If you have ever been involved with a software or website translation project, pseudo-localization is a process you will be very familiar with. For those unfamiliar with the term, pseudo-localization is a form of QA testing to determine if your files are ready for translation. Quite simply, it's a trial run for the actual translation.

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What is Pseudo-
Localization?

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
If you have ever been
involved with a software or
website translation project,
pseudo-localization is a
process you will be very
familiar with.

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reserved.
http://blog.globalizationpartners.com/ 3
What is Pseudo-Localization?
For those unfamiliar with the term, pseudo-
localization is a form of QA testing to
determine if your files are ready for
translation. Quite simply, it's a trial run for the
actual translation.

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reserved.
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What is Pseudo-Localization?
Test, Fix, Translate
The correct way to begin any localization
project is to first invest time preparing your
files. This is where pseudo-localization
happens. The additional time you spend on
these series of tests will save you a lot of time
and money over the course of your
localization project.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
Pseudo-localization is the process of
running tests in your website or software
application to determinate if specific
language characters are displayed
properly. In addition to the main
purpose, you can check text expansion
and contraction in your pages or dialog
windows.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
This is a technical topic, so the best way to
explain this is by showing an example. I
revised files from a recently completed project
in order to have a real example of pseudo-
localization.
The English dialog window below shows that
the length of some text placeholders is limited,
this will cause some problems with large
strings of text.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
Image 1: original dialog is visible, but there is not
enough space for some text placeholders.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
First Test: Pseudo-localization
In the image below, I pseudo-localized the original content,
replacing the original text with foreign characters. This application
displays these characters without any problems, so I am one step
closer to confirming that there will not be any problems with
language characters at the end of the translation.
Image 2: pseudo-localized dialog, seems that everything is okay.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
Second Test: Text Expansion
Several languages expand during the translation process. This
means that if your original text length is 15 characters in the source
language, in a target language the length may be 25 characters.
Here are some common language metrics:
• French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew and Polish
text can expand between 15% and 30%.
• German and Dutch text can expand 35% or more.
• Chinese, Japanese or Korean text can contract 30% to 55%, but
some of these languages don't use spaces and that can also cause
text expansion.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
I added brackets to the original text in the image. This will help to
determinate if the string is truncated (cut short) or not.
Let's try to add some text expansion to the previous pseudo-localized
dialog window:
Image 3: truncated strings across the dialog window using minimum text expansion.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
As you can see, the dialog window was not properly prepared to
support text expansion, causing truncated strings and a final
dialog resizing task.
These types of issues are very common in software and website
translation projects, so a preliminary revision will save a lot of
time and money.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
Conclusion:
If you are planning to translate your software or website, a pseudo-
localization test is a MUST and the translation company needs to
recommend this step prior to starting the project.
Globalization Partners International (GPI) offers pseudo-localization
tests for free as part of the discovery phase for all website and
software localization related projects. GPI can also help your
company on dialog resizing and QA if you translated your software
internally.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
Translation and Localization Resources
You may gain further insights into global e-business, global SEO and website
translation and country-specific cultural facts and related topics by reviewing some
previous blogs written by GPI:
Website Translation Tips and Best Practices by Country Series
Language Translation Resources
Translation Portal and Localization Tools
10 Tips for Website Localization
Global SEO: 4 Top Factors
Social Media Localization
Doing Business via the WWW in China
Creating Culturally Customized Content for Website Translation
Please feel free to contact GPI at info@globalizationpartners.com with any questions
about our language and technology services. Also let us know if you have any
interesting blog topics you would like us to cover in our future blogs. You may request
a complimentary Translation Quote for your projects as well.

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What is Pseudo-Localization?
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