you present the information. The structures and format of your English text greatly affect how easily readers understand your message.
One technique professional business English writers use is to break information into clear, organized sections. For many overseas readers, long blocks of text can be tiring and difficult to follow. Whether you’re preparing an investor presentation, a shareholder letter, or a corporate report, dense paragraphs can cause readers to lose focus and miss key points.
To make your writing clear and engaging, try using bullet points and numbered lists. These tools help you present key information concisely and guide readers through your main ideas—an essential skill for anyone managing global corporate communications.
Why Bullet Points and Lists Work
Overseas audiences prefer concise communication.
Many English readers tend to skim through text, especially in business contexts where time is often limited. They want to find key information quickly and clearly.
Bullet points and numbered lists help transform dense information into a structured, easy-to-read format. These structures not only improve readability but also give your writing a more professional and polished look, making it easier to communicate complex ideas to overseas stakeholders.
Here are just a few benefits:
Visually appealing – Breaking up text with bullets or numbers creates breathing room on the page. It’s easier on the eyes.
Quick to read – Instead of forcing your audience to sift through a paragraph, bullets deliver the highlights instantly.
Easy to understand – Lists make it easy to organize complex ideas or multiple points in a way that’s simple to follow.
For non-native speakers, bullet points also simplify writing, reducing the chance of misinterpretation and ensuring the message is clear
Consider this example:
Our company adheres to multiple standards and recommendations, including the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF), and the recommendations of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
VS
Our company adheres to the following standards and recommendations:
Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF)
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
See the difference? This information just became way easier to digest with bullet points!
Buller Points or Numbered Lists?
Use bullet points when the order of items doesn’t matter. Research by Ho (2023) found that bullet points enhance the reading experience by helping readers absorb information more quickly and with less effort. For example:
Breaking down a long list into bite-sized information
Summarizing main ideas
Highlighting the most important information
Choose numbered lists when the sequence or ranking is important. They work well for:
Simply throwing the same long-winded, run-on sentences into bullet points won’t help clarify your message. The entire point of using bullet points and numbered lists is to break down your information into easily digestible bits of information. Too many, and the lists might seem daunting to readers.
Consistency is also key. Mixing verb and noun phrases is not standard in English. Use parallel structure in your bullet points and lists (e.g., if most points begin with a verb, make sure all other points do too). Be sure to also keep lists around the same length. As the article by Clearly Scientific states, “…switching from short text to long text is distracting, and may give a misleading impression of the importance of the entries.”
Ready to Transform Your Writing?
The next time you draft English corporate communications, remember that overseas readers value clarity and structure. Break up long paragraphs, use bullet points or numbered lists where appropriate, and make your messages easy to scan.
While these techniques may not apply in the same way to Japanese writing, they are highly effective in English business communication. Try applying them in your next IR report or stakeholder message.
このように、非標準の訳語が公開されたまま訂正されない場合、それがAIの学習データに取り込まれ、“正しい訳”として出力されてしまう可能性があります。 これはいわゆる「Garbage in, garbage out（質の低い入力からは質の低い出力しか得られない）」という典型的な問題であり、AIが不適切な入力を学習すればするほど、今後さらに誤訳が増えていくリスクがあることを意味しています。
Is your company incorporating generative AI as part of the DX push to save time and money? Like many companies, you might be using DeepL, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other generative AI to translate Japanese into English. But what’s the state of generative AI Japanese-to-English translation as of summer 2025?
OWL translators are no strangers to generative AI or machine translation. Lately, we’ve noticed some quirks in quality that users should know about.
In this blog post, I’ll share several real examples of odd or problematic translations we’ve encountered. These issues highlight what to watch for when using AI translation tools for Japanese-to-English translation, especially for IR or corporate communications. All examples are taken directly from screenshots we’ve collected.
Tip 1 – Don’t skip the simple stuff
Figures 1–3 show the acronym ESG split across three lines, which led the machine translation tool to render the letters as “E,” “sadist,” and “g.” While no human translator would assume “S” stands for “sadist,” this still raises red flags.
The capital/lowercase inconsistency and the shift from a letter to a word show just how fragile AI output can be, especially with simple formatting quirks. Don’t assume short or seemingly simple content will be handled correctly. Always check for consistency.
Figures 4–6 show another common issue: dictionary-style output. These translations aren’t technically “wrong,” but they include excessive explanations, parentheses, or wordy definitions that don’t belong in the context of a professional document. In fact, the machine translation used the wrong definitions entirely. The correct translations in context were as follows:
支える→ Support
なし → N/a
ときめっく→ TTOKIMEKKU
Note: In the original Japanese, ときめっく was used as a proper noun (the name of a facility). AI often struggles with proper nouns, fixed translations, and company- or industry-specific terms. Always double-check how these are handled, especially in official documents.
In Figure 7, the translation spells out “URL” as “uniform resource locator,” something rarely done in English. There is no reason to spell this out when URL is the common term.
Figure 8, unfortunately, requires no explanation and is entirely unacceptable. “Polisy” is simply a misspelling of “Policy.”
Tip 2 – Double and triple check your numbers
Sometimes generative AI gets numbers completely wrong.
→See our blog here for more examples in English and Japanese
Figures 9 and 10 show examples where the translation tool repeats a number four to eight times. The number itself is correct, but the repetition is not. Always check numerical output carefully.
Figures 11 and 12 show more serious mistranslations: ¥ converted to “$20,” and 万人 translated as “million people.” These are easy to catch in isolation but could easily be missed in a lengthy financial report, especially if only the English output is reviewed for grammar, word choice, and natural language use.
Figure 13 shows a bizarre translation of a simple date. “20239Month” suggests the tool tried to translate each part of the Japanese date individually, then collapsed them into a single unreadable string. This translation is non-standard in the use of “month” as well as the lack of spaces.
Tip 3 – Watch out for the occasional completely wrong and inappropriate word
Figures 14 and 15 here depict “otoku” translated as “otaku” and 共食 translated as cannibalism. I probably don’t have to explain why this is wrong. Mistakes like these are potentially embarrassing.
These two examples may be examples of generative AI learning from incorrect or poorly reviewed public translations. As more flawed outputs get recycled into training data, we’re beginning to see these types of errors surface more frequently.
Figure 16 shows 中期経営計画, a term common to most investor relations documents, as “Midterm Corporate Strategy.” The standard English translation for 中期経営計画 is “medium-term management plan.”
First, midterm should be hyphenated when used as a compound adjective (i.e., “mid-term”).
Second, and more importantly, this phrase appears to reflect the official English name a specific company uses for its own medium-term management plan. In other words, the tool has likely “learned” this translation from prior public use, despite it being nonstandard.
In all our years working with generative AI and machine translation tools, we’ve never seen 中期経営計画 rendered as Midterm Corporate Strategy by default. This may be another example of how generative AI draws from real-world usage, including company-specific terms, even when they don’t align with standard or widely accepted translations. If a nonstandard translation is used publicly and goes unchecked, it can be absorbed into the AI’s training data and later offered as a “valid” translation. This reflects a classic garbage-in, garbage-out problem: the more flawed inputs the model is exposed to, the more likely it is to produce flawed outputs in the future.
Figure 13 showed how machine translation can omit spaces within a date. Figures 17 and 18 reveal similar spacing issues in full sentences. The sentence in Figure 17 is missing a space between “price” and “and,” while in Figure 18 we are missing a space between the number (86) and unit (billion).
These may seem like minor errors, but they can affect readability and look careless in formal documents. Allow me to also note that, while it depends on context and the style guide in use, numbers under 10 are generally spelled out in body text. Hyphenated adjectives like “3-year total” are typically written as “three-year.”
So why is this happening?
We suspect two reasons for the quality quirks. First, we think that generative AI may be becoming self-referential, “learning” from its own past low-quality output accepted blindly by users. Second, we suspect that the more generative AI learns from translations “in the wild,” the more “garbage” (low-quality) translations generative AI comes to accept as correct examples.
These phenomena align with warnings from data quality experts. As Robert Stanley, Senior Director at Melissa, explains in a recent SD Times article , “If you’re training your AI model on poor quality data, you’re likely to get bad results.” He also stresses that without data that is “accurate, complete and augmented or well-defined… the outputs of the AI model won’t be reliable.” In other words, garbage in, garbage out still holds true.
Stanley also notes that LLMs are often designed to please the user, which “sometimes means giving answers that look like compelling right answers, but are actually incorrect.”
The source and quality of training data used in generative AI and machine translation tools may be to blame for these quality issues as well. As highlighted in recent research published in Nature and reported by the Financial Times, AI models trained on synthetic data—content generated by earlier versions of AI—are at risk of what researchers call “model collapse.” Over successive training cycles, these models can begin to reinforce their own mistakes, leading to distorted or nonsensical outputs. In translation, this could mean that awkward, incorrect, or overly literal machine-translated phrases become embedded as standard over time.
Translation tools are becoming more advanced, but they are still quite unreliable, especially if they are “learning” from flawed or inconsistent public content. Over time, these self-reinforcing mistakes can lead to nonstandard or even misleading translations becoming normalized.
Whether the issue is a small inconsistency, a mistranslated number, or an entirely inappropriate word, even one error can affect the quality and credibility of your translations. It is more important than ever to stay alert to these risks and take steps to ensure the final English reads naturally, clearly, and professionally. If you’re unsure about the quality of a translation, or need a second set of eyes, our team of native English translators can help you make sure your materials are accurate and investor-ready.
このような基準は、米国証券取引委員会（SEC）によっても推奨されています。SECは、投資家保護と企業情報開示の透明性確保を目的とする機関であり、難解な金融文書に対する懸念を受けて、1998年に「Plain English Handbook（プレーン・イングリッシュ・ハンドブック）」を発行しました。このハンドブックでは、「可能な限り短い文を使うこと」が推奨されており、簡潔な文章は理解を助け、特に法務・財務文書における誤解のリスクを軽減するとしています。
By leveraging our strengths in advanced technology and expertise accumulated over decades, while simultaneously addressing societal challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, and demographic shifts, we aim to achieve sustainable growth and enhance corporate value by implementing initiatives aligned with our long-term management vision, which prioritizes fostering innovation, expanding global partnerships, and maintaining robust governance structures to ensure resilience in a rapidly evolving market environment.
調整した英訳 (複数の文)
We leverage decades of expertise and advanced technology while addressing societal challenges including climate change, resource scarcity, and demographic shifts. Guided by our long-term management vision, we prioritize fostering innovation, expanding global partnerships, and maintaining robust governance. These initiatives aim to ensure resilience in a rapidly evolving market while achieving sustainable growth and enhancing corporate value.
One of the most common challenges in translating Japanese business documents into English is adjusting sentence and paragraph length for readability. Japanese writing often features long, complex sentences that connect multiple ideas, conditions, and conclusions within a single structure. While this style is accepted in formal Japanese, it can result in dense and difficult-to-read English when translated too literally.
When it comes to crafting impactful English for investor relations (IR) communications, conciseness is key. Various government issued handbooks on readability and accessibly comment on sentence length and plain language use. Concise sentences and paragraphs are key to capturing and maintaining your reader’s attention. Adjusting sentence and paragraph length in Japanese to English translation is essential to ensure clarity and communicate your message to stakeholders worldwide.
However, if your structure becomes too short, they might seem overly simplistic. So, how do you strike the perfect balance? Let’s dive into the basics.
What’s Just Right for Business English?
OWL recommends paragraphs with three to four sentences, with each sentence containing an average of 20 words. Our recommendations are based on using plain English in translated investor and corporate communications. Plain English is clear, direct writing that avoids unnecessary complexity. This writing helps readers understand information the first time they read it, which is especially important in disclosures, reports, and other materials intended for overseas stakeholders.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which oversees investor protection and corporate disclosure, promotes similar standards. In response to concerns about overly complex financial language, the SEC published the Plain English Handbook in 1998 to help companies communicate more clearly with investors. The handbook encourages the use of short sentences whenever possible, noting that concise writing improves understanding and reduces the risk of misinterpretation, especially in legal or financial documents.
[Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,A Plain English Handbook: How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents (1998) https://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf]
Remember to also mix sentence lengths!
Short sentences deliver key points with punch while longer sentences provide context and nuance. Together, they create a dynamic flow that keeps readers interested and aids comprehension. A mix of shorter and longer sentences ensures clarity and rhythm, making your writing more engaging.
By leveraging our strengths in advanced technology and expertise accumulated over decades, while simultaneously addressing societal challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, and demographic shifts, we aim to achieve sustainable growth and enhance corporate value by implementing initiatives aligned with our long-term management vision, which prioritizes fostering innovation, expanding global partnerships, and maintaining robust governance structures to ensure resilience in a rapidly evolving market environment.
Revised English (multiple sentences)
We leverage decades of expertise and advanced technology while addressing societal challenges including climate change, resource scarcity, and demographic shifts. Guided by our long-term management vision, we prioritize fostering innovation, expanding global partnerships, and maintaining robust governance. These initiatives aim to ensure resilience in a rapidly evolving market while achieving sustainable growth and enhancing corporate value.
What is the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, and Why Should You Care?
The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score is a powerful tool for evaluating the readability of your writing. This score analyzes sentence and word length to determine how easily your text can be understood. Higher scores mean better readability.
How to Find Flesch-Kincaid in Microsoft Word
Open your Word document.
Go to “ファイル” (File) and select “オプション” (Options).
Under “言語” (Language), ensure that you have English Language downloaded and proofing tools are installed.
Navigate to “文章校正” (Proofing) and check the box for “文書の読みやすさを評価する” (Show readability statistics).
Run a spell check (“スペルチェック”) under the “校閲” (Review) tab to see your Flesch-Kincaid score.
Note: This process may depend on the version of Microsoft Word you work from. Some versions require to you to finish the spell check first and then select “Insights” to see readability scores.
A score of 60-70 is considered conversational and accessible. However, OWL recommends a Reading Ease score of 35-40 for Japanese to English translations to maintain a professional tone suitable for IR communications. This score ensures sophistication while remaining reader-friendly. For original English writing, a score of 50-60 is preferable.
In Short…
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 35-40 for professional readability in IR translations.
Average Sentence Length: 20 words to balance readability and detail.
Paragraph Length: Three to four sentences for structured and digestible communication.
These guidelines ensure that your disclosures resonate with global investors without losing the nuance of your original message.
Your Action Plan
Ready to elevate your IR communications? Start here.
Analyze Your Writing: Use the Flesch-Kincaid tool in Word to evaluate your readability score.
Edit for Balance: Shorten overly long sentences and combine overly short ones for variety.
Ask for Feedback: Share your drafts with a colleague or use an English proofreading tool.
Track Improvements: Keep a log of your readability scores over time to measure progress.
Let’s Write Your Story Together
OWL specializes in helping IR teams craft timely and impactful English disclosures. Our expertise ensures your story reaches global investors with precision and clarity. Contact us today to transform your IR communications. Together, we’ll tell your story to the world.
Western readers typically fall into two categories: detailed readers and skimmers. Detailed readers go through content thoroughly, looking for depth and context, while skimmers scan for key points, often relying on headings, subheadings, and captions to extract the main ideas quickly. Effective writing must cater to both types, ensuring that information is accessible without losing depth.
Are you a reader? Or a skimmer?
More importantly, do you write for both of these audiences?
In today’s fast-paced financial landscape, stakeholders rely on concise and clear information to make informed decisions. Shareholders and analysts expect reports that highlight key data, trends, and performance metrics at a glance. Investors and institutional stakeholders scan financial documents, looking for insights that drive confidence in corporate strategy.
Clear, informative headings and captions help engage both readers and skimmers, making your information easier to understand and more effective.
Why Informative Headings and Captions Matter
Think about the times you’ve scanned an earnings report, investor presentation, or annual report, looking for key financial data and company strategy insights. Your audience does the same. Consider the following headings.
Group Initiatives
2024 Results
Our Vision
What information can you take away from these? Not much, I expect.
These headings leave readers unsatisfied and disinterested.
What about…
Group Key Initiatives
Revenue Growth in 2024
Our Vision to Drive Sustainable Growth
Although we’ve added more content, these headings are still relatively vague. Now consider
Group Key Initiatives to Reduce Carbon Emissions
20% Revenue Growth in 2024
Driving Sustainable Growth Through Renewable Energy Investments
These headings immediately capture attention and let the reader know what to expect if they continue reading.
Here’s a few more simple examples to give you a better idea of what makes headings informative.
Vague Headings
Key Results
Our Commitment to the Future
Sustainability Initiatives
Informative Headings
Q4 2024 Key Results: Record $500M Net Profit and 12% YoY Growth
Our Commitment to Achieving Carbon Neutrality by 2050
Solar Power Installations to Reduce Carbon Emissions
Specifying key information in headers makes a world of difference to all readers.
The same can be the same for captions. Captions serve as quick reference points for readers, reinforcing key messages and providing context to visuals. Well-crafted captions help investors and analysts absorb critical details at a glance, making reports and presentations more effective.
Take a look at these captions. Which ones resonate more with you?
Incorporating informative headings and captions is essential for enhancing readability and engagement in your content. Here are some best practices.
Be Descriptive: Headings inform readers of what is to come in a particular section. Include specific details from the particular section to help find key information faster. Using descriptive captions helps attract attention, encourage engagement, and improve user experience. (savvy-writer.com). Descriptive headings help search engines, supporting SEO benefits and user-friendliness (Seowind).
Use Keywords: Integrate keywords for search engine indexing and ranking (savvy-writer.com). The strategic use of keywords is also crucial to SEO (Seowind).
Prioritize Clarity: Avoid jargon and complex language in your headings. (scribber). Clear and concise wording makes it easier for readers to grasp the main idea quickly, enhancing their overall experience.
Align with Your Purpose: Tailor your headings to reflect the content’s purpose and the audience’s needs. For instance, in proposals, structuring headings to correspond with evaluation criteria can facilitate easier navigation and comprehension.
Before finalizing any heading or caption, ask yourself:
Does this heading or caption clearly convey the content?
Would someone skimming understand the key takeaway?
Does this heading add value to the overall message?
Quiz Time!
Which of the following headings is the most informative? Why?
A) Sustainability Efforts B) FY2025 Target to Reduce Carbon Emissions by 33% C) Details of Sustainability Efforts D) FY2025Carbon Reduction Goals
Which caption provides the clearest information? Why?
A) Ariel view of expanded factory B) Workers at the new manufacturing facility in Osaka on opening day C) Facility orientation in April D) Engineer meeting
If you chose (B) for both questions, you would be correct! FY2025 Target to Reduce Carbon Emissions by 33% because it provides a specific goal and timeframe, making it clear to readers what the content will discuss.
Workers at the new manufacturing facility in Osaka on opening day is the most informative caption because it describes the content of the image in a clear and engaging way, providing context to the viewer.
Final Thoughts
Clear and informative headings and captions are more than just a design choice—they’re a fundamental aspect of effective communication. Whether you’re presenting data, sharing a vision, or delivering a report, let your headings drive the narrative and keep your audience engaged.
a. Due to cost reduction measures, operating income increased. b. We implemented cost reduction measures, resulting in increased operating income. c. Operating income increased due to cost reduction measures.
