The Art of Translation - No to Translate!

A big question in #translations - who are “you”? Who do we mean when we use the word “you” in Japanese? The right answer in the world of commercial Japanese translations would be “the person the author wishes to speak to”, namely the target group!
Or possibly, it no longer means anybody anymore as the word “you” can simply be avoided in Japanese (continue reading for more details on this).
 
Translating “you” into Japanese is very tricky. All dictionaries will tell you thatあなた (anata) is its classical definition. But this specific word should be avoided at all costs in business communication in my opinion.
 
The pronoun “you” should be properly modified for successful #localisation so that translations read naturally. The most common solution is お客様 (= clients, customers) and you can see this choice everywhere on corporate websites.
 
But it does not necessarily work in all cases. ユーザーor 利用者 (= users) may be a better solution for Terms of Use (利用規約), especially for services offered both for free and paid membership, because calling all users customers may be confusing. Variations on this theme seem to be endless. E.g. ご本人 (data subject) comes handy in translating “your” data in privacy policies.
 
In general, 皆さま (= the plural form of you) is a safe option in addressing the general public. Where “you” is used in English writing, government agencies might say 国民の皆さま (dear citizens), while hospitals use 患者の皆さま (dear patients) and companies use 社員の皆さま(dear co-workers) in their internal communications.
 
In short, the pronoun “you” has to be translated differently according to the #target #group .
 
Having said that, I would like to suggest something quite the opposite as the ultimate solution: 👉 Not to translate it at all!
 
You can omit the subject in the Japanese language. When reading sentences with the right #honorific suffixes and prefixes (#敬語), we automatically know precisely that they are addressed to customers and users.
 
💡 A tip for Japanese learners: Try the combination of the prefix ご／お before a verb and いただけます after a verb to express yourself politely to your customers in Japanese.

E.g. ご➕利用➕いただけます、お➕使い➕いただけます
= You can (as customers) use.
 
🤔 I wonder how good MT (machine translation) engines are in expressing what you have in mind for your target group.

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