You may have heard many professionals say that if you want to take your business global, you need to get your products translated and localized. Now, this may stump you, because you always thought translation and localization is basically the same thing, so why would anyone use the two terms separately? Well, they are not. Both the terms are different and it is important to understand the differences between them because getting your work translated is not the only step you need to take in order to cater to a different market.

To help you understand the difference, here is an example of translation from one language to another. You can find hundreds of embarrassing examples of literal translation without localization.

Here’s a few of them:

The missing foot

Beans are stupid?

Be careful when falling down.

Literal translation can have hilarious effects as is obvious from the images above. What you see in the image above is translation. Yes, all translations do not result in funny and amusing material for the world to enjoy, but most translation wouldn’t make sense if they are not put in context to the people it is translated for. Another example can include the word “gift” in the English language. You don’t want to present a gift to anyone in Germany, since ‘gift’ means ‘poison’ in German. That’s not a nice gift to give to anyone, now is it? Now that you understand the process of translation, we will explain how localization differs from this process.

Localization is a part of translation yet is different from it in the sense that without localization, translation can be not only worthless but actually damaging. Localization is basically using a linguistic equivalent of the language used on the product and making it relevant for the users and audience of another country and not just literally translating everything. The process of localization contains far more details and the process may include changing the colour concepts, the icons, the graphic images and even phrases and idioms to meet cultural ideas and norms.

Apple Inc. provides a good example of why localization is important and that literal translation can lead to a risk of losing customers. The company released their marketing campaign for the MAC Computers in US featuring actors making fun of their competitors. When it came to releasing the computers in Japan, an examination of the country’s cultures and norms concluded that making fun of a competitor is considered to be ill manners and low class.

Therefore, Apple could not go ahead with the same ads in the Japan, for it would mean losing customers due to the image they would be portraying, so they hired actors from Japan, and remade the ads with the message that PCs are better for office use while Macs were more personal and ideal for everyday use. Thus the localization of the ad and not the literal translation of their campaign helped Apple land a huge number of customers in Japan.

Hence, localization is the key to success if you want to expand your products to another country and if you want to make sure you do not embarrass yourself anywhere you take your product.

Picture Credits: www.boredpanda.com