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Our goal is to provide you with in-depth knowledge regarding localization.

Learn how CMS localization can boost your online presence, expand your reach, and optimize for international success with our informative article.

CMSs: industry state and how to localize them best

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Localization Blog

Did you know that Coca-Cola in Chinese means "bite the wax tadpole"? Or at least it did in 1928, when Coca-Cola entered the Chinese market. The Coca-Cola Company initially didn't have a localized name. As a result, Chinese merchants translated their product's name into <a class="zem_slink" title="Chinese characters" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters" rel="wikipedia nofollow">Chinese characters</a> that sounded like '<a href="http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/tadpole.asp">ko-ka-ko-la</a>', with the above amusing results.

This tale illustrates the perils of entering a global market without proper preparation. The world may be flat, as the saying goes, but it sure isn't uniform. If you want to reach a global audience with your Web or mobile solution, you'll need to pay attention to linguistic and cultural differences. Consider your software as a service, with each of your worldwide customers having specific needs and requiring personalized attention. <h2>Translation, Localization, and Globalization</h2>

But first, let's talk about the various terms used when we discuss reaching international markets.

Translation refers to the simple act of translating text from one language to the other. Translation in itself is no simple act. Even to this day, with all the research and sophistication we put into translation software, machine translation is still no match for a competent human translator, who can interpret nuances and multiple meanings in a sentence, then render it in the target language.

Localization (L10N for short) means not only translating your software or website into another language, but also making sure that it is optimized and adapted to that market's cultural and linguistic realities. In a sense, it is not only translating the language, but also the cultural context of your solution.

Globalization (G11N) is the process by which you make sure that your Web or mobile solution is accessible and adapted to a worldwide audience. <h2>Localization as added value</h2>

One way to understand translation versus localization is form versus function. When you translate your web or mobile application, you're just adapting the words of your product. But when you localize it, you are adapting the content as well.

Localization includes translation, but also involves adjusting elements such as: <ul> <li>Locale details such as currency, date and number formats, and measure units</li> <li>Cultural sensitivity issues, such as gender roles or geographical references</li> <li>Graphics and other visual elements</li> </ul>

Localization can make a huge contribution to your global success. For your international customers, it will mean the difference between a foreign product that is clearly a lesser adaptation of the original, and one that is adapted to that market's cultural and linguistic realities. It promotes brand loyalty, and it helps your customers perceive your Web or mobile solution as a top-tier, quality product.

As for Coca-Cola, the company properly localized its product after careful research and consultation with localization experts. Today, Coca-Cola is known in China as "that which allows the mouth to rejoice". Sure beats tadpoles.
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" src="https://lingohub.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/pixy1.gif" alt="" /></div>

Would you like to understand the distinction between translation and localization? In this article, you can find a detailed explanation of both terms and their implications.

Translation versus Localization: don't be a wax tadpole

When translating software, it is particularly important to pay attention to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_language" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">native language</a> 
usages. Many linguistic services call this type of service localization or L10n. Mobile and Web-based programs represent some of the newest and most innovative software.

However, in order to compete globally, software vendors need to internationalize products. After all, writing up a beautiful piece of code that is optimized for native English speaking users, automatically removes over 50 percent of the software market from your potential customer base. Those for whom English is a second language have difficulty using software without a native language option. Localization is a necessary part of optimizing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">User Experience</a>. The "side effect" of doing so, is maximizing profits.


## Why is localization important vs. basic text translation?


Localization takes into account colloquial terminology. Translation is often very literal. In fact, with "machine translation", the results are so literal as to be unusable in many instances. In one example, when a company tried to use machine translation for a restaurant sign, the result was an <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/translation_systems">error message</a>.

Not speaking the target language, the text for the error became the company's translation. Even traditional translation returns results that confuse locals. For example, when translating "Like father, like son," to Chinese, a translator might go literal, however, the more correct phrase would re-translate from Chinese as "Tigers do not breed dogs." 

An expert translator who specializes in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">software localization</a> will use the most correct translation and not a literal transliteration from language to language. A good example of how important that can be, even within the same language, is using 'flat' rather than 'apartment' when marketing real estate management software in the UK. That one word change can make the difference between a first page result on a search engine and a tenth page result.

## Offer software in customers' native languages for optimum sales

Maximizing sale potential is all about providing a user-friendly software package that offers value to the customer. If developers do not make the product available in the customers' native language, they are unlikely to buy. Even skilled English speakers have trouble reading the language fluently, particularly if their native language uses a different alphabet.

Customers want easy to use and intuitive products. Software localization is a necessary step to achieve that. If developers don't rise to challenge, they stand to lose out on a huge percentage of the market. English may make up 70 percent of the software market today, but with "developing nations" increasing their Internet penetration every day, that is likely to change in the next years. Go native and deliver that great product your customers deserve.

Software localization is crucial to adopt a native approach to provide customers with an excellent product. Neglecting this task could result in missing out on a significant portion of the market. Read our article for more information.

Your customers prefer native language

Your customers prefer Native Language

<blockquote>“ @ mperham : You have a problem, your data is in latin1 so you think : " I'll convert to UTF8 !" Now you have � problems .” cc @ kingshy_g</blockquote>

Everyone of us coders who dealt with encodings felt that pain, didn't you?

## Character Encoding

Since 2009, UTF-8 has been the dominant encoding (of any kind, not just of Unicode encodings) for the Internet, and as of March 2020, it accounts for 95.0% of all web pages. UTF-8 overtook all other encodings in 2008 and over 60% of the web in 2012.

Character encoding is an information point for anyone planning to create content outside languages that use the basic Latin alphabet characters. Character encoding refers to the proper readability of characters within the text - by human users, machines, and search engines.
Computers store characters as single or grouped bytes. Character encoding is the way these bytes (characters) are properly displayed.

It’s important to differentiate between fonts and character encoding - while you might have the proper character encoding on your hands, the selected font might not display the proper character and instead offer unreadable icons, such as empty squares, question marks, etc.

## ASCII basics

In the beginning, there was ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is a character encoding standard for digital communication. ASCII includes basic characters, punctuation, numbers, and letters, which are present in the English alphabet.

However, as the Internet expanded further from the basics of the English language, billions of users had little use of Latin characters to access relevant content, and ASCII was succeeded by new character encoding.
It’s helpful to know that the first 256 code points (unique numbers for each character) of ASCII, ISO-8859, and UTF-8 are identical. Although ISO-8859 offers coverage of most languages that use the Arabic script, UTF-8 further expands and covers most living languages and writing scripts worldwide.

If you haven’t thought about your target audience (current and future), this is the time to do so.

## What is UTF-8?

UTF-8, or Unicode Transformation Format, is an extension of ASCII. UTF-8 encodes code points in one to four bytes.

Structure of UTF-8: 
- One byte: The first 128 characters ( corresponding to ASCII characters). 
- Two bytes: The following 1,920 characters require two bytes to encode (which includes a huge majority of Latin-script-based alphabets, but also Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, and Greek)
- Three bytes: Includes other characters for languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean
- Four bytes: Includes historic scripts, mathematical symbols, and emoji. 


## Is UTF-8 compatible with ASCII?

The UTF-8 codes for the standard ASCII characters are corresponding. This makes UTF-8 ideal for backward compatibility with existing ASCII text. However, keep in mind that UTF-8 and UTF-16 are not as compatible.

In general, UTF-8 dominates the web and has been the recommended encoding since HTML5.

## Why is this relevant for you?

Since an HTML page can be only in one encoding, UTF-8 is the favorable choice. It supports many languages and allows a mix of different languages on a page.

Since all ASCII characters in UTF-8 have the same bytes, it makes backward compatibility easy as well.

Dealing with encodings can be frustrating for coders. It's still an ongoing issue in the tech industry, especially when working with various resource file formats. In this article we are sharing our experiences and solutions for this question.

Do you speak UTF-8?

Whenever we hear about Internationalization of web application, the first word that comes to our mind is "Translation". There are three ways to translate software:
<ul>
<li>Do it Yourself</li>
<li>Pay Someone for doing Translation</li>
<li>Ask your Users</li>
</ul>

No matter what, making the software 'Internationalization ready' is the developer's job. No static strings, dates in the code and so forth; every text must be put in resource files and the code decides which text to use. Luckily Ruby on Rails provides a simple ruby gem called "<a href="http://ruby-i18n.org/">I18n</a>" (internationalization) that does exactly that.

Definition of Internationalization & Localization :

First of all let's check the definition of Internationalization & Localization. According to Wikipedia,

i18n - "Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes." This means, the "Internationalization" functionality translates all string and other locale specific information ( like date and currency formats) from your application in desire language to end user.

l10n - "Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text." This means, the "Localization" functionality gives translations in local-specific language and other localized formats for local specific information.

How i18n mechanism works in Rails :

All the languages are different from each other in many ways (For example pluralization rules). It is very difficult for any tools/software to provide a general solution for language translation. To solve this problem I18n API provides two features in Ruby on Rails. <ol> <li>Give support for English and other similar languages out of the box</li> <li>Provide a user-friendly and adjustable functions for supporting other languages</li> </ol>

This means in Ruby on Rails every static string has been internationalized and you can "over-ride" these defaults with "localization" of the application.

There are two parts of Ruby I18n gem which are: <ol> <li>The public I18n API - provides a Ruby module with public methods to characterize the work of the library</li> <li>A default backend - which executes these public methods</li> </ol>

The Public I18n API comes with two most important methods which are: 

<ol> <li>translate # This public method do translations of the text</li> <li>localize # This public method localize Date and Time objects to local formats as per settings</li> </ol> 

These method have aliases #t and #l respectively, so you can use them like this:

\[gist id=772983\]

Setup/Configuration about the i18n mechanism

You can easily setup ruby I18n gem with few simple steps and use in your application for I18n support. Ruby on Rails application set up reasonable defaults in all .rb and .yml files in config folder. If you want to change the settings, you can easily change them according to your need.

To check the defaults for I18n module you have to check config/locales directory, which is default path for translation.

You will get one file named en.yml which default locale and contains these translation strings:

\[gist id=773002\]

English is default locale in I18n library. So, if your application is not set in different locale, :en will translate all the static text changes.

So, when you check this on console the output shows like following :

\[gist id=773005\]

Some other available locales which are supported by rails 3 are:

ar, bg, bn-IN, bs, ca, cy, cz, da, de, de-AT, de-CH, dsb, el, en-GB, en-US, eo, es, es-AR, es-CO, es-MX, es-PE, et, eu, fa, fi, fr, fr-CA, fr-CH, fur, gl-ES, gsw-CH, he, hi-IN, hr, hsb, hu, id, is, it, ja, ko, lo, lt, lv, mk, mn, nb, nl, nn, pl, pt-BR, pt-PT, rm, ro, ru, sk, sl, sr, sr-Latn, sv-SE, sw, th, tr, uk, vi, zh-CN, zh-TW

The easiest method to set your own locales to override the default locale is to change config/application.rb file in Rails 3. (You can apply same settings to config/environment.rb in Rails 2). Add this line to get German language as default locale:

\[gist id=773012\]

The first line of code tells the location of translation file to the I18n library. The second line of code will set the default locale to :de other than :en.

Using the I18n module

Put these lines in config/locale/de.yml.

\[gist id=773014\]

Let's check now whether this settings translate "hello" into "German" locale or not.

\[gist id=773017\]

Using the I18n with interpolation

Most of the time you want to use various variables with your translations. That's why I18n API also provide interpolation feature.

\[gist id=773020\]

Using the I18n with pluralization
In English there are only one singular and one plural form for a given string, e.g. “1 friend” and “2 friends”. The best thing is I18n API also provides a flexible pluralization feature in Rails applications.

We must note that an interpolation variable named :count plays key role in translation and pluralization.

\[gist id=773024\]

The algorithm for pluralization is:
\[gist id=773027\]

I.e. here 1 denotes singular and 0 denotes plural. So as specified using conditional operator, if count == 1, it will consider it as singular form otherwise its plural.

That's it for Part I. In Part II we will check other features of I18n like <ul> <li>Localization of Times/Dates</li> <li>Using views for translation</li> <li>Translating ActiveModel errors</li> <li>Organization of resource files</li> <li>Setting the locale (from domain, parameter or client) and of course storing it in the database when the user is logged in</li> </ul>

For more details you can check <a href="http://ruby-i18n.org/">http://ruby-i18n.org/ </a>.

Learn about the Internationalization (I18n) API in Rails 3, including its definition, mechanism, setup, configuration, and usage with interpolation and pluralization.

Internationalization (I18n) API in Ruby on Rails 3 (Part I)

Our familiarity with Japan is mainly due to its unique culture, popular symbols, and architecture, among other things. When people hear words such as "sushi," "sakura," or "samurai," they immediately associate them with Japan. 

However, this country boasts many other qualities that make it an ideal market for various businesses. As such, localizing to this region is a wise decision. Is your product still not talking Japanese? Let us convince you why fixing this brings success.


## The facts about the Japan market

So, why localize to Japanese? There is a list of reasons. Firstly, Japan is one of the strongest economies in the world. It <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/268173/countries-with-the-largest-gross-domestic-product-gdp/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ranks third</a> after the USA and China. 

At the same time, the people in Japan are deeply involved in the tech world - Japan is well-known as the motherland of different technology companies like Nintendo, Sega, and others. As a result, the mobile app industry in Japan is thriving with high annual installation and usage rates, making it one of the most important markets worldwide.

In 2022 it was <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-statistics/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2.5 billion app downloads</a> in Japan, and users spent <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-statistics/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">45 billion</a> hours on them. So, if you have the application, localization to Japanese can boost the number of your users and revenue. 

Another reason for Japan's attractiveness for businesses is its robust economy. In recent years, Japan has kept <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/268173/countries-with-the-largest-gross-domestic-product-gdp/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> third </a> place as the strongest economy after China and the USA. Also, it has one of the world's largest e-commerce markets, with <a href="https://www.business.com/articles/10-of-the-largest-ecommerce-markets-in-the-world-b/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">$144 billion </a> in annual online sales projected to reach <a href="https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/ecommerce/japan" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">$156.30 billion</a> in 2023. 
Based on these figures, Japan appears to be a promising market for entry. However, to succeed in this country, it is essential to understand the cultural context thoroughly and possess professional language knowledge. 


## Top challenges for Japanese localization

Localization involves translating and adapting an entire product, which can be challenging for your team when it comes to the Japanese language. The challenges range from bridging the gap between grammatical structures to using correct honorifics and idiomatic expressions, changing layouts for new fonts, and many more. Let's look at the main points of this question:

1. **Linguistic differences and loan words**. Japanese have significant differences in terms of grammar, sentence structure, and writing systems from the other languages. At the same time, the Japanese language is constantly enriched with new words borrowed, including from English, and sometimes these terms replace the Japanese words. One of the examples is the word "hotel." Besides the Japanese word 客舎 (*kyakusha*,) often you can hear/see ホテル (*hoteru*.) Using the wildly popular loan words in your content indicates that you are talking with the audience in the same language.
2. **Honorifics and politeness levels.** Japanese has a complex system of honorifics and different levels of politeness, which can be difficult to translate accurately. The polite language (丁寧語, *teineigo*); respectful language (尊敬語, *sonkeigo*), and humble language (謙譲語, *kenjōgo*.) Using the appropriate honorifics when addressing someone is crucial to avoid unintentional offense or disrespect. These honorifics vary based on the person you are speaking to.

3. **Cultural nuances.** The Japanese culture and view of the world differ from the Western world. For instance, taking coffee-to-go, usually to the USA or Europe, would be considered rude in Japan. When localizing your product, it's essential to ensure that the text content and visual elements, such as signs, icons, emojis, photos, and illustrations, are culturally appropriate for the Japanese context. Additionally, be mindful of local [figures](/blog/how-can-the-figures-be-a-challenge-for-your-localization), holidays, national celebrations, and other details.
4. **Writing system**. We have only 26 letters in English, the Japanese writing system kanji includes 4,400 characters. Of course, some are less used, but a person needs to know around 2,000 to become a good translator. But this is not all challenges. In the Japanese language, three different writing systems exist. In addition to **kanji**, there are **katakana** (for foreign words) and **hiragana** (for particles and other things). The *katakana/hiragana* function like the alphabet, with each character representing a syllable that combines with others to form words. However, *kanji* is more complex and challenging because each character represents a meaning or entire word.
5. **UI localization**. In the Japanese language, both horizontal and vertical scripts are used. Although the horizontal script is more commonly used nowadays, you can still incorporate vertical text for certain elements. It's essential to keep in mind that your design will be significantly impacted during localization, regardless of the script you select. This is primarily because of the variation in length between Japanese and other languages. For example, your text may be shortened by anywhere from <a href="https://wordminds.com/blog/different-languages-different-word-length" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10% to 55%</a> when translating from English to Japanese.

At first glance, these things may seem complicated, but we have compiled the best practices to assist you.


## Best practices for localization of your product to the Japanese market


Build a strategy. Before any localization actions, the main thing is creating a clear plan and understanding the required efforts, your target, audience, budgets, etc. [Creating a localization strategy](/blog/how-to-build-an-effective-localization-strategy) will require deep market research from the marketing, sales, and business sides. 

- **Hire the native expert.** One notable aspect of European countries is their intertwined cultures because of open borders and proximity. This means that, for instance, French teams can somehow adapt their products for the Spanish market without hiring local employees. In the case of Japan, you couldn't do the same. From the first stages, you need a person to manage digital communication with your user. From style guide creation to design approval - local experts can save your business from failure. Also, the best thing will be hiring local linguists who can translate the content in the best way. 
Lingohub knows finding the perfect linguists for the project can be hard, so we offer to order translation or proofreading just inside our application. 
- **Provide as much context as you can.** So, you successfully prepared everything above and are ready to start the translation. When it comes to Japanese text localization, it is essential to provide additional information for linguists. A simple example is pluralization. In Japanese, there is no concept of plurals like in English. Instead, multiple objects are indicated by using a number and a counter or by understanding the context of the conversation.
To give our users more overview Lingohub team prepared a list of features that aim to provide the context for linguists:
 - **[Style guide](/features/style-guide)**. Provide information regarding the audience, including their industry, geographic location, age range, and the best tone of voice for contacting it.
 - **Context images**. Lingohub allows uploading context images for each segment using the Figma plugin or API to understand better how the text will look on the final product. 
 - **Term base**. Forget about incorrect proper names or other words' spelling. The Lingohub [term base](/features/term-base) suggests the correct option when recognizing entries during translation. If you have untranslatable terms, you can also specify them.

- **Take care of the QA stage**. Allocate sufficient resources and time for quality assurance [(QA) testing](/blog/what-is-localization-testing). Thoroughly test the localized product for linguistic accuracy, functional integrity, UI/UX compatibility, and cultural appropriateness. Engage native Japanese speakers for QA to ensure the highest level of quality.


## Conclusion

We hope this article gives you more overview of Japan, its market, and possible ways to localize your product for such a promising region. From our side, we at Lingohub are precisely targeted to provide the best user experience for customers to make the localization smooth and effective. 

To get more information about how Lingohub can help your team and business, schedule a quick [demo call ](/demo)with our team or sign-up for a free 14-day trial and use all the abilities of the application!

Did you know that Japanese is the one of the most commonly spoken language online? Almost one million Japanese-speaking internet users make up 5% of all internet users worldwide. Learn more about the importance of localizing content for Japanese audiences in our article.