IT Translation and Localization

The French Linguistics translation service is run by a language specialist, web developer and Sun-certified Java programmer. Among other domains, it is thus particularly well-suited to IT translation and localization projects.

For more information, please contact translation@french-linguistics.co.uk with details of your project. We would normally suggest a recommended budget and timescale for translation and other assistance you may need with the localization process. However, we may be able to work to your preferred budget and timescale if you specify these at the outset.

As well as any translation issues, we may also be able to assist with any programming issues relating to internationalization and localization: please feel free to enquire about this.

Tips for internationalizing your software

Here are some issues that you should think about, ideally from the outset, when designing a program with internationalization in mind:

• in some cases, the most user-friendly solution can involve variants of the same language for different territories— we'll give advice as part of any translation job, and can generally offer a deal to avoid having to pay full price for multiple variants;
• text typically takes up 20-30% extra space in many European languages compared to English (as part of any translation job that you contract with French Lingiustics, we can give you more detailed advice on this issue if required);
• if you are intending to concatenate localised strings, then in your original strings, you should generally keep "function" words in the same string as the "content" words they go with— so instead of having messages "There was a problem reading the", "disk", "CD", instead make your messages "There was a problem reading", "the disk", "the CD", in other words keeping the word "the" alongside the words "disk" and "CD" (we can give advice on this with any translation job, and advise you on what workarounds we can use if you've already designed your string base and don't want to change it);
• certain messages may end up being significantly longer in a particular language, because they involve a paraphrase to avoid a particular word or phrase from needing to change its form when you stick two localised messages together (as part of any translation job, we'll generally signal where this is an issue);
• not all languages have the same usage of singular vs plural with numbers as in English (e.g. some languages use the singular form with zero)— again, more advice can be given on this as part of your translation project;
• in some cases, the most natural-sounding translation for typical users may depend on the audience, so we may ask you questions about your expected user base in order to provide the most user-friendly translations;
• some other programming issues to think about:
  • string ordering and comparison may not work the same in other languages as in English (we can provide advice alongside any translation job, and sample Java code where necessary for dealing with this issue);
  • similarly, formatting of numbers and dates may vary depending on language and territory (again, ask for advice and sample code if you're not aware of this issue);
  • once your files contain text in languages other than English, you'll probably find you have to deal with character encoding issues, whereas you didn't previously— again, as part of the translation service, we can provide advice and sample Java code where required.