Luxury Hotel Welcome Letter: Brand Voice vs. Source Politeness
You are translating a French welcome letter from a luxury hotel into English. The source sentence reads: "Nous vous prions de bien vouloir noter que certaines prestations sont soumises à réservation." The client's brand guide asks for warm, direct English; it bans "please kindly," prefers "guest" to "client," and says "service" is acceptable for "prestation" but "offering" should be avoided because it sounds like a product bundle. Your draft: "We kindly ask you to note that certain offerings are subject to reservation." The source also uses "client" twice in the next paragraph. The termbase lists "prestation" = "service" with no approved alternative.
1. Evaluate the draft against the three constraints-register, terminology, and syntax-and propose a revision.
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The draft fails on register and terminology. "We kindly ask you to note" reproduces the French politeness formula too literally and includes the banned "kindly." "Offerings" conflicts with the brand guide and with the termbase, which approves "service." "Subject to reservation" is grammatically fine but is legalistic for a welcome letter; it also leaves the actor and the action abstract. A better revision is: "Please note that some services require a reservation." "Please note" is direct and courteous without being obsequious. "Services" follows the termbase. "Require a reservation" turns the passive "sont soumises à" into an active verb and reads more naturally in hospitality English. The revision preserves the informative function and the courteous tone while conforming to the client's voice.
2. A colleague argues that "Nous vous prions de bien vouloir" should be rendered as "We would ask you to kindly..." to preserve the courtesy level. How do you respond?
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I would respond that politeness formulas are not one-to-one and that preserving the courtesy level does not mean preserving the source syntax. French hospitality writing often uses "nous vous prions de bien vouloir" as a conventional softener; in English, the same function is usually achieved with "please" or a simple direct request. "We would ask you to kindly" stacks two politeness markers and sounds translated or over-deferential, which conflicts with the brand's warm, direct voice. The relevant question is not "how many courtesy words are in the source?" but "what does this sentence need to do for the guest?" A concise "Please note" is courteous in English and lets the information lead. If the client wanted a more formal register, I would use "We ask that you note" rather than the doubled formula.
3. The next paragraph uses "client" twice. The termbase does not list "client." What do you do?
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The brand guide explicitly prefers "guest" to "client," so I would use "guest" in the welcome letter. This is not a terminology conflict, because the termbase does not list "client" and the guide is the client-specific authority on audience terms. I would apply "guest" consistently and check whether the source "client" is being used in a generic sense or in a legal sense. In a welcome letter, it is almost certainly the hospitality sense, so "guest" is correct. If a later passage were legally operative-for example, a liability sentence-I would re-evaluate and possibly use "guest" with a defined meaning or escalate to the client. I would also suggest adding "client = guest (in guest communications)" to the termbase to prevent future inconsistency.