Why must you localize your apps?

Apps Replacing Browsers

Most browsing today happens on apps rather than browsers. Almost all smartphone users use apps of various kinds today. Especially when the apps are available in local languages.

Research has shown that when apps are localised, they see an 800-fold increase in revenue!!! Some more interesting facts that we must pay attention to have been revealed by the research conducted by Yahoo:

https://yahoodevelopers.tumblr.com/post/127636051988/seven-years-into-the-mobile-revolution-content-is

1. More than half the world’s mobile subscribers are based in the Asia-Pacific region. These are NON-ENGLISH-speaking users.
2. 90% of smart phone usage is on apps today. Only 10% on browsers.

Advantages of App Localization

1. Increase in sales – as much as 800-FOLD increase has been observed in certain cases of app localization!
2. App localization helps tap the non-English speaking market
3. It also helps in app-store optimization, giving developers a head start!

What is App-Localization?

App localization is the process of adapting and improving an app to appeal to a specific market, linguistic or cultural group. Translation of content is the primary aspect of this exercise. Other ancillary aspects of localization include adaptation of date and currency formats, direction of writing, decimal rules and other formatting matters. In addition, the overall layout, symbols, colours and social messaging too needs to be adapted.

We could largely classify app localization activities into the following aspects:

1. language & translation
2. date, currency and numerical formats
3. layout and direction of writing
4. appearance, design & social messaging (cultural nuances)

At the technical level,

• Data
• Meta-Data
• Strings
• Concatenation (combining) rules in the various languages
• Contextualization of meaning 

Android and iOS operating systems provide a format for converting times, dates, times and currencies and other data that vary by locale. This will eradicate compatibility issues. Many top software and app providers have already provided standardised process and templates to app developers to facilitate localization.

Streamlining development and post development processes is a common practice. So, when localization is considered a necessary and standard post-development

process, it should be factored into the development stage.

The requirements and the manner in which localization works, should be made known to the developing team. If they know for example,

• … what makes it easy for the translators to localize the strings and meta-data?
• … what context the strings and messages appear in!
• … what template of a database is conducive for developers to integrate translated data into the app?

it will make the process of translation easier for the linguist and development team.

Regular Translation versus Translation of Apps

The differences in translations of apps are worth study. Understanding these differences help streamline the process:

1. App translation often lacks context. Strings and messages are provided to translators without knowing in what context or for what purpose a particular word, phrase or sentence is being use. App translations involve single words and short phrases that lend themselves to several interpretations.
   Example: “date”
2.   In a dating app – a date has a specific meaning, which is different from date and time. When a translator gets a list of terms in a spreadsheet instead of the app-display screen, the meaning is not clear.
   Similarly, “save”

In a list of unrelated messages, save could either meaning saving money (conserving) , saving a file (recording), saving one’s thoughts (exercising restraint) or saving someone from drowning (protecting). In English we use the same word ‘save’ for all 4 meanings, but other languages have different words to express the various ‘senses’ or ‘meanings’, and to choose the right one, it is important to provide the translator with the context.

1. In the absence of a co-text, it is not clear what part of speech words are being used in, or what mood verbs are used. This happens when translators are given a list of unrelated words and phrases to translate, devoid of a sentence, placement or contextual understanding.

Example: ‘plan’

• Are we referring to “a plan”, a noun, or ‘to plan’, a verb?
• If it is used as a verb, are we using it in the indicative mood, like – they plan a trip – or in the imperative mood – where the app asks you – plan a trip / plan a birthday / plan anything.

In English we have the same form of the word plan, both as noun, or verb, and also as a verb it is conjugated in the same form. Out of a sentence and out of context, it is not easy to translate the word correctly. In German, for example, the word can have the following forms:

Noun:

Singular          –         der Plan

Indefinite         –                Plan

Indefinite         –                Plan

Verb:

Indicative     –      plane, plant, planen

Imperative    –      plane, planen

Indefinite       –      planen

A common practice is to provide a column with context – either expanding the sentence in which the word is likely to appear, or to provide a snapshot of the app screen where the word appears, so that it is clear to the translator what the ‘sense’, ‘implication’ and ‘functionality’ of the lexical unit is.

Role of a Translation Agency in App-Localization

A successful language service provider will help clients in the following ways:

• identify the challenges that translators face while translating
• identify the challenges that developers face while importing translations
• identify, compile and analyse errors that arise after importing translations into apps
• simplify rules of language for the developer team
• translate rules of linguistics to rules of technology
• suggest solutions to overcome the challenges and bridge the linguistic divide
• create & establish
  • templates
  • models &
  • standard processes for subsequent projects
• tweak and apply models to other language pairs.

USP of WordPar International

WordPar is a leading translation agency in the field of website translation as well as app localization. WordPar can offer clients our expert services in process definition. We will study your processes and suggest solutions to make the process simpler, smoother and more efficient.

Our expertise in language, linguistics and language functions will assist you in foreseeing and pre-empting hurdles in the workflow. We anticipate linguistic challenges and nip them in the bud.

Finally, we will make sure that we select translators who are aligned to and are sensitive to the requirements of the project and the desired outcome post localization.

We will integrate our linguistic, management and selection skills to give you a comprehensive solution for your app-translation needs.