Handouts
Slides and handouts serve distinct purposes—slides present the big picture, while handouts offer detailed information.
Distribution Strategy:
Slides are typically distributed to a large audience at the beginning of a presentation. For smaller meetings, distributing handouts when you address each topic ensures effective delivery.
Your audience can analyze the handout after your presentation.
Avoid this layout
Avoid placing English text over Japanese text as it diminishes readability.
This format is used only by someone who wants to compare two languages.
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Instead, prepare English and Japanese versions separately.
Also, avoid this layout
This is another layout that is no longer used by business people—placing English and Japanese text side-by-side.
Some government agencies are required to present this way, but you don't have to.
Include more details
There are good reasons for adding more details such as the following:
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Even if you speak in English too fast for them, they can catch up by looking at the handout
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It is a standard practice in Japan - if you don’t have something in writing, they assume it is not important.
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Japanese are risk-averse—they want to be better informed than to be sorry.
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Japanese are detail-oriented.
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Once the meeting is over, they can have some written materials to make collective decisions with their peers and superiors.
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You can give the handout to the interpreters before the meeting to make sure they'll use accurate terminology in case you're using interpreters.
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Simultaneous interpreters can convert 80% or less of what you say given the time constraint. Any missing points can be covered by your handout.
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Cost of translation
Translation cost depends on the amount of text, the difficulty of the content, and the number of graphs and tables.
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Typical charges are around USD 0.20 per English word.
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