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What’s the standard localization process and why isn’t translating enough?
A product that has been properly localized has the look and
feel of a product originally written and designed for the target
culture. Here are just some items that, aside from language, have
to be considered in order to effectively localize a product or
website: measuring units, number formats, address formats, time
and date format (long and short), paper sizes, fonts, default
font selection, case differences, character set, tables for sorting,
word separators, local regulations, copyright issues, data protection,
payments, currency conversion, taxes...
The standard localization process includes the following
basic steps:
- Analysis and evaluation of the necessary resources, tools and research, based
on the material received.
- Creation and maintenance of terminology glossaries; cultural,
technical and linguistic assessment.
- Text translation, review by a second linguist, and proofreading
to ensure quality and consistency.
- Resizing of the user interface.
- Localization of graphics, movies, scripts or any other media
containing visible text and user interface.
- Documentation layout.
- Compilation and build of the localized files for testing.
- Linguistic and functional quality assurance.
- Project delivery.
Depending on the project size and complexity, this process may
require the coordination of different professionals: Account Manager,
Project Manager, Translators, Proofreaders, Engineers, Desktop
Publishers, and QA Testers. Certain projects may also require
assessment by experts in the field.
Why work with LocalVersion and not with one of the larger companies?
- In our field, we offer perfect results, a great service,
and costs that are significantly lower. Because our organization
is small and agile, we don't charge you for heavy structures,
management and administrative overheads, margins, sales representatives
and marketing campaigns, or services and languages you'll never
need. Give us a try and you'll be surprised.
- Even if you come to us through one of our satisfied customers,
we understand that you feel some risk in working with a company
that you don't know. That's why we'll do anything that helps
you feel comfortable and confident from the very beginning,
like working on some small pilot project or sample test free
of charge, giving you real-time visibility on the status of
your project so that you have control over it at your convenience,
offering you introductory discounts so that you can have the
first jobs revised externally if you want, telling you about
our customers and references, showing you the profiles of the
professionals who will manage your specific projects, etc.
Why pay a localization company when I can do
it internally?
- Reliable, specialized translators are hard to find, expensive,
and often busy. More than 80% of the people who claim to be
professional freelancers wouldn't pass the selection process
of a good agency. Even excellent translators can miss deadlines,
or perform inconsistently if their work is not proofread. A
team adds capacity and services, and offers quality consistency
and coordination, not necessarily at a higher cost.
-
A common mistake when first evaluating translation and localization costs
is to consider external rates as the determining factor, instead of measuring the overall cost of the project, and considering both external and internal
costs (selecting, training, coordinating, and supervising the professionals, buying the right equipment, etc). What's more important, the return on the investment is what really matters from a business perspective, and time-to-market plays a basic role here.
- Software and web localization are technical and complex tasks
requiring the cooperation of different professional profiles.
Not only linguists, but localizers, engineers, testers, graphic
designers, programmers, internationalization experts, project
managers... It makes perfect sense to outsource that to a specialized
team to make sure that project goals (budget, schedule, and
customer satisfaction) are not missed.
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Translation and localization are very dynamic industries. New tools and practices quickly outdate the existing ones. Professional advice can save you a lot of time and money through automation, workflow optimization, and customized solutions.
Why pay for translation services instead of using free automatic translation?
- Human language is full of ambiguities, exceptions, plays on words, subtle expressions, mistakes, and logical associations that computers just can't handle. The idea of clicking one button and having anything translated properly into any language seems today further off than it seemed decades ago.
- Having said this, automatic translations can sometimes give you an idea of what a given text is about, particularly depending on the field, the languages and the original document. One way to understand what these systems can offer is by having them translate into your native language.
- Automatic translations can even serve as the basis for human translation with certain documents, as long as the expectations and limitations of this procedure are clear. LocalVersion does offer this fast and affordable service for certain types of jobs.
Why pay for localization services if some distributors
offer them for free?
- Distributors can be excellent sales organizations, but they're
just not localizers. The quality they offer is often poor and
that can risk your image and damage your global sales.
- Their localization capacity is very limited, which means
they can delay the localization of your product if they have
other priorities.
- If you already have your products localized professionally,
you can use that to negotiate better conditions with your distributors.
- If end users complain to distributors about the quality of
their own localization, you may never know about it.
- There can be legal implications about the ownership rights
of the localization work.
Designing an internationally-accessible web site or software product
By following a few recommendations, web site designers and software developers can ensure that their products are ready to be adapted to international markets, and thus guarantee a smooth, painless and cost-effective localization process. Here are some examples.
- All user interface elements should be isolated from the source code.
- User interfaces and layouts must be flexible enough to accommodate text expansion. Text may expand by as much as 100% when translated. It’s also a good practice to allocate text buffers dynamically, when possible.
- If the same string is used in different contexts, try to make multiple copies of it to allow for different translations.
- Word order varies with the language, so it’s better not to create text messages dynamically at runtime, by using for instance multiple insertion parameters or concatenating strings. In general, no assumptions should be made about how each language combines words and interprets information, in order to avoid modifying code at the localization stage.
- It’s a safe practice to document non-obvious features and non-standard configurations that have to be tested at runtime. Documenting cross references can also avoid functional issues and streamline bug fixing.
- If information that cannot be translated, such as prices, is grouped separately, it will be easier to leave out this information in the localized version.
- As for graphics, you might prefer to use generic icons and images that do not require localization. Translating text in bitmaps and icons can be time-consuming. If you use images with overlaid text, the workload will be less if you deliver layered files, details of fonts used and other specifications to your localization provider.
- Finally, keeping track of the work that can be leveraged among different files or projects helps making localization cheaper, faster, safer and more consistent.
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