I created the following infographics based on my localization best practices post. If the original article felt a little lengthy, this shorter and more visual version can serve as a quick reference. You can also use it as a translation/localization checklist.
[agencies]
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If you have ever been advertising your translation services online or, even worse, if you are working for a translation agency, the above e-mail will probably feel familiar.
Even the most advanced spam filters won’t quite save us from our daily round of cheesy sales pitches, so let’s just laugh about it. Why would we complain anyway? I feel privileged to live in a world so perfect that hundreds of agencies are both the best and the cheapest ones.
“Thanks to this tool, we were able to fire our marketing interns and save a bit of cash. Their templates didn’t work anyway. Not that we are getting any more jobs now, but at least we are failing for free” TransWhatever
“We are using the generator to train our sales people, and the results are amazing. We are getting so many replies from our prospects. There’s a small bug though, as those replies only contain the word ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’. Hopefully you’ll be able to fix that soon!” Cheaplations
January was another busy month in the game localization industry, and with the LocJAM and LocWorld coming in the next couple of months, the trend shouldn’t be fading anytime soon.
On a personal level, I had the honor to join the IGDA Localization SIG committee early last month. In this new role, I will do my best to encourage positive and constructive discussion about our profession, while supporting the initiatives of my fellow co-chairs.
Anyway, enough about me for now, here are the links you were all waiting for:
How much people, time and money should QA take? – Very useful tips, especially for inexperienced small/indie developers that need to plan for QA costs
18 precious localization tips for game developers, via Smartling and Loek van Kooten: A solid list from a well-respected member of our industry. If you find it useful, I can only invite you to visit the website of the man behind it.
How to prepare a game for localization? – Or when developers decide to discuss the issue themselves. The suggested posts on the right also contain a number interesting localization-related discussions
GREE on cultural localization – Social game and AAA titles have different needs when it comes to localization, and this talk perfectly illustrates that
People in games: audio lead Steffen stark on the audio aspect of game localization – It’s not all about internationalization and text translation, audio localization is a discipline of its own right, and this fascinating interview allows us to take a peek at what’s happening behind the scenes
Stop Localizing Or We Will Sue – Fan translations have always been in a grey area -illegal strictly speaking, yet tolerated by some-, here is in example of a project that ended before it even had the chance to see the light of the day
How Localization Works in Games: Yo-Kai Watch – Thoughts on what was a great localization challenge, as Yo-Kai Watch is closely tied up to Japanese folklore. People interested in the license itself may want to take a look at the work of the late Shigeru Mizuki.
Localization More Like Culturalization – A rare chance to get a look at culturalization through this illustrated case study
Localization and Ace Attorney – A little old, but a very interesting article on Ace Attorney’s localization, by Capcom’s (awesome) Janet Hsu
Localization Issues: Why Do Game Translators Make Mistakes? – This presentation from a past GDC gave me the inspiration for this article
How to Localize your Software, App or Game : 7 Best Practices – An old article of mine, freshly updated with new tips
Curious about what hardware and software translators use? Here is my work configuration, The Setup-style.
My name is Anthony Teixeira. I am a professional French translator and proofreader working from both English and Japanese. Most of the texts I translated are related to IT, software or video games, although I am also comfortable with more general topics.
On the side, I blog about localization best practices and tips for aspiring translators.
I have 3 laptops that I use at different times. All of them are running Windows 10. Nothing against Mac and Linux – I actually used to work on a Mac when I was still a dev, but many of the tools I need are only available on Windows and the idea of constantly working in a virtual environment isn’t too exciting!
In terms of peripherals, I back up the most important files and software on an external 1TB HDD and a bunch of memory sticks. I also have a Canon printer/scanner for all the paperwork.
As a former IT guy, I love working with all sorts of tools and tweaking my own.
I guess that’s about it for the software I need to keep my translation and proofreading running!
For the most part I’m pretty happy with my current setup. In a perfect world, I would have a bigger screen and a good mechanical keyboard. All the software I need for my work would run on Linux. And I could carry my ideal hardware around freely. But I guess I’ll need to get in touch with Capsule Corp to make that happen!
Besides that, a more elaborate home office wouldn’t be a luxury. This is actually one of my mid-term projects, having a professional-looking office with ample space to keep everything clean and organized.
In terms of business, it would be interesting for me to be located closer to a big city, without losing the advantages of countryside life.
Are you a translator too? I’d love to know about your favorite tools. So many good ones out there and so little time to try them all!
Have you ever wondered what is the difference between globalization and internationalization? Or translation and localization?
I have to confess that when I started as an in-house translator, I was somehow convinced that Localization, Internationalization and Globalization were essentially pompous variations of the word “Translation”. After all, don’t these words all sound the same? Take a product and make it ready for new markets, locally, internationally, globally or whatever.
The truth, of course, is that Translation, Localization, Internationalization and Globalization have clear, distinct meanings. Explaining the difference between each these terms at once can be confusing. Fortunately, I stumbled upon this excellent post from Adobe, the company behind for Acrobat Reader, Photoshop and a bunch of dysfunctional browser plugins. The post in question contains the following diagram, which perfectly sums up the relationship between the respective concepts:
Once you get that image in your mind, it becomes much easier to understand the full definition for each element. Here again, I will be quoting Adobe’s post with a bit of reorganization and editing for the sake of readability:
Translation (T9N) is simply converting the meaning of text in one language into another. In a software product, the contents translated are user interface, documentation, packaging and marketing collaterals.
Localization (L10N) is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local “look-and-feel”. Translating the product’s user interface is just one step of the localization process. Resizing dialogs, buttons and palette tabs to accommodate longer translated strings is also part of localization. It also includes the production of localized resources, such as graphic texts, sound files and possibly other aspects of your software/game to avoid scandals in territories with different standards.
Internationalization (commonly abbreviated as I18n) 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 date formats…) without the need for redesign. Internationalization, sometimes referred to as world-readiness, can be divided into two sets of activities: enablement and localizability. A typical example would be keeping all localizable resources (texts, images, audio files, etc.) in separate files and folders.
Globalization (G11N) refers to a broad range of engineering and business development processes necessary to prepare and launch products and company activities globally. The globalization engineering activities are composed of internationalization and localization while the business development activities focus on product management, financial, marketing and legal aspects. In short, it is all about putting your localized product out there, with all the practical questions it raises.
A new column for a new year! Everybody seems to be sharing great information about game localization these days, and it can be tough to keep track of everything. With this new series of monthly link roundups, you now have everything in one place to catch up with industry developments.
Most of the links shared here were posted on the IGDA Localization SIG Facebook group, which I recommend you to follow for fresh information. Enjoy!
Recommandations for subtitles in videogames : Good practices from Ian Hamilton on a topic too rarely discussed.
The long, incredibly tortuous, and fascinating process of creating a Chinese font: One more proof that localization is more than mere translation. If you are still wondering why the process can be expensive…
From Japan, With Changes: The Endless Debate Over Video Game ‘Censorship’: A topic that typically triggers passionate discussions. Where do we draw the line, and what are the duties of a translator?
Mini interview: how to break into the localization industry and the challenges of today and tomorrow with Carme Mangiron Hevia, teacher at Barcelona University and former Square translator.
Getting JRPGs Out In English Is Harder Than You Think: Another Kotaku article with an interesting case study offered by XSEED’s Brittany Avery
Speaking of XSEED, here is another gem from their blog: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Localization Blog #1
Win-Win Project: Democratizing access to translation – Although the crowdfunding campaign didn’t hit its target, the concept itself remains promising. If we can crowdfund localization AND have it done by professionals, then indeed everybody wins (except the middleman?)
Useful links for translators: Not specifically aimed at game translators, but valuable resources for anybody in the industry
Call for papers: game localization round table: The next LocWorld will take place in Tokyo in April, will a pre-conference day dedicated to game localization. The registration for the main conference is now open.
Life can be unfair for game translators. You may come up with a fantastic translation for a 100k+ words adventure game, but a single typo or mistranslation will get you trashed on game forums worldwide. One may however wonder why even the best translators can make absurd mistakes and why everybody down the localization chain fails to notice them.
I decided to write this article after reading Sony’s presentation about the future of localization at GDC 2014. In particular, I liked the following series of witty Q&As.
● Why do we need to test localized assets?
– Give us the assets earlier and in one batch and it’ll
need less testing
● Why don’t the translators get it right first time?
– Give us the assets earlier and in one batch and it’ll
need less re-work
● Why is localization testing so expensive?
– Give us the assets earlier and in one batch and it’ll
be cheaper
Further into the presentation, we are given a series of pie charts about localization issue distribution: we first learn that for the games covered (a number of SCE titles, pre-testing), 56% of localization issues were actually implementation problems rather than something wrong on the translator’s side.
As for translation quality issues themselves, less than half of them were translator mistakes. The majority of localization quality issues were caused by lack of context, errors in source strings and file issues.
Of course, this is a small study on a limited number of games by a single editor. But it gives you an idea of what can go wrong during localization.
Game translators will usually send query sheets to their clients for any context issues. But sometimes it just isn’t enough. Sometimes we don’t receive answers by delivery time and have to go with our best guesses. At other times the text’s context can be misleading and trick us into thinking we got it when we haven’t. That’s why game debugging is not simply a matter of functional testing. We do need to see the localized strings in the game itself to be sure they make sense.
That type of issue is actually similar to the previous one in some ways. Sometimes source text errors are pretty obvious (typos, missing words, etc.) and we can report and fix them as we go on with translation. Sometimes they are more subtle (wrong skill/object name displayed for example) and only become apparent once you see the game in action, if you are very attentive to what’s going on. That is if you manage to maintain an absolutely perfect concentration after 50 hours testing the same game.
Breaking news: We, translators, are human beings! As such, we have our failures and make the odd mistake, may that be a mistranslation or an awful typo. It doesn’t matter how many times you proofread your own text, it just happens every now and then.
Of course game testers are here as a backup, and while they do an excellent job overall (Sony indicates they are able to fix 98% of localization issues in the above-mentioned presentation), they will occasionally miss a bug or two. Remember, they’re human too. And it’s hard to blame them when they spend whole days scrutinizing texts, looking for errors. I mean, anybody would lose their concentration at some point if they had to talk 3 times to every single NPC in a RPG.
If you are new to Android app localization, you may not be sure where to get started. Here are a few useful resources that should get you on the right track.
Besides these practical tutorials for Android systems, you should remember that localization is a process that should ideally begin at the design stage of app development. You will find more general localization best practices here.
You can also contact me anytime for all your French localization needs!
If you are new to iPhone/iPad app localization, you may not be sure where to get started. Here are a few useful resources that should get you on the right track.
Besides these practical tutorials for iOS platforms, you should remember that localization is a process that should ideally begin at the design stage of app development. You will find more general localization best practices here.
You can also contact me anytime for all your French localization needs!
Localization is one of the easiest ways to increase your app or game sales and downloads on the App Store or Google Play. Indeed, more and more surveys and case studies show that localizing your app in one or more languages is one of the most cost-efficient methods to increase downloads and purchases. Here are a few references to support the claim.
To get started, you can contact me anytime for all your French localization needs!
A few quotes taken from localization case studies: