inform - announce

There are two common errors with the usage of inform; it often appears without an object (1,2), and is often used when announce would be more appropriate (3) (although this is by far the lesser of the two evils). Have a peep at this lot:

Common Usage         
1a  We would like to inform that, from Monday, platform 7 will be closed.
2a  The City Council will inform about updates via its website.
3a  The bidding results were informed to the public in August.

Better Usage
1b  We would like to inform you that from Monday, platform 7 will be closed.
1c  We would like to announce that from Monday, platform 7 will be closed.
2b  The City Council will announce updates on its website.
3b  The public were informed of the bidding results in August.

OED Definition
1- (verb with object) give facts or information,       
1- (verb without object) give incriminating information to the police or other authority  

Notes
Inform + you/her/him/them/me/everyone etc... – never inform+about directly! (although past tense informed about is Ok ofc).                      

How do we fix it?
Easy answer – when using inform, just always make sure you have an object and aren’t going directly into the information. The other thing you can do is use announce, because if your ST doesn’t specify an object, you’d have to add your own one based on logic (if you’re lucky), or guesswork and extrapolation (if you’re not). This kind of manoeuvre is, obviously, quite controversial, and every translator has a different philosophy about such things.

At any rate, sometimes it’s either not possible or doesn’t fit well. But sometimes too, it’s quite a simple, obvious thing. In (1) for example, we can safely add a ‘you’ to make ‘We would like to inform you that...’ (1b,c). This is the most common usage in English  and appears on notices and signs all over the place – it’s simple and direct and the context is usually very obvious.  

In (2), which could also be on a sign or a notice of some sort, but may also appear in a more official context, ‘you’ would be too specific, so we could instead say ‘the public’ or ‘members of the public’, either of which are fine. We could also choose to say announce instead of inform and thus negate the whole issue (2b).

DIY

Four easy ones for you – which are right, and which are wrong?                

1) The public were informed of the bidding results in August.
2) The programme should generate an error message informing about the problem.
3) The messages usually inform about the correctness or incorrectness of the entered data.           
4) The news was announced in August.