Localization

When you create your promotional material you take great care in trying to sell your product. That same care needs to be taken when localizing for another country. Many brochures cannot be used in their original format: colors used on your original material might be offensive or suggest the opposite of what you want to suggest; a picture of the Washington Monument, for example, might not be appropriate when localizing a product in Korea.

Your layout may require adjustment depending on the target country. Some fonts are written from right to left and some from top to bottom, which will affect the entire layout and size of your promotional material.

It takes a native translator and an experienced desktop publisher with cultural knowledge to be able to recognize that visual aspects of a document also need to be localized. World Translation Center will contact you to discuss such issues and to recommend appropriate changes. Visual content and professional layout is just as important as linguistic expertise in representing your product.

Website localization is the process of converting an existing website to make it culturally adequate to the new target country. We will review your entire website and suggest changes if something offensive is found or if culturally inadequate. Instead of simply translating the entire content, we might suggest not to localize the entire website but only a few pages, or condensing pages to accommodate a lower budget. As with brochures and promotional material, it is also import to keep in mind if a font is used that is written from right to left or from top to bottom.

When localizing software the same attention to detail and culture is necessary that applies to any other promotional material. Software is often divided into sentence fragments, which the computer will put together to form a complete sentence. That sentence needs to be grammatically correct when the fragments are combined. This often means that a software program needs to be re-programmed to properly play concatenated sentences. Text boxes might need to be enlarged or font decreased to accommodate additional translated text.

World Translation Center will suggest and discuss any necessary steps to make your localized project a success.

Localization is the art of tailoring a project to a specific country, globalization is aimed at making a project or product work for the entire globe. Globalization is the integration of economic, cultural and political factors across the globe.

Globalizing a product starts by making sure that the product name works for all countries and is not offensive to anybody or has a different meaning. You want to use a name that best fits your product and works well for your entire global market.

Colors and pictures must work for each country and not raise controversy or suggest an improper image.

Reference to religion or holidays not celebrated around the world should be avoided.

World Translation Center can assist you in establishing a product name, which will be appropriate for all countries. Our experts around the world can evaluate existing content and suggest a globalized version.