Several months ago I was visiting customers of my previous employer, EMC, in Tokyo. With me was EMC’s full-time translator, Ichi-san. At the day’s end we were talking about my struggles with succinctness. I was observing my tendency of unneeded redundancy. I wondered if Ichi-san, a student of language, had any thoughts on the matter. He said to me, “it is the very fact that you are redundant that allows me to do my job.”
As Ichi-san later explained, translators do not provide word-for-word translations. They do not even provide sentence-for-sentence translations. The internalize the substance of the message and state it in their own words. Their choice of words is what separates great translators from the rest. Their ability to perform this feat at speed is essential. Ichi-san told me that speakers’ unnecessary restatements provided him the time to fully understand the message. Only then could he produce his original version of the spoken thought.
Succinctness is a challenge for we developing writers. It is a gift of the talented and a well-earned badge of honor for the experienced. Concision makes for beautiful prose. And compact communication does not come easy. As Mark Twain once said, “if I had more time, I’d write a shorter letter.”