Preserve the choice between two kinds of information
A translated instruction can ask for more information than the approved process requires. The page may be grammatical, the form may work and the receiving record may be correct, yet a reader can still stop because the wording changes an alternative into a combined requirement.
This fictional review concerns an equipment-service business that accepts an initial enquiry with an existing service reference or the equipment's purchase date. The owner has explicitly approved either route, and permits customers to supply both if available. Neither detail, alone or together, proves ownership, technical suitability or acceptance of the requested work.
Put the complete approved instruction beside the translation
The approved Afrikaans instruction reads:
Gee die bestaande diensverwysing óf die aankoopdatum. Een van die twee is voldoende vir die aanvanklike navraag. Jy kan albei verskaf as jy dit het.
Its meaning is explicit: one of the two is sufficient for this initial enquiry; both may be supplied. The third sentence matters because the reader should not have to infer whether supplying both is permitted.
The English page instead says:
Provide the existing service reference and purchase date for your initial enquiry.
That sentence changes the evidence the reader believes they must assemble. It presents two required pieces of information where the approved source describes alternatives. The error is in the reader-facing requirement, not in a missing translated page or a fault in the input control.
The source owner confirms the policy before the language reviewer edits the sentence. The reviewer is not deciding which information should be sufficient for the business. That decision already belongs to the owner and must remain separate from the translation work.
Inspect the reader's stopping point
In fixture E-71, the customer has service reference SV-71 but does not have the purchase date. After reading the English instruction, the customer decides that the enquiry cannot be sent yet. Nothing has been entered incorrectly; the instruction itself discourages an allowed route.
A second reader with a purchase date but no earlier service reference reaches the same conclusion. Asking either person to invent the missing detail would create a different problem. The correct response is to restore the approved choice in the instruction.
The existing receiving process already accepts a reference-only enquiry, a date-only enquiry or an enquiry containing both. It requests clarification when neither is supplied. The review inspects those supported outcomes without changing them. A discrepancy between the public instruction and the receiving rule should not be resolved by silently making the business rule more restrictive.
Agree wording against the full set of allowed cases
The qualified reviewer and source owner agree this English text for the fictional exercise:
Provide either your existing service reference or the purchase date. One is sufficient for the initial enquiry. You may provide both if you have them.
The review covers the instruction beside the fields, the short service-page explanation and the summary of what the customer supplied. Any abbreviated wording must retain the choice. Replacing one sentence while leaving “both details required” on a nearby card would preserve the same barrier elsewhere in the journey.
| Information available | Approved initial-enquiry route | Expected reader decision |
|---|---|---|
| Existing reference only | Permitted | Supply that reference without inventing a date |
| Purchase date only | Permitted | Supply that date without inventing a reference |
| Both details | Permitted | Supply both as separate pieces of information |
| Neither detail | Clarification required | Use the stated clarification route |
The table is an acceptance aid for the owner's particular rule. It is not a general instruction to reduce information requirements for every service or to treat an unverified reference as proof.
Complete the enquiry using the corrected explanation
In the fictional private rehearsal, the E-71 reader returns to the revised English page and chooses the reference-only route. The submitted example retains SV-71 exactly. The purchase-date field remains absent, and the staff record identifies the enquiry as awaiting the ordinary service assessment. No purchase date is inferred from the reference or from the day of submission.
The date-only fixture retains its deliberately supplied date and no invented service reference. The both-details fixture preserves both supplied values in their respective fields. Neither fixture gains a stronger verification status merely because it contains more information.
The neither-details control follows the existing clarification process. The revised wording does not suggest that an empty enquiry satisfies the required information rule. An unrelated service whose approved instruction requires a model reference continues to display that requirement; the correction is limited to the instruction under review.
The Afrikaans source and all receiving rules remain unchanged. The completed result is that the English reader can select the same allowed information route as a reader using the approved source.
Review the decision the words ask someone to make
A useful language check asks the person to explain what they would do with the information they actually have. Reading the sentence aloud or confirming that its spelling is correct would not expose this problem as clearly as the reference-only example.
Keep the approved source, the complete translated instruction and the four contrasting cases together for future editing. If the owner later changes the required evidence, both language versions and the receiving process need an explicit review. That is a policy change, not a licence for a translator to reinterpret an existing rule.
Use country planning to identify the appropriate language and business reviewers. The customer website service can connect that approved meaning to the page, enquiry and staff record that people actually use.