‘Software Localization’ Archives
Google Translate has great uses, disastrous misuses
Google Translate and other free online translation tools can be great for instant, informal translation. When expectations are properly set, particularly for low-value text, unedited machine translation can be quite useful. However, when a user overestimates machine translation capabilities, the results can be confusing at best. When one online [...]
International symbol, icon blunders can be avoided
Some of my European colleagues still remember when the old Macintosh operating system of the 1980s used a trash icon that Apple’s European users confused for a postal box. Why was the icon confusing? People across the globe have different cultural ideas and assumptions about what things are supposed to look like. In other countries, trash cans [...]
Clinic: How to Create International-Ready Websites and Software
UTC International Clinic: Thurs, April 21st, 2:00 - 4:00 PM Internationalization 101: How to Create International-Ready Websites and Software Without proper preparation, various challenges can arise when localizing websites and software applications into Português, Русский, Français, Italiano, Español, Deutsche, [...]
“Conglaturation” from Nintendo Video Game Localization of Ghostbusters
Like "a winner is you" and "all your base are belong to us," Nintendo's Ghostbusters video game from the 1980s included some interesting broken English, "Conglaturation !!! You have completed a great game. And prooved the justice of our culture. Now go and rest our heroes !" View a video of the NES game's ending here.
A Winner is You!
The 1986 Nintendo video game Pro Wrestling congratulated winning players with the broken English phrase, "a winner is you." Like "all your base are belong to us," this translation from Japanese to "Engrish" became a popular internet meme. View the context of the NES game in the video below.
Can Companies Obtain Free Professional Services through Crowdsourcing?
Twitter launched a Twitter Translation Center Monday in an effort to obtain volunteer translation services from users and localize its user interface into other languages. For years, Facebook and other companies have also been turning to users for volunteer translation in what is often called “crowdsourcing.” These high-profile examples have [...]
India Ban of Microsoft OS Costs Millions
Tom Edwards, former head of Microsoft’s geopolitical product strategy team, has openly shared some of the international blunders that led to the creation of his team and the tightening of controls surrounding international releases. One of these, involving image localization, was recounted in the international business column "We all benefit [...]
Microsoft Game Banned in Saudi Arabia
Tom Edwards, former head of Microsoft’s geopolitical product strategy team, has openly related some of the international blunders that led to the creation of his team and the tightening of controls surrounding international releases. One of these anecdotes was recently referenced in the article "We all benefit when global business leaders share [...]
String Concatenation
String concatenation can be very useful to programmers. However, limiting of concatenation can greatly improve internationalization. Many concatenations can cause problems for translators. Translators often need to restructure sentences or indicate word gender and plurality, but that can be awkward or impossible with many variables. Here [...]
Avoid Copying and Pasting
Limiting the number of human touch points in a project will limit the possibilities of introducing human error. One way to limit the number of human touch points is to avoid copying and pasting text whenever possible. Sometimes it can not be avoided. However, one important way to limit copying and pasting is to work with and extract [...]
