Why Localization Or You mean Those People Dont Speak English

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Why Localization? Or You mean Those People
Dont Speak English?

• Maxwell Hoffmann
• Manager Consulting Training
• ENLASO www.translate.com

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Presentation Overview

• Global market pressures to localize from overseas
• Events of past 20 years changed worldwide markets
  forever
• Domestic market pressures to Localize
• Growing Hispanic market impossible to ignore
• Multinational supply chains affect English only
• Spotlight on Domestic Hispanic Market
• Challenges to localization
• How to prep your content for more economic
  localized projects

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Some Definitions

• Locale Combination of language, cultural
  preferences, character set, and other information
  that describes a particular target market or
  audience.
• Globalization (G11N) Implementation of a global
  strategy that ensures the product or deliverable
  meets the needs of each locale, from early
  product development through localization.
• Internationalization (I18N) Process of creating
  (or re-engineering) a product or deliverable to
  support difference locales. Usually a
  pre-requisite for successful localization.
• Localization (L10N) Process of adapting a
  product for a particular locale. Usually comes
  after internationalization, creating a
  deliverable that has the look and feel of being
  created for the specific locale.
• Interpretation Converting real-time spoken
  content in a source language into spoken content
  in a target language, either simultaneously or
  sequentially.
• Translation Process of translating, editing and
  proofing textual content from a source language
  to a target language.

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More Definitions

• Spanish An Iberian romance language spoken by
  over 350 million people worldwide. The official
  language of more than 20 countries (and
  official/unofficial recognition in one state in
  the US New Mexico). Includes 9 other closely
  related languages.
• Hispanic refers to a derivation from Spain, its
  people and culture.
• Indo-European Languages Includes most languages
  of Europe and the Indic languages of India. These
  include the Germanic, Scandinavian, Romance,
  Baltic, Slavic, Iranian, Hindi, and Urdu
  languages.
• Asian and Pacific Island languages Chinese,
  Korean, Japanese, Vietnam, Hmong, Khmer, Lao,
  Thai, Tagalog.
• Other languages Includes Uralic (Hungarian),
  Semitic (Arabic Hebrew), African, and native
  North American languages along with indigenous
  languages of Central and South America.

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Globalization is shrinking the world
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The world has changed

• Ten years ago the U.S. stood at the epicenter of
  the web universe, English dominated the airwaves,
  and the dollar stood supreme. Today the U.S. is
  sixteenth worldwide in the percentage of its
  residents with broadband access to the internet
  and falling way behind in connection speed, China
  is coming on strong, and the dollar threatens to
  be supplanted by the Euro as the worlds favorite
  currency.

Source On the Web, Some Countries Matter More
than Others Quantifying the Market Opportunity
for Globalizing the Web Customer Experience -- By
Donald A. DePalma, Benjamin B. Sargent, and R.
Michael Powers
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Customers prefer buying from WWW sites in their
own languages

• Nearly 3 out of 4 participants surveyed by Common
  Sense Advisory agreed that they were more likely
  to buy from sites in their own languages than in
  English.
• Global consumers will pay more for products with
  information in their language.
• Nearly 3 out of 4 participants surveyed agreed
  they are more likely to buy products if after
  sale support is in their own language.

Source Can't Read, Won't Buy Why Language
Matters on Global Websites By Donald DePalma,
Benjamin Sargent and Renato Benianatto Common
Sense Advisory, Sept 2006
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Globalization a confluence of events

• End of the Cold War
• Capitalism reaches Eastern Europe
• Chinese economy thaws to the West
• European Union (economy and language
  requirements.)
• GATT and WTO (General Agreement on Trade and
  Tariffs and World Trade Org.)
• NAFTA (Canada/USA/Mexico trade) and immigration
• Spanish on your doorstep
• Growth of Internet and dot.com boom
• Y2K and growth of India/off-shoring

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Globalization end of the Cold War

• Autumn 1989
• Fall of Berlin Wall
• Tiananmen Square stand off, Beijing
• End of Soviet Union by 1991
• End of the Cold War
• Huge new market opens that was out of sight, out
  of mind for 77 years
• China liberalizes economic policies, becomes
  world power economy over night

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Former Soviet Republics become viable markets

• Now becoming common languages for
  Localization/Translation

• Significant Soviet Satellite Languages
• Hungarian
• Polish
• Czech

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Mobility of Manufacturing and Services

• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (typically
  abbreviated GATT)
• Uruguay Round from 1986 to 1994, extended the
  agreement fully to new areas such as intellectual
  property, services, capital, and agriculture.
• Out of this round the WTO (World Trade Org) was
  born.
• Manufacturing (and Services) have moved offshore
  more documentation not in English

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Internet commerce eliminates boundaries

• English speakers now a minority on WWW
• Developing countries using cell phones for
  internet more
• Rental kiosks making Internet shopping available
  to villages in India
• Shoppers with limited English twice as likely to
  buy when WWW site is their own language
• Hispanic (Latin America Spanish) is fastest
  emerging market domestically

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The world has changed, but we havent

• Virtually all USA managers grew up during the
  Cold War
• Internet commerce is recent global impact not
  obvious to everyone
• We (USA) live (almost) in entirely in an
  English-only environment
• We (USA) have a fairly homogenous popular culture
• Translation and Localization is still an
  afterthought for many domestic enterprises

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Change in the last 7 years

• In 2000, the three biggest countries by GDP were
  the U.S., Japan, and Germany.
• The next four were France, Italy, the U.K., and
  China.
• Seven years later China made it to the fourth
  slot.

Source On the Web, Some Countries Matter More
than Others by Common Sense Advisory
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Balance of Language/Financial Power is shifting

• Top 10 economies in 2007

Source On the Web, Some Countries Matter More
than Others by Common Sense Advisory
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Balance of Language/Financial Power is shifting -
cont

• Probable top 10 economies in 2050

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What if you wanted to expand the reach of your
web site?
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Quiz Which languages give you 76 of On-Line
Access Population?

• Question name the 10 languages, in correct
  order
• English
• French
• Italian
• German
• Spanish
• Japanese
• Chinese-Simplified
• Korean
• Russian
• Swedish
• Portuguese
• Chinese-Traditional

• ANSWER
• English
• Chinese-Simplified
• Japanese
• Spanish
• German
• Portuguese
• French
• Korean
• Italian
• Russian

Source On the Web, Some Countries Matter More
than Others by Common Sense Advisory
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Quiz How do you reach 88 of the most
economically active users?

• Question which 5 languages do you add to English
  to reach 88 of spending Internet users?
• Chinese-Simplified
• Japanese
• Spanish
• German
• Portuguese
• French
• Korean
• Italian
• Russian

• ANSWER
• Japanese
• German
• Spanish (incl. USA)
• French
• Italian
• FIGS-J

Source On the Web, Some Countries Matter More
than Others by Common Sense Advisory
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Domestic market forces

• Growth of Hispanic market

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Demographics Summary

• Nearly 50 of USA Non-English speaking households
  speak English less than very well
• Some metro areas have majority populations who do
  not speak English very well
• Downtown L.A. 8 out of 10 people from
  somewhere else
• Both the Hispanic and Asian-Pacific populations
  have increased over 50 in 10 years
• The Hispanic population is the largest
  Non-English speaking group in the US (60 of
  Mexican heritage)

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Hispanic market predominates in the US
non-English speaking space

• 41 of new jobs have gone to Hispanic workers
• 2.4M jobs since May 2005, nearly 1M to the
  Hispanic workers.
• Growth rate of the Hispanic market
• Growth rate of 7.7 per year
• three times the average US household value
• Currently nearly 700 Billion, 250 Billion from
  low income populations
• Projected at over 1 Trillion by 2010
• 2 million small and midsize Hispanic-owned U.S.
  businesses to grow to 8 million by 2010

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Markets you wont want to ignore

• CALIFORNIA
• 7th largest world economy
• Largest USA automotive market
• As goes California, so goes the nation

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As goes California

• Between 1990 and 2010, California's Hispanic
  population will double, and the state's Asian
  population will grow by two-thirds.
• The projected growth in the state's white
  (non-Hispanic) population is only 13 percent over
  the same period, so that by 2010
• More than half (54 percent) of California's
  population will be Hispanic, Asian, or Black.
• More than two-thirds of school-age children will
  be Hispanic, Asian, or Black.
• The population over 50 years old, however, will
  remain predominantly white (non-Hispanic.)

Source California Legislative Analysts Office
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Domestic Spanish is diverse
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Capitalizing on domestic Spanish

• Controlled English vendor experimented with 10 of
  the top FORD dealers in So. California
• Contracts and Leases were transformed with
  simplified/controlled English
• Contracts/Leases then translated into Latin
  American Spanish
• FORD leases increased 3.5 times for Spanish
  Speakers
• Note nearly all of the Spanish Speakers had some
  fluency in English

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Capitalizing, cont.

• P.s.
• Car leases increased 2x fold for English-only
  speakers!

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Challenges to Localization or why you need
professional help
A sign in a Swiss hotel Because of the
impropriety of entertaining guests of the
opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that
the lobby be used for this purpose.
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Formality

• Japanese
• ?? ???????????????????????????????????????????????
  ????

• English
• Greetings, we are glad to hear that things are
  going well for you. I would like to express my
  appreciation for your loyal patronage.

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Foreign Text Issues
Text expands when localized
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Cultural Issues
Lotus 1-2-3 was released in Japan without the
ability to create radar chartsa common way to
represent data graphically in Japan.
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Cultural Issues--continued

• Numerics
• Calendars, dates time
• Addresses and contact info
• Names
• Currency
• Sorting

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Example Calendars

• Arabic
• Arabic countries use both Gregorian (Western) and
  Hijri (Islamic) dates. Hijri date is the official
  date in Saudi Arabia, the largest Arabic market.
• Four different sets of month names are used in
  Arabic and applications need to provide for a
  user-selectable set of month names.
• Month names can be either Gregorian or Hijri
  months, and either the Latin or Arabic alphabet
  might be used to write them.

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Layout and direction issues

• BiDirectional languages (Arabic) require that
  columns in tables be displayed in reverse order

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Linguistic Issues
Word order changes in localized files.
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A picture is worth a thousand words

• Cultural Localization when text is not used
• Images may imply potent, even politically
  explosive issues in some cultures
• You cannot assume that an image innocuous to
  western eyes will be accepted overseas
• Following examples are from rejected icons that
  McDonalds had ENLASO culturally evaluate for
  global acceptance.

Creating a New Language for Nutrition McDonalds
Universal Icons for 109 Countries by Maxwell
Hoffmann
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Unexpected international reaction to simple icons
Bird Sanctuary or Slippery Road
Xmas Tree or Candle
Scary Alien
Marijuana
Death
Better Fiber Visual
Plant of Some sort
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These images are safe? Right?
Perceived Existing Interpretation
Unexpected Answer
Planned Use
Cyclone, hypnotism, voodoo, mental problems,
dizziness, danger
None
Calories
Danger, cyclones, Bad storms / omens
None
Calories
Female genitalia / fertility symbol, gambling,
road hazard
None
Sugar
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Graphics So Obvious There Couldnt Possibly Be an
Issue
Intended Interpretation
Unexpected Answer
Iron
Heavy
Calcium
Dog Food(potentially explosivein Muslim culture)
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What you can do to economize in Localization
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Websites
www.secondlife.com
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GUI
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Documentation