Localization and Translation

Reinhard Schäler

1. Perspectives

Localization is the linguistic and cultural adaptation of digital content to the

requirements and the locale of a foreign market; it includes the provision of

services and technologies for the management of multilingualism across the

digital global information flow. Thus, localization activities include

translation (of digital material as diverse as user assistance, websites and

videogames) and a wide range of additional activities. Contrary to

definitions provided by the Localization Industry Standards Association,

LISA (2010), or Dunne (2006), this definition explicitly focuses on digital

content and includes the management of multilingualism as one of the

important localization activities.

The localization industry as it is known today emerged in the mid

1980s with the advent of personal computing. North American multinational

software publishers were scouting for new markets for products that had

already been proven highly successful in the USA. They identified these

new markets in Europe, concentrating their efforts initially on the richest

countries in the region: France, Italy, Germany and Spain – the so-called
FIGS countries. The localization service industry subsequently organised

itself into Single Language Vendors (SLVs) and Multi Language Vendors

(MLVs). In the mid 1990s, a dedicated localization tools industry emerged.

Following a continued period of growth, Beninatto and Kelly (2009)

estimate the language services market worldwide to be worth US$25 billion

by 2013. Many digital publishers, including companies such as Microsoft

and Oracle, now generate more then 60% of their overall revenues from

their international business divisions. Localization is an instrument for the

unlocking of global market opportunities for these companies and an

instrument of their globalization efforts. It is, therefore, not surprising that

their localization decision is never based on the number of speakers of a

particular language, but on the Gross National Product (GNP) of the market

they target. While publishers localize their digital content into Danish (5m

speakers approx.) they do not so for Amharic (17m speaker approx.) and

rarely if ever for Bengali (100m speakers approx.).

Translators working in the localization industry are among the most

innovative in their profession. In the early 1990s, they were the first to use

computer assisted translation tools for large-scale projects as both, the

characteristics of the material to be translated (very repetitive, large

volumes, often of a technical nature) and the environment in which it was

translated (highly computerised, experimenting with new technologies as

they emerged), were highly conducive for the progressive introduction of

advanced technologies such as electronic terminology databases and

translation memories.

In more recent years, Central Europe, China and India have become

the central hubs for the world wide localization industry mainly because of

the lower cost of employment in these regions (Niode 2009). It can

reasonably be expected that India and China will become more than just

cheap localization hubs for large foreign multinationals; they will very soon

become major publishers of digital content in their own right. According to

a report by Barboza (2008) for the New York Times, China surpassed the

USA in internet use. With a penetration rate of under 20%, the number of

Chinese internet users was with 253 million already bigger than that of the

USA which had already reached saturation point (with 70%). This

development will soon lead to fundamental changes in the localization

industry, which today still works with English as the default source

language.

2. Localization: more than just translation

In an attempt to make the concept more accessible to the lay person,

localization is often defined as “like translation, but more than that”. As

translation technologies and digital content have become almost ubiquitous,

the difference between translation and localization has become clouded and

somewhat difficult to define.

2.1. Characteristics

Today’s localization projects are far from being homogeneous. They can

deal with anything from relatively static, large-scale enterprise applications

such as database systems and applications, to rapidly changing web-based

content such as customer support information and relatively small size but

very frequent, ad hoc personal and perishable consumer-type content.

A typical enterprise localization project, for example, can involve

the translation of three million words, stored in 10,000 files to be translated

into up to one hundred languages, all to be made available within a very

short period of time (Schäler 2004). Content is often multimodal, it can

come as text, graphics, audio, or video, and can be stored in a large variety

of file formats. Content can be highly repetitive and is often leveraged from

previous versions of the same core product.

As digital publishers struggle with the ever increasing demand on

their capacities, they focus on standards, interoperability and process

improvements, introducing sophisticated translation management systems

(TMS). They also resort to internationalization and reuse of previously

translated material to achieve the required increase in efficiencies.

2.2. Internationalisation and reuse: prerequisites for on-time localization

Publishers approached localization often as an afterthought. Deltas, i.e. the

time period between the release of the original version of the software and

that of its localized version, of nine months were the norm. As the type of

digital content published changed (from applications to multimedia to web

content) so did its distribution to consumers and, subsequently, the demands

for on-time localization: customers now demand this content become

available in their own language without delay.

The two developments that made on-time localization or simship, the

simultaneous shipment (release) of digital content, in a number of different

languages and locales possible for the first time in the early 1990s were

internationalization and the re-use of previously localized material.

Internationalization, meaning the preparation of digital content for

use in different languages as well as for easy localization, dramatically

reduced the localization effort which publishers ideally wanted to reduce to

translation, eliminating as much as possible costly software re-engineering,

re-building and testing activities. Digital publishers had learned the hard

way about the high cost of “localization as an afterthought”, so the most

advanced of them decided to take localization “upstream”, closer to the

design and development teams, starting with a “smart” localization-friendly

design and development of that content. Typical localization issues, such as

the restricted or inappropriate encoding of characters, hard-coded strings or

concatenated strings, or ill-advised programmatic dependencies on specified

strings – such as the infamous “Y” in many a software’s message “Press

‘Y’ to continue” – could thus be eliminated, not just for one but for all

language versions of that product and ahead of localization.

Reuse of previous translations became the main strategy to cut down

on translation cost and time. Repetition processing, both within one single

version as well as across versions of the same core content, started in the

early 1990s when translation memory technologies were first introduced to

large-scale enterprise localization projects (Schäler 1994). In some projects,

reuse rates of 60% and higher can now be achieved, significantly cutting

down on translation cost and time.

2.3. Generic enterprise localization process

While each localization project represents its own, particular challenges

requiring a fine tuning of the localization process to be adapted, most

processes have core aspects in common.

Analysis
Prior to localization, a number of key questions need to be answered in

relation to the project on hand: Can the digital content be localized? – Some

digital content is so specific to its original market that localization would

require significant re-development that would make it financially not viable.

Is the content internationalized? – Some digital content does not support the

features of other language and writing systems. Is the content to be localized

accessible? – If localizable strings are hard-coded, i.e. embedded in the

original code or in an image, they cannot be accessed by standard

localization tools.

It is standard practice as part of the analysis to carry out a so-called

pseudo translation, i.e. the automatic replacement of strings within digital

content with strings containing characters of the target language. Pseudo

translation can demonstrate in an easy, low-cost way the effect localization

will have on the digital content in hand. The outcome of this phase is a

report summarizing the results of the analysis and containing

recommendations to the project teams on how to proceed.

Preparation

Following the successful completion of the analysis phase, project mangers,

engineers and language leads prepare the localization kit for translators and

engineers containing all the original source material, reference material such

as terminology databases, translation memories, style guides, and test

scripts, as well as a task outline, milestones, and financial plans. The

localization kit includes a description of all the deliverables, the

responsibilities of the stakeholders, and all contact details.

Translation

While translation is at the centre of this activity, not all of the translation is

necessarily done by translators. Some, or indeed all of it can be delivered

(semi-) automatically by sophisticated computer aided translation

technologies, including terminology database, translation memory (TM),

and machine translation (MT) systems. In cases where all of the source

material is pre-translated using, for example, a hybrid automated translation

system, it is not translation but post-editing that is required.

Translators also need to support computer assisted translation tools

and their associated language resources involving the maintenance of large

size and multiple terminology databases and TMs across products, versions

and clients, and the tuning and use of MT systems. While some platforms

and localization tools provide a visual translation environment allowing

translators to see the context and appearance of the strings that are being

translated, this is not always the case. Strings might have to be translated out

of context. Combined with a significant pressure to produce high-quality

translations within short time frames, this is a very stressful, “alienated”,

highly automated and technical translation environment for which

specialised training is required (Schäler 2007).

Engineering and testing

Following translation, digital content must always be re-assembled and

tested (or quality assured) for functionality, layout and linguistic

correctness. While properly internationalized digital content significantly

helps to cut down on the engineering and testing (QA) effort necessary,

translation can have an unexpected effect on the functionality and

appearance of the content (Jiménez-Crespo 2009). Even strings that have

been translated correctly can be corrupted when used by an application or a

browser for reasons not always apparent to translators, localization

engineers and testers, and can require significant efforts to be rectified

before the final product can be released.

Review

Following each localization project, a thorough review is conducted by the

localization teams involving both the client and the vendor site. The aim of

this review is to reinforce successful strategies and to avoid mistakes when

dealing with similar projects in the future.

3. The future of localization and translation

Discussions about localization and translation have for a long time orbited

around a rather predictable set of issues with the role of technology,

automation, standards, interoperability and efficiencies in translation and

localization featuring prominently (Genabith 2009). This is so because the

discussion about as well as the research into localization-related issues has

been dominated by the pragmatic, commercial agenda of the localization

industry, an industry driven almost exclusively by the desire to maximise

the short-term financial return on investment of multinational digital

publishers in the development of their digital content. This rather narrow

focus of current mainstream localization activities is beginning to expand.

This development is driven by people and organisations who have

recognised that localization and translation are important not just for

commercial, but also for social, cultural and political reasons; they can keep

people out of prison, enhance their standards of living, improve their health

and, in extreme cases, even save their lives.

A recent, though rather short-lived, example of such activity was the

reaction to the Haiti disaster in early 2010 when a large number of

localization service providers as well as an even larger number of

individuals volunteered their services to help the people of Haiti. The

reaction to this catastrophe drove truly innovative efforts in disaster relief

involving translation and localization, such as the 4636 multilingual

emergency text service reported by Ushahidi and Envisiongood. Still, there

is a clear urgency to explore more sustainable and long term alternatives to

current mainstream localization and translations, going beyond those that

react in an immediate and often uncoordinated and unsustainable way to

disasters.

Access to information and knowledge in your language using media

such as the world wide web is not a “nice to have” anymore, not an option;

it is a human right and should be recognised as such as De Varennes (2001)

points out. Initiatives to make localization and translation technologies and

services available to all, including to those who currently do not have access

to them because of geographical, social or financial reasons, have shown

very promising results. One of the most prominent examples is that of the

IDRC, the Canadian Government’s Development agency which has been

funding both the South East Asian (IDRC 2003) and the African (IDRC

2008) networks for localization. Another is the more recent The Rosetta

Foundation.

Perhaps it is not surprising and should have been expected that the

hottest and most promising topics in the current localization debate –

crowdsourcing, collaborative translation and wikifization – are again about

to be taken over by industry interests rather than by those of society, at a

time when they could start to support the educational, health, justice, and

financial information requirements of those most in need.

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