If you are an English-speaking brand looking to enter the German market, one of the first questions your translator will ask you is how you want to address your readers: with the formal „Sie“ or the informal „du“? And if you reply with: “What do you recommend?”, their answer will probably be: “It depends.”

„Do you already have a German style guide and TOV document?“, I asked a potential client.
„No, but I can send you the English ones. Can‘t you just translate them?“

No. Well yes, I could of course. But it doesn’t make sense and would be a waste of time and money.

When you are craving carbs and melted cheese after a long day, putting a frozen pizza in the oven might be good enough. Just like a machine translation might be good enough if you just want to get the gist of what a text is about. But it's not something to impress a date with – or a prospective client.