Why Localization?: Or... "You Mean Those People Don't Speak English?"

Why Localization? Or … “You mean Those People Don’t Speak English?” DOCTRAIN EAST ‘07 Maxwell Hoffmann Manager Consulting & Training ENLASO www.translate.com

About the Presenter

Graphic Artist -> Typesetter -> DTP -> Localization

Worked for variety of publishing solution vendors:

Expert on doc format and data migration

Former FrameMaker product marketing mgr

10 years in Localized publishing, production, and consulting

Conversant with issues unique to multilingual production

Trained over 1,000 people in past 25 years on variety of publishing solutions

Worked primarily with content creators and tech writers

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

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.

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.

Globalization is shrinking the world You are Here

We aren’t where we used to be

In September of this year, the Canadian dollar passed the US in value for the first time in 31 years!

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 world’s 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

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

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

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

Former Soviet Republics become viable markets

Now becoming common languages for Localization/Translation

Significant “Soviet Satellite” Languages:

Hungarian

Polish

Czech

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

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

The world has changed, but we haven’t

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

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

Balance of Language/Financial Power is shifting

Top 10 economies in 2007

Balance of Language/Financial Power is shifting - cont

Probable top 10 economies in 2050

What if you wanted to expand the reach of your web site?

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

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”

Domestic market forces

Growth of Hispanic market

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)

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

Markets you won’t want to ignore

CALIFORNIA

7 th largest world economy

Largest USA automotive market

As goes California, so goes the nation …

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 Analyst’s Office

Domestic Spanish is diverse

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

Capitalizing, cont.

P.s. –

Car leases increased 2x fold for English-only speakers!

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.

Formality

Japanese

拝啓　時下ますますご清祥のこととお慶び申し上げます。平素は、格別のご高配を賜りまして、厚くお礼申し上げます。

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.

Foreign Text Issues Text expands when localized

Cultural Issues Lotus 1-2-3 was released in Japan without the ability to create radar charts—a common way to represent data graphically in Japan.

Cultural Issues--continued

Numerics

Calendars, dates & time

Addresses and contact info

Names

Currency

Sorting

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.

Layout and direction issues

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

Linguistic Issues Word order changes in localized files.

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 McDonald’s had ENLASO culturally evaluate for global acceptance.

Creating a New Language for Nutrition: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries by Maxwell Hoffmann

Unexpected international reaction to simple icons Marijuana Death Scary Alien Bird Sanctuary or Slippery Road Xmas Tree or Candle Better Fiber Visual Plant of Some sort

These images are safe? Right? Perceived Existing Interpretation Unexpected Answer None Cyclone, hypnotism, voodoo, mental problems, dizziness, danger None Danger, cyclones, Bad storms / omens None Planned Use Calories Calories Sugar Female genitalia / fertility symbol, gambling, road hazard

Graphics So Obvious There Couldn’t Possibly Be an Issue Intended Interpretation Unexpected Answer Iron Heavy Calcium Dog Food (potentially explosive in Muslim culture)

What you can do to economize in Localization

Challenges with Graphics: Embedded graphics cost more in disc space and upload/download time Graphics that are “stapled” to page (float), not anchored, will disappear

Embedded captions, more $$$ Text w/in Graphics requires localization vendor to access text layers in original art, copy and paste localized text. More billable time.

Keyed captions, less $$$ Graphic callouts w/in table is part of main text flow: automatically extracted with main body text; view for linguist is more logical.

Text dependent Artwork: a major “No - No”