Internationalization Issues (long summary)

Subject: Internationalization Issues (long summary)
From: Kathleen Frost <kfrost -at- BTSQUARED -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 09:54:16 -0400

I am posting the summary to my question on hints for localizing software
and documents. I appreciate the assistance of everyone who responded.
Since so many people expressed an interest in the results, I am posting my
summary. I know there is much more to say on such a complex subject. If
anyone wish to add their comments, send additional information to me off
line, and I will send another summary later. Thanks again to those who
helped.

Kathy Frost
KFrost -at- BTSquared -dot- com



INTERNATIONALIZATION OF DOCUMENTS AND SOFTWARE

A common thread is that it is important to plan for eventual translation
from the beginning of a product?s development when possible. Not only is
it then easier for the translator but also requires less recoding and other
major problems. Speak to translation companies with a good track record in
this field, and establish a working relationship at this early stage of the
documentation, when their editorial comments will serve the best purpose,
rather than later, after everything has been written and when it becomes
much more difficult to adapt the work for translation.

HINTS, If anyone needs to directly contact the author of any of the
suggestions below, contact me with the specific text and I will look it up
for you. KFrost -at- BTSquared -dot- com

* localized variations of spelling

?One of the quickest ways to find the differences between U.S. English and
International English is to run a spell check on the words using a UK
English dictionary. Be aware that there are some differences in the way
words are used, for example, in Ireland or England, we would rarely ask for
the "cheque" or "check" - we'd ask for the "bill". We would pay with a
"cheque" after "checking" the bill. Most of the words you spell with an
"ize" are spelled with an "ise" in International English - use a spell
checker for anything you are unsure of.?

?I also stick to the most logical, what-you-see-is-what-you-get spellings
when alternatives exist. With ?programme? vs. ?program?, for example, I
always use ?program?. (Oxford is actually fairly confused/confusing on this
point, recommending ?program? when talking about software and ?programme?
for other uses!) I've never really made up my mind about words like
?colour? or ?cheque? though. I generally use the BE versions since I'm more
comfortable with them, but if I was to be true to my claim that I 'stick to
the most logical spellings' I'd have to use ?color? and ?check?. At any
rate, I feel consistency is the most important issue here.?

?As far as '-ize' vs. '-ise' is concerned, I always follow OED usage--i.e.
'-ize', but use '-yse' in words like 'analyse'. Although I use the '-ise'
suffix myself in normal writing, it's difficult to defend its use in
international English since (as far as I know) '-ize' is acceptable
everywhere.?

?Take a look at your Chicago Manual of Style. It will tell you a
surprising amount about alphabets, diacriticals, etc. I assume that
expanded international ASCII will cover most of the symbols needed, but
don't forget to include the new symbol for the "euro", the joint currency
of the EEC. You might also take a look at the various "dictionaries" that
Microsoft offers for Word. IIRC, Chicago will also tell you a great deal
about how to index names in various languages. This has to be carefully
flagged for the programmers. Does the family name come first or last--and
is the family name the best option for indexing? In Chinese, there are
relatively few family names and lots of personal names, the reverse of the
situation in English. So if you are indexing for speed of searching, the
more unusual name component might be the best to use as an index.?

?If your WP/DTP software has localised dictionaries, use them. All the good
ones have US and UK dictionaries; Word has an Australian dictionary though
I couldn't say how good it is. Most countries will have a standard national
(paper) dictionary -- e.g. in Australia it's the Macquarie dictionary. In
Canada, it's usually "Gage".?

* Postal Code

?Be aware of Zip codes. Outside of the U.S. they don't exist much. We
don't have mail boxes over here [Europe], so the flag doesn't mean anything
to anyone other than what we see on the Simpsons.?

(Note here: The US Post Office considers ?ZIP Code? a trademark and the
ZIP is an abbreviation and should be written in all caps. All of our
software is labelled ?ZIP/Postal Code?. K. Frost)

* Keyboards - differences

?There is no pan-European keyboard. German keyboards differ from French
which differ from English. There is a "#" sign, we call it a "hash" sign
and it is more usually used to denote a digit or number, we don't use it
for pounds. For monetary pounds we use the "?" pound symbol, usually found
next to the "$" dollar symbol on the keyboard. For pounds in weight, we
generally shorten to lbs - but most European measurement is metric these
days rather than imperial.

What you need to be particularly careful about are character sets and code
pages, because these are what determines how software is displayed (or at
least text within software) rather than the keyboard that's attached to
it.?

?International differences in hardware - These are probably relatively few
in number, and you can probably collect this information on the web. Of
course, the engineers are also going to have to deal with the different
electrical systems around the world and how that is going to affect
internal timing and so forth.?

?Just a small point but the French keyboard is laid out differently from
the English. Instead of QUERTY I have AZERTY.?

* Field Lengths/Name Fields and Labels

?Always allow 30% extra in terms of space when thinking about a translated
product. Again, if the software is going to be localised, a lot of this
sort of re-sizing is done by the translators.?

?Bear in mind that some Asian groups, for example, use a 'surname first'
system. I know the Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese all do this, but
suspect there are many others.?

?There's also the question of terminology for labelling fields. ?Christian
name? isn't a terribly appropriate term in many cultures. ?Given name? or
?personal? name are probably better, all-purpose terms.?

??we recently decided to standardise our email addresses in the company. To
our surprise we ran into cultural problems. The Dutch only accepted J.SMITH
as a name in the address as they consider this to be professional but the
Irish considered it too formal and wanted JOHN.S. My German colleagues lent
towards the Dutch. We had to consider how to deal with names with
apostrophes & accents, people with more than one first and/or family name,
and short names (ie: Jean Louis van der Most, Didier 't Sas). French names
seem more likely to have more than one first name (Jean Louis) and Dutch
names more likely to have more than one last name (van der Most). And not
all last names have the first letter as a capital letter: it could be the
second letter. Some Irish names are like this if written in Gaelic. Even
with something as small as an email address we needed to design in
flexibility.?

Example of label lengths: ?default (7 characters) is d?faut (6 charac.) in
French but voreinstellung (14 charac.) in German

note (4 charac.) is remarque (8 charac.) in French and anmerkung (9
charac.) in German?

* serif--sans-serif controversy.

?In some countries sans is preferred, in others serifs.? Check with local
offices, translators, or clients.

* Document size

?Downsizing is very much an international phenomenon!?

* Avoiding parochialisms is obviously important.

?There are surprisingly few places, people, books, films, etc. you can
refer to and be 100% sure that readers in every country will be familiar
with them. I remember being stunned once in Italy when I discovered a
person I was talking to had never heard of the Taj Mahal! Just an example
of my own ignorance, I'm afraid. Why should Italians know about the Taj
Mahal? The links that exist between India and Britain (and therefore my own
general knowledge as a second-hand Brit) simply don't exist between India
and Italy. I also came across some Italians--probably no dumber or smarter
than the average Australian-, American- or whoever-in-the-street--who
hadn't heard of Charles Dickens or Herman Melville.?

?I'm not sure it's an appropriate expression, but _religious parochialisms_
can also be a problem. I was recently translating an Italian text in which
the author claimed that Bethlehem was 'seen by all humanity as the
birthplace of civilisation'! Highly subjective and debatable certainly, but
also incredibly inappropriate for an international audience.?

* converting currencies into US dollars.

?My clients sometimes suggest that ECUs would be better when a text is
staying in Europe, but my own experience has been that most
Europeans--Italians at any rate--are more aware of what their currency is
worth relative to the US dollar or Deutschmark than the ECU. This will
obviously no longer apply once there is a single European currency though.?

* Cultural Differences

?The structure of information and argument definitely differs from culture
to culture--and more than just in terms of sentence structure. If this does
present a problem--and I'm not entirely sure it does, since when you read a
language that isn't your own you expect that concepts will be expressed in
different ways and you adjust your thinking accordingly--I suppose the best
way to avoid it is to keep sentences short and simple (unlike that one!).
Demonstrating difficult or what may be foreign concepts through simple
examples is always a good idea.?

?You simply must have a good, native "informant" for each edition. A
translator may or may not know the business conventions of a country. Do
the Brazilians and the Portuguese format dates the same way, for instance?
As has come up on CEL recently, the order in which you "expect" dates to be
arranged can cause havoc with data entry if people are using numbers.
There is no one list of English words to avoid, as it varies by language;
in fact, I was a little puzzled by this--aren't you translating? But then
you talk of a single "Asian" edition--so I'm very confused! What, exactly,
are you talking about doing??

?I try to avoid using capital letters unless needed (beginning of
sentences, names, acronyms..) as some languages use lots, such as German.
They seem to write the first letter of nouns in a capital letter.?

* Editing Rules

?As far as editing-related stuff is concerned, I keep well away from
anything quirky and always go for the most simple alternative. I use CMS
rules for word breaks, for example, since to my mind they're the most
logical. I also follow CMS usage for the placing of quotation marks since,
again, it's much more straightforward than the British system.?

?I always avoid those few grammatical structures that differ between
different varieties of English. This is usually fairly easy to do; even
when translating texts for the US, for example, I always avoid things like
'50 through 100' simply because I feel uncomfortable with them.?

* Jargon

?Slang, jargon, newspeak, idiomatic expressions etc. should also be
avoided. I do generally find, however, that even non-English-speaking
people often have an excellent knowledge of English jargon in their own
particular field. I'd bet that most button manufacturers in Switzerland--to
choose an obscure example!--would know what a 'narrow rim flat centre
combo' is!?

* Miscellaneous

?French:

Beware of "false friends" (fausses amis) like actually - really en English,
actuellement - now in French, or "engine" "engin" - different meanings.

The usage of technical terms is especially bewildering because of the
French mania to hate "Franglais" and to "Francise" everything -sometimes
they catch on, sometimes not.

For instance "planning" or "weekend" stay put. I don?t know what your
products are, probably there are specific terms you want to watch, so as
not to be "couvert de ridicule" as they say Geography is important - for
instance no one ever heard of "caf? Liegois" famous in France but unheard
of in the fair city of Liege, Belgium Not to speak of condoms called in
slang "capotes anglaises" in France but "French letters" in England.

The French are especially proud of their technological achievements, they
seem to have invented everything before anyone else, and they have
developed technical terms for almost everything in French. You must watch
the proper use of translated material, and at the very least, have it
proofread by a native speaker cognizant of the appropriate technology.

Personally I would try and avoid the "you" style and be a bit impersonal in
writing instructions, benefits etc. A bit of soft humor and finesse should
do wonders in replacing the sometimes brutal frontal marketing efforts. Oh
yeah, these days most of French people do understand English.?

Hebrew (mainly)/Arabic (some)

?Last remark about Francophones applies here too, but that is perhaps the
only similarity. As you know both languages are similar with different
alphabets though,but both RTL (Right to left). That of course is not the
only difference:

Syntax, grammar rules and appropriate vocabularies are all different.

English terms are widely understood though, and in many cases substituted
for the native words, even where they exist and are accepted - as opposed
to France. Yet one needs to exercise care in proper usage. You want to
avoid the terrible usage of Hebrew in MS (translated) manuals as a good
example, the vocabulary, the literal translation using strange syntax and
worse grammar make these manuals (or help screens, or menus for that
matter) annoying in best case and barely comprehensible in extreme cases.?

* Planning Ahead

?First, the scope of the project needs to be defined. Some screens and
manuals may only be seen by English speakers, so we judged not to translate
those. Some messages on the screens come from software over which we had
no control (e.g., operating system and db system messages). These must be
identified and excluded from the translation process. The balance (e.g.,
data entry screens, reports, user docs) need to be translated.?

?Will the hardware and software support the character set desired? Note
that things may be displayed and entered ok, but once stored in some system
(e.g., a db) or transported among machines, or sorted, or compared, or
whatever, bytes may be lost in the shuffle. This is especially important
in client-server environments, or when telecommunicating. Also, keyboard
layouts may differ.?

?Make sure you have input from business knowledgeable people who know the
other culture. Get some lexicons as well. Even though the systems may
handle the accents of the other language, there may be differences in
capiltization, among other characteristics. For example, English money is
shown as $12,345.67, but French usage is 12 345,67$. English dates may be
MM/DD/YYYY, but the target language usage may be different. Times might
use the 24-hour clock.?

?Planning the project is a very important step. If you can design the
system to accommodate other cultures from the very beginning, rather than
retrofit later, you'll be much happier down the road. If the programmers
had known of our later needs, they would have left more room for French
messages (which typically take about 15 to 20% more space than English, at
least in our business area). Efforts to modify the system can be tedious
and laborious if programming of screens, menus and messages is not
separated from program logic.?

---------------------------

LIST OF RELATED WEB SITES

Sites that may or may not be current:

http://tsetse.cs.earlham.edu/~ss96/links.html

http://tnt.microimages.com/~dwilliss/i18n.html

http://www.hal.com/users/charly/STC/SIG.local.html

http://dictionaries.travlang.com/

http://tnt.microimages.com/~dwilliss/i18n.html

http://www.smartpages.com/faqs/internationalization/programming-faq/faq.htm
l

http://www.cai.com/products/inglett/intern.htm

http://www.crec.mipt.ru/russify/standards.html

http://java.sun.com/people/opcode/i18n.html

http://www.thomsoft.com/products/teleuse/briefs/international.html

http://www.tandem.com/manuals/m-app-dev-env/096174-sig.html

http://irdu.nus.sg/multilingual/unicod

e/misc/Internationalization_Localization.html

http://www.accentsoft.com/

http://web.verity.com/~edwin/i18n/

http://www.lai.com/lai/companion.html

http://www.globalink.com/

http://www.world-ready.com/ (Nancy Hoft)

http://www.alis.com/

http://www.linguist.com/

http://www.ile.com/

http://www.world-ready.com/cases/index.htm

http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dgl3djb/ukus.html (examples of different flavors of
English)

http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dgl3djb/ukus.html (examples of words in English that
should be avoided in other cultures because they mean something else there)



---------------------

SUGGESTED EXPERTS ON THE TOPIC:

Nadine Kano. "Developing International Software for Windows 95 and NT"
from Microsoft Press

Nancy Hoft "International Technical Communication" (ISBN 0-471-03743-5,
pub. John Wiley & Sons)

(about $29.95 in paperback. Can be ordered through STC.)

Nancy Hoft's web site. http://www.world-ready.com

Yann Meerseman, e-mail yann -at- mail -dot- gte -dot- net, phone 617-862-3642. He
specializes in product -- and particularly software --
internationalization. (Respondent mentioned seeing Mr. Meerseman give a
talk on the topic of pre-planning for later translation)

Roger E. Axtell ?The Do's and Taboos of International Trade : A Small
Business Primer? (1989, Wiley & Sons). Consult his list of acknowledgements
for a place to start your research. He has a couple of later books along
the same lines, for a later list of acknowledgements. There are people who
specialize in this field.



---------------------------

LIST OF TRANSLATION FIRMS

?The most important thing that you can do is talk with the localisers. If
you have access to the local offices, talk to the marketing people there.
Talk to the translation company or companies BEFORE you start developing.
Most of these people have extensive experience of working with all sorts
and types of software, and will have list of issues for your development
team. Same when it comes to documentation and help.?

?My last suggestion is that if you have any translations done, find
translators in the countries your company's products are going to. Since
we've been back in Oz, we've had a few things translated into Italian by
locally accredited translators and the results have been pretty
disappointing. Both the language and 'consciousness'--to get
philosophical!--of the translators concerned have simply been out of touch
with modern Italian usage.?

Suggestion: Use a local editor. Response: That's always your best bet, if
you can afford it. It's particularly good for finding and fixing words and
phrases with different meanings.

?Contact your local translation house??

(NOTE: These companies are listed in alphabetical order and I have not
personally talked to any of them so I am not qualified to make any
recommendations. My CEO is doing the negotiations. K. Frost)

Adams Translation Services Austin, TX. Www.Tpoint.net/~adams

P. H. Brink International, Minneapolis, MN email phbrink -at- mn -dot- uswest -dot- net

Contact International, Baltimore, MD Http://www.contact1.com
1-800-333-3812

Copper Translation Service. Schenectady, NY. (518) 372-8940 fax (518)
372-8952

Corporate Language Services, 1-800-755-5775, alsintl -at- aol -dot- com,
www.alsintl.com

ELP, L.L.C. Portland, Oregon. 1-800-878-8523 Compuserve: 74353.3012

Harvard Translations, Boston, MA. 1-800-962-6477, www.htrans.com

International Bureau of Translations, Inc. in Indianapolis

International Language Engineering, (208) 468-2413, Web:
http://www.ile.com/srv_soft.htm (Offers 64-pg guide to internationalization
issues through web site) Boulder, Co; Santa Clara, CA; Boise, ID

ITR International Translation Resources, Inc. London tel: 011 44 181 742
7422 Fax 011 44 181 742 8080

JKW International Minneapolis, MN and Boston, MA. 1-800-829-4126.
Http://www.jkwintl.com

JLS Language Corporation. Menlo Park, CA. Info -at- jls -dot- com
Http://www.jls.com

Ralph McElroy Translation Co. Austin, TX. 1-800-531-9977

Multiling (IBM TranslationManager), Provo, UT. Ml_Sales -at- multiling -dot- com

Poly-Lingua, Inc. Boston, MA. (617) 430-5999 fax (617) 430-5998

Princeton Technical Translation Center, NJ 1-800-839-6770
73750 -dot- 355 -at- Compuserve -dot- com

Prisma International, Inc. Minneapolis, MN. Email
translate -at- Prisma-intl -dot- com Http://www.prisma-intl.com toll free
1-888-4PRISMA

SH3inc (Technical Translation). Kansas City, MO www.sh3.com
sales -at- sh3 -dot- com

Smart Communications, Inc. New York City, (Simplified English, software)
info -at- smartny -dot- com www.interport.net/~jsmart

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