Why Localization? Or … “You mean Those People Don’t Speak English?”

DOCTRAIN EAST ‘07Maxwell HoffmannManager Consulting & TrainingENLASO 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 OthersQuantifying 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 WebsitesBy Donald DePalma, Benjamin Sargent and Renato BenianattoCommon 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

Source: “On the Web, Some Countries Matter More than Others” by Common Sense Advisory

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

• ANSWER1. English2. Chinese-Simplified3. Japanese4. Spanish5. German6. Portuguese7. French8. Korean9. Italian10.Russian

Source: “On the Web, Some Countries Matter More than Others” by Common Sense Advisory

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?1. Chinese-Simplified2. Japanese3. Spanish4. German5. Portuguese6. French7. Korean8. Italian9. Russian

• ANSWER1. Japanese 2. German3. Spanish (incl. USA)4. French5. Italian

“FIGS-J”

Source: “On the Web, Some Countries Matter More than Others” by Common Sense Advisory

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• 7th 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 IssuesWord 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 Sanctuaryor

Slippery Road

Xmas Treeor

Candle

Better Fiber Visual

Plant ofSome sort

These images are safe? Right?

PerceivedExisting

InterpretationUnexpected

Answer

NoneCyclone, hypnotism, voodoo, mental problems, dizziness,

danger

NoneDanger, cyclones,

Bad storms / omens

None

PlannedUse

Calories

Calories

SugarFemale genitalia / fertility symbol, gambling, road

hazard

Intended Interpretation

UnexpectedAnswer

Iron Heavy

Calcium Dog Food(potentially explosivein Muslim culture)

Graphics So Obvious There Couldn’t Possibly Be an Issue

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”

• Product name supposed to fit w/in blue artwork• Have to manually resize all instances of

such artwork• Word order can change in language (e.g

“Interna” should be w/in the blue artwork)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

How “Text/Art” can add $$$

77 instances of artwork dependent on text

x 5 minutes edit/fix/proof

x 6 languages===========

= 38.5 extra billable hours

xx xxxx xxxx xxxx xx

xx xxxx xxxx xxxx xx

xx xxxx xx

xx xxxx xx

xx xxxx xx

English version lacks “expansion” depth

No expansion room

No expansion room

33%

Revised template = expansion space reserved for target languages

Plan common column width in USA source files for A4 paper

• US Eng doc size = 8.5 in by 11 in

• A4 Euro doc size = 8.268 in by 11.693 in– Common text column

width between templates avoids manually resizing tables and graphics

US English A4 size

7.5 " col 6.0 " col

Source file translated file

This table wouldhave to be resized

About ENLASO

Best Resources Can Include

• Desktop Publishers• Engineers• Iconographers• Labeling Experts• Process Analysts• Internationalization

Engineers• Customer Satisfaction

experts

Core Services

• Aggregate the best resources• Manage risk

SchedulePriceQuality

• Introduce efficiencies• Guarantee quality

Industry Leadership

•XML Internationalization and Localization written by ENLASO Engineer Yves Savourel

•Available on Amazon.com

•Considered to be the defining book on XML Internationalization and Localization

Websiteswww.secondlife.comwww.secondlife.com

GUI

Documentation

Consulting & Training Services

• Pre-flight software testing for Internationalization• Help determine best file format for document

resources• Migration of high volume projects from Word to

XML or FrameMaker• Structured FrameMaker development• Localized Template development• Project Manager training

Recommended Resources

• Common Sense Advisory:http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/

• ENLASO tech doc resources:www.translate.com/framemaker

• GALA or LISA membership

Contact Information

• Maxwell HoffmannManager of Consulting & Trainingmhoffmann@translate.com(805) 494-9571 work phone