Translate an annual report into Japanese

What changes when an annual report goes into Japanese

An annual report mixes registers, and Japanese keeps them clearly apart. The chair's letter and the message to shareholders are normally written in the polite desu/masu style, with keigo formulas addressed to shareholders, such as 「株主の皆様には、平素より格別のご高配を賜り、厚く御礼申し上げます。」. Financial review and notes usually switch to the plainer de aru style. A change of tone between parts is normal; a mix of both styles within one section is not.

The script changes the look of every page: kanji, hiragana and katakana combined, no spaces between words, full-width punctuation (、 and 。) and full-width brackets （）. Foreign names are written in katakana with a middle dot between given name and surname, so John Smith becomes ジョン・スミス. Acronyms such as IFRS, ESG or EBITDA generally stay in Latin letters.

Japanese has a single plural form but counts with classifiers: ‘12 subsidiaries’ becomes 「子会社12社」 and ‘1,200 employees’ 「従業員1,200名」. A bare number without its counter reads awkwardly to a Japanese investor.

Figures, units and fiscal years: the Japanese-specific traps

• Separators: Japanese uses a decimal point and comma thousands separators. If your source uses continental notation, 1 234,5 must become 1,234.5; check every table.
• Large units: in running text Japanese counts in 万 (ten thousand) and 億 (one hundred million), not in thousands and millions. ‘€1.2 billion’ is written 「12億ユーロ」. Tables usually state the unit in the header, for example 「単位：百万ユーロ」.
• Negative amounts: Japanese financial documents often put △ or ▲ before a negative figure (△350). Decide whether to keep the minus sign or brackets of your original, and apply the choice consistently.
• Fiscal year: ‘year ended 31 December 2024’ is commonly rendered 「2024年12月期」. Many Japanese companies close in March, so never write ‘FY2024’ without the closing month.
• Dates: year-month-day, 2025年4月30日. The Japanese era (令和) appears in some administrative documents; for investor reporting the Western calendar is common.

Check the key line items too: revenue (売上高, or 売上収益 under IFRS), operating profit (営業利益), profit attributable to owners of the parent (親会社の所有者に帰属する当期利益).

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

At Professional level your report goes to Métis, Manuce's financial specialist, for a translation ready to send on. The file comes back in its original format (Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, RTF, HTML and others), layout included: a 60-page PDF stays a 60-page PDF, an Excel table stays an Excel table. For a typical document such as our example of around 15,000 words, the translation is delivered in a few minutes and kept in your client area. Japanese carries a ×1.6 coefficient on the per-word rate, applied to the exact word count of the source file.

What Manuce does not do:

• it cannot read a scanned PDF, meaning an image with no selectable text;
• it does not produce sworn or certified translations: if a Japanese bank, partner or authority requires one, use a sworn translator;
• it does not take glossaries or terminology instructions: for a brand or segment name that must stay unchanged, check it in the free sample and then in the full translation.

Preparing the file and checking the Japanese version

Before uploading:

• send a version with selectable text; if you only have a scan, ask your designer for the native file;
• make sure chart labels are live text rather than a flattened image;
• plan a font that contains Japanese characters (Yu Gothic, Meiryo, Noto Sans JP and the like): a Latin typeface such as Garamond lacks these glyphs, and the software will substitute another font, sometimes a poor match.

After delivery:

1. re-add a few totals and check separators in every table;
2. review fixed-width text boxes: a line must not begin with 。 or 、, and line breaks can push words around in narrow columns;
3. check executives' names in katakana and the counters (社, 名, 件);
4. have a Japanese reader go through the chair's letter before publication, as that is where keigo is most noticed.

In practice

1. Upload the report (Word, text-based PDF, PowerPoint or Excel) and select Japanese.
2. Read the free sample: register, financial terms, names that must stay unchanged.
3. Choose your level, Professional to go through Métis, and pay the quote.
4. Download the Japanese file in its original format from your client area.
5. Check figures, fonts and line breaks before publishing.