If you are conducting your business internationally, you are aware that a quality translation of documents related to your brand or product is of utmost importance. You are aware that a translation that can be understood by everyone is a necessity. But if you don’t know what Localization is, you probably have no clue about what translation is!
When a content is being translated, the point is to keep the text consistent and the meaning unchanged when translating from source to target language. Although the focus has to be on sentences, structure and grammar, the style plays a significant role, too. Translation has to match the original in every possible way. There are cases, such as Information Leaflets and Instructions for Use for medical products, where a word choice can be of utmost importance. This is exactly why translators also need to be experts for certain areas.
What is localization?
Localization is much more than just translation. It is a process of adaptation of translation to be used in a specific country or region. It takes into account cultural and non-textual components, as well as linguistic rules, when a product or a service is being adapted for use in another country or locale.
A clear communication with target group is the key if you want to stay relevant in a global market. Localization ensures that your business and your content are ready to appear on any new market.
Isn’t that what translation is?
People often think that a localization includes only translation process and mistake these two concepts. Translation is actually a part of localization process.
Localization stands for much more than mere translation. You can actually imagine that localization starts with a translation and then goes deeper to deal with communication factors such as local idioms and cultural references, all the way to technical matters, such as text length, units of measure, date format or page size.
People from different cultures have different perspectives and use different tools to describe the same thing. Translation is a process of finding synonymous words and sentences in source and target language, while localization is a process of adaptation where other factors, such as tradition, habits, buying preferences adapt in order to match the local market. Managing any localization project requires a team of experts.
If you want to make profits in a foreign market, you first have to understand local people and the market itself, and then you have to make your products suitable for them.
Customers are emotional
Recent research has shown that as much as 87% of customers would not buy a product if the content offered within the product was only in English. As you can see, this fact can harm any business in many ways.
Consumers are emotional. Emotions are what makes them take action, and that is one of the first lessons in any school of Marketing. And the emotion toward the mother tongue is obviously very strong.
Expansion to global market can be a good reason to investigate the difference between translation and localization. Localization makes it possible to translate all content used by consumers to obtain information about the product or service you are offering in a way that resonates with the target market. Even though localization includes translation, it goes much deeper than a simple translation to ensure that all content looks organic to consumers in a particular local market.
If you have realized how important quality localization is for any business acting on an international market, the only thing left is to hire a translation team of highest quality consisting of translators and localization experts. Redakta is at your disposal.
