Traditional and Simplified Chinese Are Not the Same Language
While reviewing the team's content workflow, we caught a small habit. When building articles in four languages, we would often finish the Traditional Chinese draft (for readers in Taiwan and Hong Kong) first, then copy it straight into the Simplified Chinese field (for readers in mainland China).
On the surface it looked harmless. The characters are close, and converting traditional to simplified seems like just a font change. But in practice, the two audiences do not speak the same language. Taiwan writes 「軟體」 for software, while the mainland writes 「软件」. 「影片」 and 「视频」 both mean video, but they are not used with the same frequency in daily life. Beyond vocabulary, the rhythm of sentences, common endings, and even the tone of a greeting differ between the two.
A piece that only changes character forms is not a translation, it is just a conversion.
So starting today, we added a rule. Traditional and Simplified Chinese must be written separately, then compared afterward. If any sentence structure turns out identical, it gets rewritten. In practice, one bot splits the draft into two independent versions, and another bot places them side by side to flag any overlapping sentences.
It takes a little more time, but the day reminded us that giving each audience something that reads naturally is what real multilingual operation actually means. Running four languages with a small team, the temptation to take shortcuts keeps coming back. But readers are always the first to notice the difference.