Download ppt - Introduction to Localization Localization World Conference Berlin 2009 Richard Sikes, Angelika Zerfass, Daniel Goldschmidt

Introduction to Localization

Localization World Conference Berlin 2009

Richard Sikes, Angelika Zerfass, Daniel Goldschmidt

Agenda

• Introduction – the problem, problem definition

• Tools

• Localization Process 101

Agenda

Localization, internationalization, Globalization, translation, regionalization… too many “ation” terms…

During the next three sessions we will make sense of them for you

Agenda

Globalizationto understand requirements (for going global)

Internationalizationto enable products to meet requirements

Localizationto fulfill requirements

The problem

The Problem

• A known company developed a powerful product for CRM (Customer Relationship Management System)

• The first and main market was, as usual, the USA• The board decided that it is time to penetrate new markets: Europe, Far-

East, Middle East

The R&D department claimed – no problem, we are fully UNICODE…let’s go!

The Problem

Ouch…

The Problem#1 – String Externalization

• All the GUI (graphical user interface) had to be translated to the target languages

• But lots of strings were hard-coded (written directly into the code)

The Problem#2 - Sorting

• After translating the GUI, the first installation took place in Spain• Some customers were unhappy: Many indexes and lexical orders

were corrupted• In Traditional Spanish, the letters “CH “ and “LL” have their own

positions in the sort order• A, B, C, CH, D…K, L, LL, M, … etc.

– Curioso– Chalina– Luz– Llama

The Problem

The second installation in Germany had three problems:– The search function didn’t work– The financial and numerical functions were buggy– Many strings were cutoff in the GUI

The Problem#3 –Collation

• Combining characters:Ü ( Latin Small letter U with diaeresis 0x00DC)U¨ (Latin Small letter U 0x0055, Combining diaeresis 0x0308)

ç (Latin Small letter with Cedilla 0x00E7) c ̧� (Latin Small letter C 0x0063, Combining Cedilla 0x0327)

• fi=fi• Case sensitive/insensitive• Accent sensitive/insensitive• Upper case ß (Latin Small letter Sharp S)= SS

The Problem#4 – Numerical format

• 4.500 (UK) ≠ 4.500 (DE)• 4,500 (UK) = 4.500 (DE)• 4.500 (UK) = 4,500 (DE)

The Problem#5 - Length

• German strings are usually longer than in most languages• English: Redo• German: Wiederherstellen• English: Skip• German: Zeilensprung

The Problem#6 – Date Format

• The client from Spain called after 2 months; the license had expired earlier then expected!

Does 01/07/2006 mean: “July, first 2006”Or“January, seventh 2006”?

The Problem#6 – Date Format, Calendars

• The first day of the week is Monday... or Sunday (weekend)• Year length• Week numbers (ISO? Other?)• Last Monday

The Problem#7 - Encoding

The installation in Russia was catastrophic: • All imported data from the legacy systems was full of question marks.• All data inserted by the user couldn’t be retrieved from the database

• This was the first installation using a non “Western European” encoding!

The Problem#8 - Segmentation

• In Japan the problem even got worse:the parsers stopped working.

• In Japanese, there are no white spaces in-between words. The tokenizers didn’t work properly

Tokenization is the process of demarcating and possibly classifying sections of a string of input characters.

The Problem#9 – Politics

The Hebrew website had some minor issues:When localizing a website for Israel, which map shall we use:

• The one with Judea and Samaria • The one with the Palestinian Authority• The one without the occupied territories

“Judea and Samaria” vs. “occupied territories”

The Problem #10 – Grammar

• Singular? Plural?• Male, female, something else?

• How to translate concatenated strings?

The Problem #10 – Grammar

String concatenation example:

The Winfax Installer has found %s.• Case

– Microsoft• S=“Outlook”

– Netscape• S=“Netscape Mail”

– Notes• S=“Notes Email”

– Else• that you have no email provider.

The Problem #11 – Graphics & Symbols

The OK gesture:• English-speaking: OK• France: zero, nothing, worthless• Mediterranean: a rude sign• Japan: money• Brazil & Germany: vulgar, obscene gesture

The Problemmore issues

• Color scheme• Time zone• Paper sizes (A4 vs. Letter)• Phone numbers• Address format• Temperature• Measurements

Culture is Everywhere

“If I'm selling to you, I speak your language.

If I'm buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen (then you must speak German)”

Willy Brandt

Problem Definition

Globalization• Adaptation of marketing strategies to regional requirements of all kinds.Internationalization• Engineering of a product to enable efficient adaptation of that product to

local requirements.Localization• Localization is the process of adapting a (software) product and

accompanying materials to suit a target-market locale.

Terms

Terms

Locale• A locale is a geographic region defined by a combination of language and

cultural norms. “Locale” is not to be confused with “language.”For example fr-FR, fr-CA, fr-CH. Fully supporting locales requires:– Globalization – to understand requirements– Internationalization – to enable products to meet requirements– Localization – to fulfill requirements

GLOBALIZATIONExpansion of marketing strategies to

address regional requirements of all kinds

INTERNATIONALIZATION Engineering of a product to enable

efficient adaptation to local requirements

LOCALIZATIONAdapting software and

accompanying materials to suit target-market locales

GERMANGERMAN

FRENCH

GERMAN

FRENCH

CHINESE

GERMAN

FRENCH

CHINESE

JAPANESE

GLOBALIZATIONExpansion of marketing strategies to

address regional requirements of all kinds

INTERNATIONALIZATION Engineering of a product to enable

efficient adaptation to local requirements

GERMAN

FRENCH

CHINESE

JAPANESE

PORTUGUESE

Globalization Internationalization

Localization

Costs that are generated in one place become visible in another.

GlobalizationExpansion of marketing strategies to address regional requirements of all kinds

Globalization

IMPLICATIONS:• International market research• Prioritize local markets through business case analysis• Development of separate business cases for emerging markets• Product planning with serving of diverse markets in mind• Tracking of revenues by locale• Extensive liaison with foreign sales offices and resources

Globalization is a Globalization is a mind setmind set as much as a task set. as much as a task set.

Internationalization

Engineering of a product to enable efficient adaptation to local requirements


IMPLICATIONS:• Removal of cultural assumptions (such as date formats)• Implementation of support for global norms (such as language character sets

or accounting procedures).

Internationalization is an Internationalization is an expansionexpansion of product capability to be local-generic. of product capability to be local-generic.

Localization

The process of adapting software and accompanying materials to suit a target-market locale with the goal of making the product "transparent" to that locale, so that native users would interact with it as if it were developed there and for that locale alone.

LocalizationIMPLICATIONS:

• Language and character set support• Support for various format settings such as decimal delimitation, time/date

display, and other such norms.• Conformance with locale-specific technical norms.

Localization imposes Localization imposes constraintsconstraints on software’s regional applicability. on software’s regional applicability.

Localization

• SuccessProduct appears to be developed in the target market

• Failure:We can easily notice that the program was adapted

(Please read the instructions on the package of hygiene products in the bathroom…)

Internationalizing the UI

The Other Side of the Fence

What Localization Managers Often Face Internally

• Lack of Understanding re Localization Issues and Processes• Poorly Internationalized Software• Underestimation of the “Ripple Effect” Caused by Changes• Inadequate Version Control• Core Project Slippage• Marketing Managers Who Can’t Plan Ahead• Changing Priorities• Inadequate International Quality Assurance• FUD About Localization

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

• Building sentences out of two or more separate parts using replaceable string variables.

• Changes in situation will cause the calling string to call a different sub-string. This can lead to various types of problems:– Linguistic logic hiccoughs– The translator can’t determine what or where the sub-

strings are• Programmers LOVE concatenation!

Concatenation – Definition

Concatenation – ExampleThe Winfax Installer has found %s.• Case

– Microsoft• S=“Outlook”

– Netscape• S=“Netscape Mail”

– Notes• S=“Notes Email”

– Else• that you have no email provider.

Concatenation – Excel exampleTITLE ACTIONThere is a problem with the failure storage file. @504@

There is a problem with the catheter operational parameters file.

@504@

ALIASES504 Report the error to Customer Service.

505 Replace the catheter.

506 Click Ok to continue.

507 Disconnect both ends of the @510@ and reconnect them.

508 Disconnect both ends of the @511@ and reconnect them.

509 Continue the procedure. If the problem persists, shut down the system and restart it. If there is still a problem, @504@

Concatenation String probably not found by translator or hard coded.

sub print_form { my ($content); my ($template,$HTML) = @_; open (FILE, "<$template") or die "Couldn't open $template: $!\n"; while (<FILE>) {

s/{{(.*?)}}/$HTML->{$1}/g;$content .= $_;

} close FILE; print $content;}

sub error_out { my (%HTML); $HTML{CGI} = $cgi; $HTML{ERROR} = shift; print_form("$path_templates/error.html",\%HTML);}

CGI code snippet in PERL

CGI code snippet in PERLsub print_form { my ($content); my ($template,$HTML) = @_; open (FILE, "<$template") or die "Couldn't open $template: $!\n"; while (<FILE>) {

s/{{(.*?)}}/$HTML->{$1}/g;$content .= $_;

} close FILE; print $content;}

sub error_out { my (%HTML); $HTML{CGI} = $cgi; $HTML{ERROR} = shift; print_form("$path_templates/error.html",\%HTML);}

Introduction to LocalizationTools and Evaluation


Angelika Zerfass, Richard Sikes, Daniel Goldschmidt

Editor of TM tool

Translation Memory Tool

Targetlanguagefiles

Sourcelanguagefiles

Alignment

Possible file preparation

Term base / term list

TerminologyExtraction

Software Localization Tool

Creation of target language fileDTP

possible text extraction file conversion

Project Management / Workflow Management

Self-developed

tool

Macros

Word counttool

QA tool

API


• A tool to test the localizability of software– Pseudo Translation

• A tool to translate text in software applications– GUI (graphical user interface)

• Menus, Dialogs– Error messages, system messages

• A tool to adapt the GUI to the translation• Resizing dialog boxes• Flipping contents of dialog boxes for right-to-left languages• Adaptation of icons, graphics

Navigation

Dialog view

Translation list

Translation Memory Tool– A system (most often a database) that stores source

sentence plus translation as a pair, a so-called „segment pair“

– During translation the translation memory compares the segment to be translated with the segments in the database.

– If a match is found (same or similar segment), the translation is offered as a suggestion

– The translator decides if the translation can be accepted or has to be changed.

– The TM system does NOT translate by itself, it is no machine translation system!


The 4-mm tip electrode of the steerable 7 F cryoablation catheter is provided with the refrigerant halocarbon (Freon ®) by a double lumen in the catheter shaft.

La pointe de 4 mm du cathéter de cryoablation (d'un calibre de 7 F) est alimentée en réfrigérant (protoxide d'azote) par un double conduit situé dans la tige du cathéter.

The 6-mm tip electrode of the steerable 7 F cryoablation catheter is provided with the refrigerant nitrogen oxide (N2O) by a double lumen in the catheter shaft.

La pointe de 4 mm du cathéter de cryoablation (d'un calibre de 7 F) est alimentée en réfrigérant (protoxide d'azote) par un double conduit situé dans la tige du cathéter.

SOURCE TARGETORIGINAL

VERSION

NEW

VERSION

SDL Trados Workbench

and TagEditor

Terminology window

TM window

Translation fieldsin Word

MemoQ

Sentence and terminology matches

Source and target language columns for translation

Localization Processes

Pseudo translation


Export ofTerminology

Export of segment pairs for TM

Import into TM

Import into term base

Translation of Online-help, readme files,

manuals, web pages, packaging...

Translation ofsoftware

Extract translatablesegments

File preparation


Terminology Management• Components of TM tools or stand-alone solutions• Connect to the TM systems and localization tools

during translation• Manage additional information like explanations,

definitions, classifications and graphics• Ensure the consistent use of terms over the

whole project through term checks• Term extraction (monolingual and bilingual)

Term base

Term Extraction

• Concordance tools– Extraction all words and word combinations up to x words

from a monolingual document

• Statistical extraction– Extracting the most frequent terms from monolingual or

bilingual sources

• Linguistic extraction– Extracting by rules and with the help of language analysis

(e.g. all noun phrases up to 4 words)

Term Extraction

Alignment

• Old source and target language documents are read into the alignment component of the TM tool

• The tool segments the files and tries to connect the segments that belong together, thus creating segment pairs

• A translator checks the alignment• Results are imported into a TM system for reuse with

new translations

Example: Déjà Vu

Project Management and Workflow Tools

• Project Creation in TM tool– packaging of project files

• Workflow Tool– Automation of processes (file conversion, pre-translation,

packaging, sending out package to assigned translator…)

• Project Management Tools– Offers and invoicing– Data on customers and vendors

TM - MT

• Interactive translation

– interactive process

– almost all language pairs possible

– creation of a repository

– Recycling of translations independent of the format of the source document

• Machine translation

– fully automated process

– only works for the language pair the system was created for

– text is usually pre-edited and or post-edited

– good systems are relatively costly

– very fast

How do you evaluate which tool is right for you?

Test the tool…

• Get a demo from the vendor with your own files• Get a testing license (usually 4 weeks)• Run a pilot project• Discuss useful features with users of the tool

– Translators, project managers of service providers, developers

• Create a test matrix and run a small project

What to evaluate

• General– Vendor company, number of developers, user

base, responsiveness…• By requirement

– List what the tool should be able to do• By feature

– Test the existing features for importance and performance

Coffee Break – 15 Minutes

Introduction to LocalizationLocalization Process 101


Angelika Zerfass, Richard Sikes, Daniel Goldschmidt

Localization - Recap


The i18n and l10n problem is a mixture of:• Technical Issues• Cultural Issues• Political Issues• Language / Linguistic Issues• Esthetical Issues


The 3 layers approach:• Transportation• Application• Display


Layer 1 – Transportation (“handle with care” sticker)

moving data from A to BUsually not locale dependant


Layer 2 – Application

doing something with the data (e.g. sorting, searching casing, date/time format etc.)usually locale dependant


Layer 3 – Display

Presentation layerLocalization readiness (resources externalization) usually locale dependant

Localization – RecapInternationalized Software Architecture

MIDDLE TIER

CLIENTTIER

PRESENTATIONLAYER

BUSINESSLOGIC

DATATIER

DBMS

Tier 1 Tier 2a Tier 2b Tier 3

Localization vs. Internationalization

• Internationalization -> Generalization

• Localization -> Customization


Globalization Internationalization= +


LocalizationEnglish

LocalizationChinese

LocalizationFrench

LocalizationHebrew

N X Localization


• Internationalization is an essential process for preparing the product for localization

• The deliverables of the i18n process are two:– Generic version of the application– Software components of the Localization Kit


• You don’t need to actually read and write 22 languages• i18n is software engineering, not a linguistic process

– There are cross-over concepts, however, such as:• Allowing sufficient white space for language growth in documentation• Not hard-coding page references in books• Planning website architecture to support multilingual content and navigation

• i10n is mainly project management!

The Process

Who’s involved?

• Content providers (Editors, technical writers, R&D teams etc.)• Localization project managers (on publisher side, on vendor side)• Localization engineers (on publisher side or vendor side)• Translators (In house, freelance, Single Language Vendor, sub contractors)• Reviewers (In house, freelance, Single Language Vendor, sub contractors, regional office

employees)• Quality Assurance specialists (on publisher side, on vendor side)• Finance personnel• Program managers• Product marketing managers• Webmasters

A short To-Do list

• Researching and gathering components to be localized• Preparing the content (text segmentation, resource extraction etc.)• Pseudo localization and proactive i18n QA on core code• Leveraging against existing TMs• Effort estimation, costing• Management Approval• Work assignment

• Translation and localization • Proof reading / Editing / Reviewing• Testing, if applicable

• TM updates, maintenance of linguistic assets• Delivery• Billing

The Traditional Process

Translating

Content Repository

Leveraging

Effort assessment

Reviewing

UpdatingLinguisticsassets

Linguisticsassets:

TMsTerms

Glossaries

Preparing

Packaging and delivery

Contentproviders

Contentproviders

Preparation

Preparation

• Research and collect all relevant components - be sure to have everything you need

• Create LBOM (localization bill of materials)• Prepare the content (text segmentation, resource extraction etc.) using

the appropriate tools.

Preparation

• Run a pseudo-localization to test localization readiness • Check:

– Externalization of strings– Adaptation of the GUI (length, date, time, currency etc.)– Handling of string concatenations– Software functionality– Data entry, transfer, persistence, and redisplay– and…

Preparation

• Prepare glossary – add new terms/update changed terms• If you don’t have a glossary – prepare one, send it for translation and

approve it BEFORE work starts• If you as a client own the TM – provide vendor with most recent version• If your vendor owns the TM – be sure the last (clean) version is being used

(and also try to change your contract so that you get ownership of the TM)

Preparation

Prepare a “Localization Kit”:A Localization Kit contains everything that anyone who touchesthe project needs to know in order to do their work.

Localization Kit includes:• Product:

– Text strings– Menus– Dialogs– Shortcut keys– Images– Functional l10n components (tax rules)– Documentation and OLH files– …

• Glossaries• TMs• Localization Guidelines and Expectations

Preparation

• Leverage the content against your TMs• Get comparative quotes and time estimation• Obtain information regarding resource arability

Preparation: The Vendor

• The vendor is your best friend!

• However, this friend sells words (for translation)!

Preparation: The VendorWhat to consider:• Rate: 25-30 $cent/word • Pace: 1500 words/dayPrice should include:• Translation• Editing• Proof readingNot included:• Project management• QA cost• DTPConsider training the vendor’s translators and the proof readers: it will give

them insight into the product


Be sure to establish the following:• Processes• Escalation process• Location of translators • Single focal point• Localization material• Deliverable• TM ownership• What are you paying for• Bug fixing responsibility• Service Level Agreement (SLA)


Be sure to determine what you are paying for:• Price per word• Discount for repetitions• Word counting in source language or target language?• QA?• Bug fixing?

Translation

Translation

Basic premises:

• Translation is expensiveExample:– 1 million words = $250,000 per language– A 10 languages localization project easily could incur cost of $2.5M

• Glossaries are required• Translation memories are required

Context in Translation

Translators need to know what to translate and what not to translate(tags, code etc.) Expose only translatable content to them – don’t runthe risk of having your code broken

Translators need to know the context:

•Surrounding text, dialog etc.•i.e. “display” German: anzeigen (to display)

German: Anzeige (a display)

Testing / QA

Testing / QA

5 types of testing:

• Before localization– i18n testing– l10n readiness testing (pseudo localization)

• After localization– Cosmetic testing– Linguistic testing– Functional testing

Testing / QA

Effort Estimations:• i18n QA: the same timeframe as the original acceptance tests• Pseudo localization: the same timeframe as the original acceptance tests• Cosmetic/ linguistic – one pass on all dialogs/ screens/ menus etc. Usually

a matter of days.• Functional testing - the same timeframe as the original full test cycle of

the original product

Testing / QA

i18n testing:• Is the software really locale independent• Does your software know how to handle data in different languages

(double-byte enabled?)

Testing / QA

Cosmetic Testing:• Check to see if the UI is broken• Dialogs, buttons, menus etc. – have they been properly localized• Chinese words are shorter, but the characters are higher!• French words lengths…

Testing / QA

Linguistic testing:• Does the translation make sense in the context?• Edite vs. Edition • Share vs. Shares

Testing / QA

Functional testing:• Full acceptance test of the product in target language• Usually not done due to cost and time

Testing / QA

In country reviewing:• Resources in or from the country/market, who know the target market

and target language to check if localization makes sense

Document Quality Control

• Document QC is another kind of Quality Control, and is just as important (sometimes).

• Issues to watch for:– Linguistic– Technical– Layout

• Pagination• Screenshots and surrounding text in sync• Cross-references and hyperlinks• Conditional text

Project Wrap

• TM update• Delivery• Invoice Management• Post-mortem

Planning Tips

Planning Tips• Kick off meeting

– Touch on a all aspects of project, size, timeline, number of languages etc.

• Analysis of source meeting– Outline potential L10n/I18n issues with source code

• Scheduling and budgeting– Based on size, timeline, number of languages etc. schedule

resources, quotes,

• Terminology setup– Create glossary leveraging existing glossaries, adding additional

terminology by using tools such as SDL Trados TermExtract.

• Preparation of source Material• and…..

• Translation of Software– Translation, editing and proof-reading (TEP) of software

• Translation of documentation– Translation, editing and proof-reading (TEP) of documentation

• Testing the Software– Testing of software for functional, linguistic and cosmetic defects

• Screen Capture– Capture screenshots for documentation, help files

• DTP– Prepare the hard copy of the documents

Planning Tips

• Start planning from the end: focus on the release date• Make sure that you work within a realistic timeframe – allow extra time,

in case things go wrong (buffers, slippage, holidays)• Check the required time for QA• Estimate number of words, make sure what your are paying for

(source/target) • Rule of thumb:

Number of words / 2000 = number of translator days for translation– Software = slower– Flowing documentation ~ faster– Diminishing returns as more translators added

Planning Tips

• Keep in mind that translations can start before all resources are ready• You can start translating your material once the GUI is frozen• Think about running QA for several languages in parallel• Remember that the process might require several iterations

Planning Tips

Pitfalls

Pitfalls

“We are not doing any localization nor translation. We will give our distributors in each country a discount, and they take care of it”

Careful – consider the following:

• Who is in the end responsible for quality?• Who owns the Intellectual Property?• No leveraging of handling the localization for all countries at once.

Pitfalls

“There is no need for a localization process, once we release the product, we will prepare Excel files with the strings to be translated”


• Has your software been prepared for localization?• Be ready for surprises in the code• Consider pseudo localization• Translation out of context can result in errors and/or excessive project

management time

Pitfalls

“Philippe, from engineering, speaks French fluently, lets ask him to translated the GUI of our product!”


• Languages are evolving – therefore best translations will be done using in-country translators

• What about localization?• What about using translation tools?• Leveraging, Terminology, Glossary?

Q/A

• Ask now……

Thank you for your attention

Backup slides

Jargon

Jargon• g11n• i18n• l10n• Sim ship• MLV• SLV• SLA• Translation Memory (TM)• Segment• Matching (100%, ICE, Partial, Fuzzy)• Leveraging• Alignment• Glossary, Glossary building• Terminology management• Machine Translation• Localizing Marketing • Translating Guideline• NDA

• Software l10n• Resource• Resource ID• Context• Localization Tool• QA• Linguistic QA• Cosmetic QA• Functional QA• Reviewing• Proof Reading• Localization Readiness• Pseudo Localization• Single source• Word count• CMS• Publisher

Preparation

Localization Kit includes:• Product:

– Text strings– Menus– Dialogs– Shortcut keys– Images– Functional l10n components (tax rules)– Documentation and OLH files– …

• Glossaries• TMs• Localization Guidelines and Expectations

Preparation of software

• User Interface– Pseudo-translation to test for localizability

• Are buttons large enough for text expansion?

• Is there hard-coded text in the software?

• Can the characters of the target language be displayed correctly?

– Hiding or locking of non-translatable text with a software localization tool

– Re-use of old projects by alignment– Setup of a terminology list

Preparation of documents• Internationalization of documents

– Spaced layout– “Simplified English”– Single Sourcing with conditional text or text layers within one

document– Content Management System with text modules

• Text preparation– Text extraction or file conversion into a format that translation

memory systems can deal with– Hiding non-translatable text layers / columns / paragraphs

Other preparation steps• Terminology

– Extraction, collection, creation of lists (Excel) or term bases• Alignment (re-use of old projects)• Setup of process automation (Workflow Management)

Testing

Software Testing

• Before translation– Internationalization testing

• Is the software locale independent• Will the software be able to accommodate different characters sets, date

formats, measurements…– Localization testing

• Pseudo translation or simulated translation to find out if the characters of the target language can be displayed correctly

• Will expanding text of the target language still fit the buttons and text fields• During translation

– Spell check and terminology checks– Checks if the translator did not forget any access keys (underlined letters

that allow calling a menu or menu point by keyboard)– Checks that the same access key has not been used twice in a menu

Software Testing

• After translation– Cosmetic checks

• Check the UI if not broken• Layout of dialogs, buttons, menus etc.• Chinese words are shorter, but the characters are higher!• German words’ lengths…

– Linguistic checks• Does the translation make sense?

– Functional test• Full acceptance test of the product in target language• Has the translation in any way “broken” the functionality• Are data input, stored, manipulated, and redisplayed

accurately?• (often not done because of time and cost constraints)

Document Testing• Resources in or from the country/market, who know the target market

and target language to check if localization makes sense– Spell check, formal check (punctuation…) and terminology check on translated

text– Cosmetic checks

• Pagination, layout should be checked and possibly redone• Correct index• Cross-references, hyperlinks (online-help)• Correct screenshots

– Linguistic checks• Does the translation make sense?• Do software and documentation correspond?

– Functional test• Cross-references in online help• Hyperlinks on web pages

What does it take to be a good L10n Project Manager?


• Adaptability / versatile thinker– think outside the box, come up with non-orthodox solutions

• Technically inclined– know the basics of what an L10n engineer’s daily work entails

• Localization industry experience– translation background, editing background

• Attention to detail– see defects, potential pitfalls, have a good eye for layout/design

• Skilled in writing and presentation– comfortable writing in native and potentially other languages

• Interest in and awareness of foreign cultures: – read foreign language books, watch foreign language movies, enjoy

“diversity”…

• One or more non-English languages– helpful to know basics or the concept of non-European languages

(i.e. Chinese, Japanese…)

• Instinct for prioritization– know how to get your ducks in a row…

• Pragmatic, realistic approach to problem-solving– have processes in place, but don’t follow them slavishly if faced with a worse

case scenario

and……


Localization Quality Assurance: Skill Set

• Comfortable with diverse language software versions

• Ability to distinguish between languages, i.e. German from Dutch

• Versatility of OS, Platform, & Database language versions

• Generic QA methodology

• Creation and usage of scripted QA tools