Thinking Locally

By Leslie Downey

July 12, 2004

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Ask any person on the street these days what he or she thinks of "globalization," and you're almost certain to get an opinion. Ask about "localization," and you'll probably get a blank stare. But "the localization and translation industry accounts for about $26 billion in worldwide revenue," according to Michael Anobile, Director of the Localization Industry Standards Association, or LISA, based in Geneva, Switzerland. "And its growth is accelerating as U.S. companies realize they must do more to make their products marketable in other countries."

Language translation is a key element of the localization process. Web sites, product promotion and training material, software, and legal agreements may all need translation. But localization also includes careful consideration of subject matter, graphics, and colors, to appeal to and avoid offending people in the target country market.

"Only one in four of the world's population speaks English to some level of competence," Anobile notes. "That leaves nearly five billion people who are unreachable without translation, and a growing percentage of those are accessing the Internet." These facts, along with the current growth of the world economy, are spurring U.S. companies to think harder about how to tailor their products for greater acceptance in individual countries. "Today more than half the Web sites of U.S. IT companies are in English only," says Anobile, "leaving a lot of untapped opportunity."

Translation is costly, since it is labor intensive and often requires establishing relationships with translators outside the U.S. who have specialized knowledge of an industry. During the past decade, companies like Sunnyvale, California-based Trados, London-based SDL International, and ATRIL in Barcelona, Spain have developed software that automates part of the translation process. Their products save translators from having to translate terms and phrases more than once. The context-sensitive algorithms and database technology enable storage of translated material in "translation memory" for subsequent reuse.

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