Articles / How to Write Your Proposal in a Foreign Language /

Many markets are global these days, so you may need to translate your business proposal into multiple languages.

With the assistance of computerized translation programs or professional translators and the use of proposal writing programs that include multilingual support like Proposal Kit, translating or creating a business proposal in any language is not as difficult as you might imagine.

The basic structure of any proposal should be the same, no matter which language it is written in:

When planning for translations, simply write the proposal in English (or your most-used language), using clear and concise wording and leaving out slang terms and examples that do not translate well. Also, it's best to keep text out of graphics; save it for captions so words can be easily translated without needing a graphic artist to change the lettering. Many foreign languages require more words than English, so leave plenty of space on each page to accommodate that need.

If you are writing your proposal for a foreign language from scratch you will be doing most of your writing in your own language - instead of translating an English language version of the text.

You can use a product like Proposal Kit to assist in writing your proposal. While the stock text provided will be in American English to start, the software will automatically translate parts of the stock templates and phrases into a variety of foreign languages. You will still use the stock layouts, logo designs, graphics, proposal assembly and overall structure of the proposal system no matter which language your final document will be in.

The background art and page formatting found in Proposal Kit will easily transition to any language, because there's no text involved in the background designs and many of the graphics. Check out the Event Party Planner Services Sample proposal to see how the various translations turned out: they are identical in "look" of the design, layouts and graphics and use the same pages, same table of contents, same page numbering and so on (i.e., all the structural parts of a document). A human simply translated the body text, starting with the English proposal as a guide.

Proposal Kit supports a number of foreign language translations such as:

Proposal Kit's Wizard software will assist in foreign language translations by auto-translating some of the elements of the documents for you, such as all the page headers and short phrases in the cover letter, title page, and so on. The Wizard is there to assist you, but instructions are in English, so you'll need to be comfortable with using Proposal Kit in English while you are use the package to create your final proposal in your own language. See this page for more details on the Proposal Kit product's foreign language support features.

After you feel your proposal is complete, proofread and spell-check every page. It's a good idea to enlist someone who is unfamiliar with your proposal to do a final proof, because it's easy to overlook mistakes in your own work.

Proposal Pack for Any Business covers all types of proposals and includes samples and topics for this type of proposal. There are also many specialty design themes available you can use to match the visual design to your logo or type of business. Select any one Proposal Pack and you are covered.

All proposals in any language follow a similar format and structure, and you can find all the templates you need in Proposal Pack. The templates contain explanations of what those particular pages should contain, and they will guide you in writing and formatting appropriate information for your proposal sections. Proposal Pack also contains a wide variety of sample proposals (including some foreign language translations) that will give you great ideas and give you a jump start on writing your own winning proposal.