To ensure a successful global website launch, it’s good to consider some issues early on in the process, such as your own content management system’s (CMS) infrastructure and capabilities for handling multilingual content, the relevancy of your content for your global users, and the general tone and style you want to impart in translation. If you’re preparing to launch your site internationally, today’s post gives you some good starting points, and links to our more detailed newsletter article on the same topic.
Left to right, right to left — what difference does it make? When it comes to translating bidirectional languages, it can be a pretty big one. And if you want to expand your software business into the Middle East, Malaysia or Indonesia, it helps to understand the differences. Unlike English, bidirectional (or BiDi) languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu and Farsi read from right to left instead of left to right. Although it might seem easy enough to just switch directions for your Arabic or Hebrew translation, bidirectional languages can present some technical challenges. Here are some things to think about before you get started on a bidirectional translation project.
Are you planning to go to Europe this summer? On vacation or expanding your business? Dubrovnik? Paris? Frankfort? We've got a few tips to make your trip (and your localization project) a smoother and more enjoyable one.
Who wants to play hooky and hit the beach today? If you're headed to the coast (shh—we won't tell if you won’t), take two minutes to check out our beach-lounging recommendations for maximum enjoyment and get a few localization tips along the way.
Nothing caps a long, warm summer day like a cold, delicious beverage. In this slideshow, we serve a triple shot of localization lessons that won’t give you a hangover!
Loyalty marketing is a crucial component of any sophisticated customer-retention program. The same is true when you bring your business to global markets. But how do you manage a loyalty program in new languages? Are there differences in the cultural understanding of loyalty marketing? How do you translate customer appreciation across borders?
In this post we’ll take a brief look at the ten core points you’ll want to keep in mind when you’re seeking loyalty in translation. It’s not as daunting as you might think. After all, the tenets of excellent customer service and buyer satisfaction tend toward the universal.
What can a summer BBQ teach us about preparing for a successful localization project? Get a shish kebab of lessons in this new slideshow on BBQing and localization.
Back in March, the Acclaro blog celebrated its two year anniversary and now it’s time to revisit a blog post published, yes, two years ago, on International Organization for Standardization (known as ISO) and language codes. We’ll delve a bit deeper now and look at the codes and the “flavors” of a language.
What can you learn about localization from a glass of Pinot Noir? Read on to find out.
What do pizza and translation have in common? You're about to find out...
This summer we’re making localization fun with a series of slideshows on some of our favorite vacation activities. Every week we’ll explore the connections between localization and summer pastimes like barbecuing or a day at the beach. It’s a summer sampler of vivid imagery, tasty recipes and useful tidbits served up with some bite-sized pieces of localization advice.
Do you manage marketing translation and localization projects internally for your company? If your company is new to the concept of going global, you’ve probably encountered a few common problems with communication, project flow, and writing for translation. Don’t worry…with a little effort, you can reduce these hassles.
We’ve put together a few tips that will help you reduce the cost and improve the quality of your translation and localization projects. Integrating these initiatives with your teams can have a profound impact on the reputation of your brand in international markets. Even better, you should see your team’s stress level decrease with improved processes in place.
The Acclaro blog is two years old! Two full years of snippets of localization savvy, language, and international business, all for you, dear Mr. or Ms. Acclaro Blog Fan. Since 2010, we've done our best to bring some pizzazz to your international business life, and we hope we've succeeded. Come with us as we take a trip down blog memory lane.
It's la fin ("the end"). The French government has dropped the title of "Mademoiselle" from "official forms and registries". This leaves "Madame" as the only title option for women, corresponding to the equally matrimonially-neutral title of "Monsieur" used by men. What's good for the goose might be good for the gander, but if you use forms on your website for France and beyond, you'll want to make sure they are properly localized for your global markets.
When it comes to translation on a budget, less is more, as we saw in Part One of Localization Cost Savings. The more you can reduce the word count of your content, the bigger your savings—25% fewer words, for example, will earn you a no-nonsense 25% translation discount.
So let’s say you’ve already taken a knife to your content; you’ve gotten rid of verbosity, eliminated text repetitions and honed in on the most essential content for your specific markets. How can you shave additional dollars off of your localization budget and finally secure that executive buy-in to move forward with your project?
Launching your software in new languages within global markets doesn’t have to be a “break the bank” proposition. While many companies fear that localization will meet or exceed the costs of their English release, sensible strategic preparation, a little enlightened testing, and a streamlined process can help ensure your software localization project is on time and under budget.
In this post we’ll provide an overview of the top ten tips from our Q4 2011 newsletter article to help you tackle technical translation projects affordably. Taken directly from our experience working with clients on global releases, each tip is designed to minimize headaches and maximize your localization dollar.
When it comes to launching your product in
new languages, translation is only one part of the picture. Your brand lives or
dies with your international customers during runtime, and there’s only one way
to ensure you make a good impression: localization testing. If it sounds familiar, pat yourself on the back, because you have probably seen it before in our top ten tips article.
Before the press releases go out, get your translation project “outside the lab” for a little real-world, in-context experimentation. In this post, we’ll review three of the most important zones for localization QA, and give you an idea on how to get the real deal when it comes to customer perception.
When thinking about translation, we know idioms commonly used in English (like "it's raining cats and dogs" or "lame duck") are difficult to translate. But what about simpler things such as names and dates? As it turns out, they’re not so simple when it comes to software localization, as LinkedIn found out in this post on their website. With languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Russian you must understand not only new character sets, but also date ordering (month/day/year? year/day/month? day/month/year?) and even spacing — in our world, these fall under the umbrella term of "internationalization". Let’s take a proper look at proper names in translation.
At many large companies, all of the various components of a typical localization project — from organization to process to budgets and schedules — are in the hands of a project manager (or PM). This is no small task even when all the pieces fit together well...and when they don't, your typical localization PM has a lot to juggle. If you're tasked with producing localized content at your organization, Acclaro CEO Michael Kriz discusses ten best practices for project managers in an article on Content Management.com, and we've got a sampling of it right here.
We know...we're pretty awesome. We hear it all the time [blush]. You can give us anything for translation: software, websites, documentation, audio, video, any language and most any file format, and we'll transform it into exotic gibberish that you might not understand (but your global customers will!). But our full spectrum of services go beyond translation. Sharpen your pencils and open your notebooks, because you're about to get a lesson in Localization Agency Services 101.
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