A word-faithful translation can betray the brand
The case behind this guide: Dispoguard, an industrial B2B brand whose voice fits in one rule, proof before promise. Real-environment trials, audit-ready documentation, batch traceability, a single point of contact. The website goes Italian, and translating the sentences is not enough: the voice must carry over. Italian B2B even asks a question French never asks: address each reader formally (Lei) or talk to the team (voi).
The right question is not "how do you say this in Italian?" but "how does my brand speak in Italian?" The first gives you a translation. The second gives you a tone of voice.
Ask MIKA for the tone of voice
MIKA already knows your positioning, your proofs and your rules: it does not start from scratch, it starts from your brand memory. For Dispoguard, it first asked the three questions that condition everything, the channel, the priority readership and the level of formality, then retrieved the validated framing from a previous conversation, with nothing to re-explain.
I am preparing the translation of my website into [language] for [target market]. Prepare the tone of voice of my brand in that language: register to use, tone principles, writing style, mandatory lexicon, forbidden phrasings, signature lines, typical CTAs and quality control before publishing. First ask me the questions that are missing: channel, priority readership, level of formality.
Answer its questions rather than saying "whatever works": ten seconds of a clear answer beat three corrected versions. It is the first reflex of The art of the brief.
What a usable tone of voice contains
Not a page of intentions: eight concrete sections, directly usable by the person, or the tool, doing the translation.
Who to address formally, when to talk to the team, and the rule that forbids mixing both.
Three principles at most, each with one example to prefer and one to avoid.
Short sentences, active voice, one idea per sentence, result-driven titles.
The trade terms translated once and for all, with their usage notes.
The superlatives and absolute promises that contradict the brand.
The sentences ready for heroes, callouts and solution pages.
The calls to action already written in the right register.
The questions every page must answer before publishing.
Dispoguard's Italian, in excerpts
The register first: Lei (formal address) on all main pages, voi (collective) reserved for checklists, protocols and team modules. And one imperative rule: never both in the same paragraph.
- « Offriamo soluzioni innovative per ottimizzare ogni processo. »
- « Con Dispoguard non avrete mai più problemi di conformità. »
- « Il partner ideale per la vostra azienda. »
- « Prima della standardizzazione, verifichiamo l'uso reale in reparto. »
- « Documentazione organizzata per facilitare la preparazione dell'audit. »
- « Un referente unico, dalla prova all'assistenza post-vendita. »
The lexicon locks the trade terms once and for all:
And the quality control fits in three questions, asked of every page before publishing: cosa cambia in reparto? Qual è la prova o il livrable? Qual è il prossimo passo? A section that answers none of the three gets rewritten.
From MIKA to Claude Code or Wix
MIKA ends with an instruction ready to paste into the tool that will translate. You no longer ask "translate this website": you hand over verifiable rules. That instruction fits in six families of rules:
- The brand tonality: its principles, its level of promise, what it refuses to say.
- The register rule: who to address formally, when to talk to the team, and the ban on mixing.
- The style: sentence length, active voice, what happens to the titles.
- The mandatory lexicon: the trade terms locked in, to reuse as they are.
- What gets kept: numbers, deadlines and commitments, only if they are confirmed in the source content.
- The quality control: the questions asked of every page before publishing.
Eight to twelve lines in total: precise enough to be verifiable, short enough to be reviewed.
We do not publish the Dispoguard instruction itself: it is the deliverable of each brand. Yours will come out of your BAM project, built on your brand memory, not on someone else's.
BAM keeps the brand voice. MIKA turns it into verifiable rules. Claude Code or Wix apply them, you validate.
The same handoff as for your first Wix page or a web direction.