Common Localization Problems

By Sarah-Claire Jordan

First of all, let’s refresh our memories on what localization actually is and how it relates to translation. Localization, as the name implies, deals with everything that goes into making something relatable for the population of a certain area. This area may be a region, an entire country, province or even a community, but the idea is that the people of said area share a common culture and language. Sometimes translators are knowledgeable enough about the target culture that they can contribute to the localization process, but not always.

A good example of localization in the U.S. is any marketing campaign targeting Hispanic communities. Walmart, for example, realized it had a huge amount of customers who were native Spanish speakers, and decided to take that knowledge and put it towards creating ads that were culturally relevant to Spanish-speaking Americans. They couldn’t, however, simply translate the original ads into Spanish. For the campaign to be localized for Hispanic communities, research needed to be done to see what is important to Spanish speakers in the U.S. and what style of language they are most likely to respond to.

This leads us to a huge problem related to localization: not knowing enough about the target audience. As naive as it sounds, many people still make the mistake of assuming that translated text or audio is all that is necessary to reach a certain community. Yes, that is part of it, and a localized translation is possible where the style of language used fits best with what the target community would relate to, but when we are talking about projects like marketing campaigns, you can’t expect the visuals to be culturally appropriate as well. Make sure visuals use colors that don’t have any sort of double meaning, and use pictures that have people in them that the target audience could relate to.

Another issue that plagues localization projects is that of format. When we create a marketing campaign, website, or even pamphlet in English, it follows a certain format that makes sense to English speakers, but may not work once the text is translated into, say, Arabic or Japanese. Arabic, for instance, is read, and so written, right-to-left. This means that the format of an informational booklet would have to be organized in a way that accommodated this type of writing. Japanese is written two different ways nowadays: vertically (from top to bottom in columns, with the columns going from right to left) and horizontally (just like English). If you want to convey a more traditional style, format everything around the vertical Japanese writing style, but otherwise keep it left-to-right.

The tone or style of language used is also something that can cause problems. Some languages, like Thai, have different “registers”, or variations on language, that are used depending on the situation and the status of the people speaking. There are seven total registers in Thai, with each register pertaining to specific situations. If a translator were to slip up and conjugate a verb in the wrong register, the whole connotation of a phrase could be thrown off. Like most localization problems, intensive research and working with the right people are the best ways to prevent problems.

Tags: localization, marketing

Category: Business Translation