Counting sentences, not words
Words don't survive translation. Sentences do.
~1 min · 196 words
We replaced it with a rule that said replies should be under three sentences. The product got better.
Words are not equivalent across languages. A fifty-word reply in English becomes a thirty-word reply in Russian (more compact morphology) or a seventy-word reply in Georgian (longer inflectional endings). The same constraint behaves differently in each language — strict in one, loose in another. The owner notices when the chat is too short in Georgian and too long in English from the same rule.
Sentences are different. A sentence is a sentence in every language we tested. The model counts periods, question marks, exclamations; the count is the same whether the reply is in Tbilisi Russian or Black Sea Georgian. The constraint behaves identically. The owner stops noticing.
This is one of those tiny rewrites that hides a design insight. If you're building for a multilingual business, write your rules in units that survive translation. Sentences, not words. Items, not pages. Days, not hours.
The product is supposed to feel the same in every language. Our rules have to mean the same in every language first.
“Our rules have to mean the same in every language first.”