Translate a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) into Japanese

What changes when an SDS goes into Japanese

A Japanese SDS keeps the familiar 16-section structure. The section headings, however, are standardised in Japanese by JIS Z 7253, and Japanese readers expect to see them exactly, for example:

• Section 2: 危険有害性の要約 (hazards identification)
• Section 4: 応急措置 (first-aid measures)
• Section 8: ばく露防止及び保護措置 (exposure controls and personal protection)
• Section 15: 適用法令 (regulatory information)

Hazard and precautionary statements also have reference wording in Japanese. The signal word "Danger" is 危険 and "Warning" is 警告; H302 reads 飲み込むと有害. A paraphrase that is correct in substance will still look odd to a Japanese safety officer.

Register catches many people out. Japanese business writing usually calls for polite forms (keigo), but an SDS uses a neutral, directive style, with instructions ending in ～すること. "Wear protective gloves" becomes 保護手袋を着用すること。 Keigo belongs in the covering letter, not in the sheet.

Other differences to expect:

• no spaces between words, and full-width punctuation (、。);
• substance names written in katakana (トルエン) or kanji (酢酸エチル);
• CAS numbers, UN numbers and units (°C, mg/m³) left unchanged;
• no grammatical plural, so "component(s)" is simply 成分.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Your SDS is handled by Curie, Manuce's scientific and medical engine. It knows the vocabulary of toxicology, ecotoxicity and physical chemistry, such as flash point (引火点), LD50 and explosive limits.

The file comes back in its original format. A Word file stays Word and an Excel file stays Excel, with composition tables and pictograms where they were. For a typical sheet of 12 pages and around 4,500 words, the translation is delivered in a few minutes. It then remains available in your client area.

What Manuce does not do:

• No certified translation. If an authority or customer requires a translation certified by a sworn translator, you will need another service.
• No regulatory adaptation. Manuce translates what is written. It does not swap references to REACH, CLP, OSHA HCS or WHMIS in Section 15 for the applicable Japanese laws. Nor does it check your mixture's classification under Japan's GHS implementation.
• No scanned PDFs. An image-only PDF, with no selectable text, cannot be read.

Japanese carries a surcharge: a ×1.6 coefficient applies to the per-word rate. For a sheet going to a Japanese customer or distributor, the Professional or Premium level is the better fit.

What translation does not cover in Japan

In Japan, supplying certain substances and mixtures comes with a Japanese-language SDS. The requirement stems notably from the Industrial Safety and Health Act (労働安全衛生法), the PRTR Act (化管法) and the Poisonous and Deleterious Substances Control Act (毒物及び劇物取締法). A translated European or American SDS does not meet these requirements on its own.

Before release, have someone versed in Japanese regulations review:

• Section 15, which must be rewritten around Japanese legislation;
• Section 1: the supplier or importer in Japan and an emergency number reachable from Japan;
• Section 8: Japanese occupational exposure limits, which sometimes differ from those in your source sheet;
• the classification and H and P statements, where EU or US classification and Japanese classification diverge.

Manuce's translation gives that reviewer a sound working draft. It does not replace the review.

Tables, fonts and text length

Japanese is measured in characters rather than words. Translated text often takes less horizontal space than English or French, but the characters are taller and hard to read at small sizes. The narrow cells in Sections 3 and 9 may therefore look different.

• Check that the composition table (name, CAS, concentration) stays legible and does not break a substance name awkwardly.
• Check how the characters display on the recipient's machine. A file opened without a Japanese font shows empty boxes.
• GHS pictograms are images: they stay as they are, and only the surrounding text is translated.
• Text embedded in images, such as a logo with a slogan or a diagram labelled in pixels, is not translated.

If you will need to adjust the sheet afterwards, upload the source Word or Excel file rather than a PDF. A column that is too narrow is far easier to fix there.

Preparing the file and checking the result

A well-prepared SDS gives a more reliable translation:

• The right file. Upload the source document (Word, Excel) or a PDF exported with selectable text, not a scan.
• Trade names. A product name such as Solvex 40 should normally stay in Latin script. Look for it in the free sample, then in the full translation.
• Abbreviations. For DNEL, PNEC, TWA and similar terms, check that they come out in a form a Japanese reader will understand.

When reviewing, start with Sections 2, 4, 7 and 8, which carry the safety instructions. Also check that no figure has moved: a flash point of 23 °C or a range of ≥ 10 – < 25 % must be identical in the Japanese version.

In practice

1. Export the SDS as Word, Excel or a PDF with selectable text.
2. Upload the file: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free Japanese sample and check the directive style and trade names.
4. Pay, then download the translated sheet in its original format.
5. Have Sections 1, 8 and 15 reviewed by someone versed in Japanese regulations.