Globalization (G11N) refers to a broad range of engineering and business development processes necessary to prepare and launch products and company activities globally. Most translation work is done by professionals, although in recent years, some companies started exploring the use of ‘community’-translation, and machine-translation.
In a software product, the content that are translated are user interface, documentation, packaging and marketing collaterals. Translation (T9N) is simply converting the meaning of text in one language into another. Varying legal requirements and many more things. Text and graphics containing references to objects, actions or ideas which, in a given culture, may be subject to misinterpretation or viewed as insensitive. It can entail customization related to: numeric, date and time formats, use of currency, keyboard usage, collation and sorting, symbols, icons and colors. Often thought of only as a synonym for translation of the user interface and documentation, localization is often a substantially more complex issue. Resizing dialogs, buttons and palette tabs to accommodate longer translated strings is also part of localization. Localization (L10N) refers to the adaptation of a product, application or document content to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target market (a locale). Translating the product’s user interface is just one-step of the localization process.
Separating localizable elements from source code or content, such that localized alternatives can be loaded or selected based on the user’s international preferences as needed.Examples include date and time formats, local calendars, number formats and numeral systems, sorting and presentation of lists, handling of personal names and forms of address, etc. Typically, this involves incorporating predefined localization data and features derived from existing libraries or user preferences. Enabling code to support local, regional, language, or culturally related preferences.Or adding to CSS support for vertical text or other non-Latin typographic features. For example, adding markup in your DTD to support bidirectional text, or for identifying language. Providing support for features that may not be used until localization occurs.This includes such things as enabling the use of Unicode, or ensuring the proper handling of legacy character encodings where appropriate, taking care over the concatenation of strings, avoiding dependence in code of user-interface string values, etc. Designing and developing in a way that removes barriers to localization or international deployment.It is an engineering exercise focused on generalizing a product so that it can handle multiple languages, scripts and cultural conventions (currency, sorting rules, number and dates formats…) without the need for redesign. Internationalization (commonly abbreviated as I18n) is the design and development of a product, application or document content that enables easy localization for target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language. Probably the biggest misconception we encounter when talking about Globalization is that software “Globalization”, “Internationalization” and “Localization” all mean the same thing, and that thing is somehow related to something almost anyone can understand: Translation. Localization consists primarily of translating the user interface. The final step, localization, is the process of customizing your application for a given culture/locale. Proper localizability results in source code you will not have to modify during localization. Localizability is about ensuring you have enabled a globalized application for localization by separating the resources requiring localization from the rest of the application. That is, you have not localized the application for another culture/locale.Īn intermediate step prior to localization is a process known as localizability. However, while your globalized application may possess such flexibility, the language of the user interface remains unchanged. A globalized application can correctly accept, process, and display a worldwide assortment of scripts, data formats, and languages. Your first step in the process of developing a world-ready application is globalization. In addition, you need to determine the extent of world-readiness your application will support. Developing world-ready applications requires focused attention to a variety of issues beginning in the application design phase.