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Since English has become the dominant global language, research efforts have mostly concentrated on spoken English as a lingua franca (ELF). Written ELF is largely under-researched both in relation to translation and otherwise. This study examines ‘before and after’ texts made available by the European Parliament’s Editing Unit. The original texts were written by non-native English speakers (before) and subsequently revised by native English editors (after) with a view to delivering consistent edited source texts as a basis for translation into different EU languages. In a pre-study, 12 texts (and their edited versions) were scrutinised forpotentialtranslation problems. In the main study, three of the 12 originals and their three edited counterparts were translated by six professional translators. A mixed-method approach was adopted: product-based analysis of the translations foractualtranslation problems combined with screen-recording-prompted retrospective translator comments and screen-recording-based indicators for the time taken to translate edited and non-edited segments. The results suggest that there is a sufficiently large number of challenges arising from non-standard source segments to prolong translational decision-making and provoke inadequate solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]