Translating a public health instruction into Sinhala
A clinic asks you to render a short English instruction into Sinhala for a waiting-room poster. The English reads: 'Take one tablet with food twice a day. Do not take on an empty stomach. If you miss a dose, take it as soon as you remember, but do not double the next dose.' The clinic serves older patients, some with limited literacy, and the poster will be read at a distance. A colleague proposes a close word-for-word rendering to 'stay faithful'. You must decide how literal to be, how to handle the technical terms, and how to lay out the text for the audience.
1. Evaluate the colleague's proposal for a word-for-word rendering.
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Word-for-word rendering is not the same as faithfulness. For an instruction poster, faithfulness means the reader performs the correct action.
Problems with literal rendering:
- English syntax carried into Sinhala produces long, tangled sentences that are hard to read at a distance.
- 'Empty stomach' and 'double the dose' need idiomatic Sinhala equivalents, not calques, or older readers may misread them.
- Medical terms such as 'dose' may need a plain-language equivalent plus, where useful, the familiar English term in brackets.
Better approach: translate the meaning, split into short numbered steps, put the key warning ('do not take on an empty stomach') as a separate emphasised line, and test the draft on a native speaker outside the clinic. Accuracy of the action, not word count, is the measure.
2. Recommend layout and wording choices for the poster audience.
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Audience factors: older readers, limited literacy for some, reading at a distance.
Layout:
- Large type, generous spacing, high contrast.
- Numbered steps (1, 2, 3) rather than a paragraph.
- The warning about an empty stomach on its own line, visually separated.
Wording:
- Short sentences with one instruction each.
- Everyday vocabulary; explain any retained technical term immediately.
- Consistent polite imperative forms so the tone is respectful, not commanding.
Justification: the poster competes for attention in a waiting room; a reader who catches only the headline and the warning line should still act safely. This is why the most safety-critical instruction is separated rather than buried mid-paragraph.