What is Language Growth and what to do when a translation is too long

This article explains what language growth is and how to make adjustments for it.

Language growth refers to the phenomenon where content expands in size when translated from one language to another. This is common, as some languages express ideas more verbosely than others." Languages like French, German and Spanish grow by as much as 25-35% often times breaking their layout.

This growth can pose design challenges, especially for digital content. Text expansion can disrupt layouts, lead to awkward line breaks, and even affect usability. Language growth can significantly impact translation and ruin your budgets and timing. Pairaphrase provides you with several tools to help you with language growth issues. 

Pairaphrase will identify segments that may cause layout issues

Translations that may cause layout and formatting issues are highlighted by the red character count found to the right of the translated text in each segment. You have several options to work with. You can manually edit the existing translation to your liking. If you already have a preferred translation, you can delete the existing translation and enter the preferred translation.

Use the character count feature for language growth

Language growth can create additional file formatting work if left unchecked. Language growth can break layouts and make files unsuitable for public consumption. If you need help with crafting a translation, you can use OpenAI as a translators' assistant.  You can request alternative translations, request translation variations. You can even specify the number of characters that a translation cannot exceed.

Request an alternative translation with our OpenAI integration.

You can also request an alternative translation using OpenAI. To request an alternative translation simply click on the OpenAI icon in the segment that you wish to change. If you don't like the OpenAI translation you can click on the OpenAI icon again and it will revert back to your original translation. 

Request an alternate translation using OpenAI in Pairaphrase

Request custom translations that meet your needs

You can also click on the OpenAI icon in the right sidebar and write a prompt and begin a conversation. You can request more than one translation. You can even request a translation to "not exceed x number of characters" and we'll provide you with a translation.

Using OpenAI inside Pairaphrase to truncate a translation

While Pairaphrase + OpenAI provide you with tools to help you solve language growth, to accommodate language growth effectively, it's essential to inform your design team early on and prioritize flexible design principles. Start by creating designs that can easily adapt to text expansion. This proactive approach will save you significant time and effort, allowing you to produce more content in multiple languages efficiently.

Need help? Contact us via online chat for the fastest customer support.