How To Fix A Language Problem

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Educational Technology has Struggled to be Truly Global

Technological innovations like massive open online courses (MOOCs) and collaborative learning platforms have the potential to transform education worldwide. They offer cheap, high-quality education that’s accessible, at least in theory, to anyone with a bit of spare time and an internet connection.

The problem, though, is that educational technologies are usually available only in English. As a result, these innovative tools end up being least accessible to the very populations that need them the most.

Sure enough, international organizations suggest that the reception of educational technologies varies dramatically from country to country. While more developed countries can take advantages of sophisticated educational tools, less developed countries have little access to MOOCs, collaborative learning platforms, and other innovative educational technologies.

Take Coursera, a popular MOOC platform, as an example. As of 2013, Coursera’s registered students are concentrated among English-speakers in wealthy countries.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Overcoming the Language Barrier

Variability of internet access is part of the reason that educational technologies tend to serve more people in certain countries. But the language barrier is another major obstacle to bringing educational technologies to a global audience. Fortunately, there are some ways to tackle the language obstacle.

Translation and localization offer one of the best solutions to connect students and teachers all over the world. By offering translated and localized content, educators can deal with the varying English proficiency of students worldwide. And, for students, subject learning can be much more effective when its in their native language.

The State of English Proficiency Worldwide

English may be the world’s lingua franca, but English proficiency still varies widely among countries. EF Education First, an international education company, publishes a research report called the EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) that tracks English Proficiency Levels in different regions. The graph below shows some of Education First’s key findings.

As expected, Europe has the highest English proficiency ratings of any region. Asia, despite significant improvement in recent years, still has a long way to go. Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa remain weak in English proficiency. Surprisingly, China actually beats France in terms of English proficiency.

(Source: EF Education First)

As the EF EPI makes clear, if an educational app’s developers want to reach a global audience—and, in particular, an audience that’s not concentrated in Europe and North America—they’ll need to translate and localize their app.

Edmodo: Using Localization to Connect Teachers and Students Around the World

Edmodo is an example of how students and teachers worldwide benefit from skillful localization. Edmodo is a social learning platform that enables teachers and students to connect securely. Some Edmodo users call it the “Facebook of schools.” The name is apt: Edmodo supports a network of over 28 millions teachers and students around the world.

Many of Edmodo’s users live in non-English speaking countries, so localization has become a high priority as the company tries to support its international growth. In order to connect students and teachers from the globe, Edmodo decided to crowdsource localization by inviting its large base of international users to help translate content into their native languages.

Crowdsourcing is an incredible tool. In one of their most important markets, Edmodo saw 90% of its target content translated in a matter of days. Now, with the help of teachers and schools worldwide, Edmodo has been translated into nine languages, including Spanish, French, and Chinese.

Do you have any other example of educational technology that goes global? Let’s share with us about their localization survey below! 🙂

Feature photo credit: Dell

Is Your App Ready to Capture the Global Christmas Boom?

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Patrick Yip

It’s Going to be an “iPad Christmas”

Back in October, Apple launched the brand new iPad Air, just in time for the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. At the company’s earning announcement a few days later, CEO Tim Cook predicted that it’s going to be an “iPad Christmas”. Apple expects that the holiday quarter sales will be $55 to $58 billion, with a gross margin in the range of 36.5 percent to 37.5 percent.

Jonny Evans of Computerworld provides some evidence to back up Cook’s prediction. For example, he notes that the app marketing service Fiksu has found that “the iPad Air’s share of overall iPad activity is already five times that of the iPad 4 and three times that of the iPad mini following their launches last year.”

Meanwhile, reviewers are raving about the iPad Air. Much lighter and thinner than previous iPads, and equipped with Retina display, the iPad Air may be the best tablet yet. Walter S. Mossberg from WSJ said “if you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.”

Considering the great reviews and brisk app sales, it seems that Cook’s prediction of an “iPad Christmas” may very well become a reality. Add in the recent launch of the iPhone 5s as well as Google Nexus 5, smartphones and tablets would be definitely one of the best Christmas gift options. As new devices creates a new demand for apps, Christmas 2013 should be a huge day for app downloads!

Christmas is a Miracle Day for App Developers: A 112% Increase in App Downloads, All Day Long

Even without a slew of highly regarded new Apple products on the market, Christmas day can feel like a miracle for mobile app developers. In 2012, according to Flurry, iOS & Android app downloads increased by 112% on Christmas over the December 1 – 20 baseline. That’s the most downloads of any day in history.

The magic of Christmas starts early in the morning and lasts well into the night, as people activate their brand new devices, and then start shopping for apps. The chart below shows the distribution of downloads per hour across Christmas Day in 2012. You’ll notice that downloads jump early in the day, peaking at around 20 million per hour, and that they remain at this level for most of the day.

In order to capture the holiday boom, app developers need to have a market strategy ready. And, with Christmas day fast approaching, we’ve got just the strategy to help you make the most of the holiday.

Localize Your App to Reach More Users During the Christmas Boom

The Christmas boom isn’t just a phenomenon in English-speaking countries. Christmas is celebrated in countries around the world, and it can be a great time of year to tap into global markets. All around the world, people will be unwrapping new smartphones and tablets, and then shopping for new apps. Localize your app, and reach even more customers during the Christmas boom!

We know that mobile app localization can increase downloads by an average of 128% for iPhone apps. And, according to the consulting firm Common Sense Advisory, 72.4% of consumers say they would be likelier to buy a product with information in their own language. Translate your apps now, and you’ll be ready to capture the Christmas season’s boom in app downloads.

Do you have any holiday marketing strategy to share? Please feel free to comment here!

Feel like Christmas is approaching too quickly? Daunted by the idea of stretching into new markets? Don’t worry! Translating your app can be quick and easy. Learn more here.

(Note: Apple’s iTunes Connect will shut down from Saturday December 21st to Friday December 27th. So seize the chance to get your localization ready on time!)

(Source: pichost)

Testing Mobile Apps in New Markets

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Test the Waters without Spending a Dollar (Almost)

Why do startups hesitate to go global? Two reasons come to mind. One: budgets are tight, and there’s a perception that building a multinational brand will require some serious cash. Reason number two: failure seems all too likely. Startups are risky, and it can be daunting to venture into a new market, especially one with a different culture and a different language.

We don’t think these reasons are especially convincing. Stepping into a global market can offer huge dividends. And it doesn’t have to be expensive, or require reckless risk-taking. With crowdsourcing technology and localized app descriptions, you can test new markets cheaply, and then figure out the best way to turn your app into a worldwide competitor. In this post, we’ll show you two simple, flexible ways to test out new markets for your mobile apps.

Take My Money: Crowdfunding

A good crowdfunding platform, such as Kickstarter, can help you gauge demand in a new market. It can also help you build a loyal customer base overseas—a customer base that feels invested in your app, and that’s ready to help spread the word to other potential users.

One startup that has used Kickstarter’s model to expand its market is Everlane, an online retail brand that sells designer goods such as cashmere sweaters.

In an interview with Makeway magazine, Everlane CEO Michael Preysman explained that his company was looking for an affordable, effective way to expand to a new market—in this case, Canada. They decided to use Kickstarter’s crowdfunding model in order to search out potential customers and get customer input on their products and ideas.

So Everlane launched the #CrowdFundCanada initiative. They built a custom crowdfunding page, set a $100,000 goal, and offered rewards for contributors at different tiers.

(The crowdfunding website of Everlane)

After three days, Everlane had raised $50,000. At the end of the 17-day campaign, that number had swelled to $117,720, sourced from 1,400 different contributors. Crowdfunding didn’t just give Everlane the capital it needed to expand into a new market. It also helped them build a core group of customers in Canada who were both early adopters and committed investors.

Testing the Waters: Localized Product Pages

In a previous post, we talked about the importance of global app store optimization, which provides a quick and cheap way to market your app to customers overseas. You can also use this strategy to test the reception of your mobile apps in a new market. Before you spend time and money on translating the content of your app into a particular language, a localized product page can help you gauge how users in new markets will respond to your app.

App descriptions are short, so localization is cheap. Using OneSky’s translation service, you can localize your app description for the Japanese, German, Korean, French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian markets for just $350, total. It’s an affordable, effective way to test your mobile apps in a new market. For more tips on using Global ASO, including choosing which markets to enter first, and how best to localize your keywords, check out this blog post.

For a great case study of a company that has used Global ASO to test its mobile app in a new market, take a look at AutoCAD 360, a free app for drawing and drafting. For each new market, the AutoCAD 360 team has localized their product page as thoroughly as possible. Every unit of measurement, username, currency, and text label on screenshots has been customized on each of AutoCAD’s product pages.

The result is a product page that will seem natural and appealing—downright local—to users around the world.

When you’re using a localized product description to test your mobile app in a new market, you’ll need some metrics in order to get a sense of how well your app is doing. Otherwise, your campaign won’t be a SMART one. When it comes to metrics, here are your two best options:

Number of downloads. This is the clearest signal of how potential customers are responding to your app in a new market. Once you’ve localized the product’s page, keep a close eye on how many people are actually downloading the app.

When possible, try to see how many people have viewed your app’s product description within the app store. Google offers measurement tools that let you gauge how your localized product description is attracting views. You can learn more about Google’s campaign measurement tools here, and check out the parameters here.

If your metrics indicate strong interest from a particular market, you may have to step-up your in-app translation efforts.

Two final tips: make sure to note in your app description that the app is still in English. Otherwise, non-English speakers are likely to delete your app and post a negative review. You’ll also benefit from keeping a close eye on customer reviews in order to understand the market potential, and to see if there are particular areas in which you might want to improve your localization efforts.

Some Added Benefits

The beauty of crowdfunding and localized app descriptions is that they let you reach early adopters. The people who are likeliest to join your crowdfunding campaign, or check out your localized app description, are likely to be well connected and tech-savvy. They’ll be inclined to give you feedback about your app, and, if they like it, to tell other people about your product. Crowdfunding campaigns in particular can turn customers into collaborators: people who feel invested in your app, and want to help you spread it to a new corner of the world. Ideally, these early adopters will become vocal evangelists, ready to spread the word about the quality of your app.

Your Turn!

How have you tested apps in new markets? What strategies have you found effective to help your product reach customers overseas? Let us know in the comment section. We love to hear from you! And, if you want to keep up to date on the most effective tools for bringing your app into a multilingual marketplace, please subscribe to our blog.

Reference: Make Way, TheNextWeb

Feature photo credit: Nat Finn

Global App Store Optimization: High ROI Mobile App Marketing

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Many People Forget that App Stores Are Worldwide

When more than 60% of consumers find apps via app store search, high visibility in app store search results is a key to success.

While everybody knows about the importance of App Store Optimization (ASO), many developers neglect a simple fact — app stores are not only local but also global distribution channels. Right now, the two largest app stores in the world, the iTunes App Store and Google Play, are available in over 130 countries and support over 30 languages (Much to our excitement, OneSky just became a recognized 3rd party localization vendor by Apple). Imagine what would happen if your app ranked #1 in every single app store in the world. Irresistible, right? In this post, we’ll show you how to master the process of global app store optimization.

Global ASO: Cheap and Fast, with a Huge ROI

Global app store optimization lets you connect with your international users, while optimizing your search results in app stores across the world. If regular ASO seems magical—after all, the benefits can be extraordinary—then global ASO is nothing short of miraculous: cheap, quick, and with a huge ROI. It offers you access to markets all over the planet.

Quick and Cheap

App descriptions tend to be short, and, because you don’t need to translate a lot of words, global ASO is pretty cheap. You can localize your app store product page for a few different languages without breaking your budget. Short descriptions also mean fast turnaround. Both crowdsourced and professional translation solutions should take less than a week to translate your app product page.

Huge ROI

A high return on investment for international ASO is just about guaranteed. Most of the world’s mobile users don’t speak English, and global app store optimization makes you visible to the crowd. Make App magazine recently found that keyword localization could increase the download of an app by 767%.

And, even if users do speak English as a second language, they’re likelier to read and respond to things written in their native tongue. A recent survey from Common Sense Advisory found that 72.4 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a product with information in their own language. Global ASO allows the awesomeness of your app to come across naturally and fluently in a multilingual market.

How Do You Get Global ASO Done Right?

In order to optimize your app for a global audience, you have to localize a few key elements of your app store product page.

Localizing Your App Title

Localize your app name if you think it’ll help users understand your app better (users might only see your app name instead of the whole app description in search results). However, some developers might prefer to keep the app name untranslated for branding issues. You can accompany your the name with a catchy, translated phrase that’s embedded with localized keywords. That way, searchers will know how great your app is from the very first look.

Localizing Keywords

Keywords are short, but they are critical to ASO, so you need to make sure that they are translated as accurately and strategically as possible. When it comes to keywords, be sure to hire reliable translators, and make sure that they have a good sense of your app. They’ll need some context in order to do the job right.

The best way to localize keywords is to make use of ASO analytics tools. These tools automatically suggest optimized keywords for your app. Fortunately, some ASO analytics platforms cover international data as well. Sensor Tower, for instance, is a company that offers ASO tools for iOS app developers. They also have tools for international keywords research. These tools allow you to keep track of which localized keywords your competitors are using, to optimize your keyword lists, and to check the difficulty of your localized keywords. For more information, check out this Sensor Tower blog post on global app store optimization.

Search Man is another ASO company that offers keyword suggestions for both iOS and Android app developers. Their market research tools contain app store data from the iTunes App Store and Google Play in the UK, US, and Japan.

Localizing Your App Description

Your app’s description plays a key role in ASO, because that’s where you’ll actually use the optimized keywords. The best way to localize your app description is to give the set of optimized keywords to your local copywriter or translator, who can then write an attractive app description in his or her native language.

If you’re using OneSky’s translation platform, you can make use of the “glossary” feature to assign keywords. You can define all your optimized keywords as glossary terms and explain the priority of these keywords. Check out this blog post to learn more about our glossary feature.

Which Languages Should I Start with?

After learning about global ASO, you’re probably wondering, “So where should I go first, China or Japan?” Instead of picking your target languages based on a gut feeling, we suggest that you try out two approaches to prioritizing your localization efforts.

Competitor Driven Approach: Sensor Tower Internationalization Scorecard

For iOS apps, you can use Sensor Tower’s internationalization tool to compare your progress in internationalization with your competitors. The list made by Sensor Tower shows whether an app’s description, title, language support, and keywords are localized in specific countries. You can compare your app’s internationalization with a specific app, a specific category, or all apps for a country. Sensor Tower also provides the distribution of the user bases in countries. You can compare your global efforts with other apps to see if your move into a new market has been successful.

Cost-effectiveness Driven Approach: OneSky Localization Grader

Another approach to prioritizing localization is by cost-effectiveness—pay the least money to reach the markets with the greatest potential. For both iOS and Android apps, you can use our localization grader tool to calculate the cost-effectiveness of localization. This tool also assesses the localization progress of your app description.

We let you analyze the cost-effectiveness of localizing your app description by showing you both the cost of translation and the size of the potential user base. We group the countries in which iTunes App Store and Google Play are available into three tiers, based on 5 criteria – number of mobile users, download volume, tech-savviness, preference for local language and willingness to pay. Tier 1 countries are usually early adopters with mature markets, and they don’t require serious marketing efforts. Tier 2 countries are those with huge markets, such as the BRIC countries, that may require more marketing efforts to gain access. Localizing your app into Tier 3 countries implies that your localization is a full-fledged global effort.

What It Means to Go Global

I hope you’ll keep exploring the magnificent potential of global app store optimization. The earlier you start to go global, the more successful your app will be. There’s also something deeply satisfying about expanding to new markets and coming into contact with brand new customer bases. Localization lets you become part of a culture of innovation and global connectedness that’s changing how the world works. Iris Shoor, established Autocad 360 and now a co-founder of Takipi, shares her excitement about app localization of Autocad 360, on TheNextWeb:

Some of the most exciting moments I experienced in my startup were interactions with users I never imagined I would be able to reach. Hearing about how my app is used to build a school in Honduras, preserve a historical site in Xian or redesign a village in Russia meant the world to me.

I think your app can do the same. Let’s change the world!

Other Resources about Global App Store Optimization

OneSky offers some other guides to app description translation in stores other than the iTunes App Store and Google Play. Check out these links for more info:

How to add localized app description to Google Play?

How to add localized app descriptions using iTunes Connect?

Reference: TheNextWeb, Sensor Tower Blog, MobileDevHQ Blog, Mobithinking

Feature Photo Credit: PhotoAtelier

A Complete Guide to Translate Zendesk Content

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Introduction

Customer service software, such as Zendesk, helps you provide efficient, high-quality support for your customers. But if your Zendesk is only available to English-speaking users, and you want to have customers around the world, even the best service platform won’t do you much good.

This post will teach you how to translate Zendesk content using OneSky’s easy-to-use platform. In just a few minutes, you’ll be ready to start supporting customers all over the globe.

Here’s what we’ll review:

How to use Zendesk’s key localization feature, “dynamic content.”
The specific types of Zendesk content that you should translate.
The simple steps you’ll need to take in order to translate that content.
Five tips for using Zendesk to serve customers around the world.

Dynamic content

With Zendesk’s built-in dynamic content feature, you can offer the same content in multiple languages. It allows you to easily import and export text for translation, and you can use a placeholder to insert language-specific additions throughout your Zendesk. It’s also possible to auto-detect users’ language preferences, and then respond in their native languages.

Checklist: the three types of Zendesk content you need to translate

Here’s the content that you’ll definitely want to translate:

1. Standard response to a ticket

These are the standard answers to frequently asked questions, such as “Where I can find my login password?” You can create dynamic content for the response, and then translate it into multiple languages. Just insert the placeholder in a macro to enable automatic response.

You can also localize the ticket’s custom fields to let your users choose the most appropriate ticket type. This is still a beta feature, but you can register for it here.

2. Automated email message

You can also translate Zendesk content to enable automated multilingual support. Keep in mind that any email message you write should include a title, the main content, and a signature, all of which must be translated across languages and cultures. This category also includes your welcome message to users.

3. Help Center

This is a forum where you can store troubleshooting information, how-to-articles, user manuals, and answers to FAQs. It’s the heart and brain of your customer service system. You’ll need to translate the name and description of:

your help center,
each category within your help center,
and each section,

as well as a welcome message, a company tag line in the header, a legal notice in the footer, and service alerts.

Zendesk’s dynamic content feature currently does not support category, section and article. To translate this content, you have to create a separate entry for each language, and then restrict access to that entry to users who are navigating your Zendesk content in that particular language. However, you can attempt to import/export via the forum section of the API. This will require you to develop your own integration with Zendesk.

Complete steps to translate your Zendesk content

For dynamic content:

1. Configure your localization setting

The first step in Zendesk localization is to change your language settings. To do so,

(1) Go to your agent page (http://your_account_name.zendesk.com/agent/).

(2) For Zendesk Plus or Zendesk Enterprise users, click the Admin button () on the sidebar, then select “Account.” Then select the Localization tab. For Zendesk Classic users, press the Settings menu, then choose “Account.” Then select the Localization tab.

(3) Zendesk provides two language settings: the default language, and all additional languages. Selecting additional languages will let your end-users choose among non-default languages when they visit your Help Center or Web portal.

2. Create dynamic content

(1) Click the Admin button () from the sidebar

(2) Select “Manage.” Then select “Dynamic Content.”

(3) Click “Add Item” to create dynamic content

(4) Input the item title, select the default language, and add the dynamic content. Then click “Create.”

3. Export your dynamic content into CSV files

After creating the dynamic content needed for translation, select “Export content,” located in the Import & Export wizard at the right side of the page. Then select “Export”.

You will receive an email with all your dynamic contents attached as a .zip file. The .zip file contains standard CSV files, which are encoded in UTF-8. One CSV file refers to one dynamic content variant.

4. Upload your CSV files to our platform

(1) In order to use our translation platform, you need to prepare a spreadsheet in a specific format. Here’s our supremely simple spreadsheet system:

1st column: write the placeholder of the dynamic content
2nd column: add descriptions for translators as references (optional)
3rd column: place the default text of dynamic content
4th column and so on: any existing dynamic content variant, with one language per column

Placeholders and descriptions aren’t included in the word count when you order professional translation service. Our translators don’t translate the text in those columns.

(2) Login to our platform and click “Add Phrases.” Then click “Select File” under “Spreadsheet” to upload .xls, .xlsx or CSV file.

(3) Make sure to define the structure of your spreadsheet. If your top row is just a header, and you don’t want to include it in your translation, then uncheck the box next to the top row. When finished, click “Import Defined Structure.”

5. Invite your translators / order translation service

After uploading the string files, you may either invite your own translators or order our translation service to help translate your Zendesk content.

6. Download your translated files from OneSky

When a translation is done, click the “Download” button. Be sure to download the file in the CSV format.

Please note that only the phrases that you have approved will be downloaded. By default, we auto-approve all translations. To change this setting, go to “Platform Settings” (the “Settings” button right underneath “Download”).

7. Import the translated files back to your Zendesk

(1) Okay, you’ve retrieved your translated CSV files. Now you’ll have to transfer them back to the Zendesk file format. Start out by combining the dynamic content variants into a single CSV file in the UTF-8 format.

(2) For Zendesk Classic users, select the Manage menu, then choose “Dynamic Content”; for Zendesk Plus or Enterprise users, click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select “Dynamic Content.”

(3) Choose “Import Content” in the Import & Export wizard at the right side of the page. Select the CSV file to import. You can also just paste in the CSV data. Select “Let me paste the data in the text area instead.”

(4) You’ll receive a notification email once the import is complete. Congratulations! Your Zendesk is well on its way to international fame (or at least multilingual usefulness).

Complete steps to translate your Zendesk content

For help center content:

1. Edit the general language setting of Help Center

(1) Before editing the language settings of the Help Center, you should complete the steps to configure your localization setting, mentioned above. This enables localization in your help center.

(2) On your help center page, select “General settings” at the portal. You can then choose the languages you would like your help center to display. Enter the name of your help center in each language.

(3) The language selector will be found at the top menu bar in the Help Center or Web portal.

2. Edit a category to be available in different languages

(1) Select “Edit category” at the portal when you are viewing a category.

(2) On the right-hand column of the page, select the languages you would like to be available in this category. Select “Click to add.”

(3) Select the additional language and place the translated content into the Name and Description boxes respectively (please see Tips #4 for best practice tips).

(4) Click “Update translation,” sit back, and admire your new multilingual content.

3. Edit a section to be available in different languages

(1) Select “Edit section” at the portal when you are viewing a section.

(2) Follow Steps 2 – 4 from the preceding section.

4. Edit an article to be available in different languages

(1) Select “Edit article” at the portal when you are viewing an article.

(2) Again, follow Steps 2 – 4, outlined above.

5. Add content available in different languages.

(1) Select “Add content” at the portal. Then choose the type of content you would like to add.

(2) Follow those same four steps (see the preceding section) to transform your single language content into a polyglottal portal.

Five tips for localizing your Zendesk

Localization does take a bit of time and effort! But don’t fret: here are five tips that will make your work quick, simple, and extra effective.

1. Prioritize your content for translation

By prioritizing the Zendesk content that you want to translate, you can save both time and money. If cost is your main concern, start by translating the help center forum, which stores the bulk of your content. From there, you can direct your customers or users to the specific resource page. Once you’re ready to spend a bit more, you can create standard response templates to common questions. Finish up with other items, such as welcome messages.

On the other hand, if you want to get your localization done as quickly as possible, try translating the standard response first. There are fewer words to translate, so you can be operating in other languages as soon as possible.

So, just to sum it up:

Cost-wise: translate the forum, then welcome messages, then responses to ticket messages.

Time-wise: translate responses to tickets, then welcome messages, and then the forum.

2. Use complete sentences in dynamic content or help center content

It’s tempting to write in sentence fragments. Like this. Right?

But really, your content will end up being more detailed, and sound much more professional, if you use complete sentences.

3. Keep a separate CSV file for help center contents manually

As we mentioned earlier, dynamic content doesn’t currently support the category, section and article of the help center. To smooth the translation of this content, you can manually keep a separate CSV file for your category/section/article material. Use the template introduced in a previous section: “4. Upload your CSV files to our platform”.

4. Keep track with updates

Zendesk can help you detect which dynamic content variant or help center content is out of date. Keep track of Zendesk’s updates in order to have the most up-to-date translations available for your users.

5. Work with your developer to develop your own API

Work with your own developers to undertake two simple, helpful automations:

(1) automating the import/export process of forum contents (see tip 3)

(2) automating the import/export process of out-of-date contents (see tip 4).

Want to know more localization tricks for Zendesk?

Here are some great resources:

How to track requester language by email?

How to write dynamically contented user welcome email?

How to set your localization business hour and use it to trigger notification?

Reference: Zendesk

How to Engage User in Crowdsourced Translation

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Introduction

Although it is cool to crowdsource your translation in order to give your product a local flavor, you can do more with your newfound talent than just translate. There are about a zillion ways to boost user engagement in crowdsourced translation.

In this article, we’ll give you six specific ways to engage your users in your crowdsourced translation project. We’ll also break down the process of crowdsourced translation into three easy-to-understand stages.

Pre-translation stage

At the pre-translation stage, the emphasis is on localization and project planning. You have to identify which languages are needed for translation and invest adequate funding and economic resources.

1. Request Your Users to Choose What Language(s) to Translate into

One way to engage your users at this stage is to let them decide what languages to translate your project into. User-generated input is some of the most valuable you will ever get. Your fans and followers have opinions: from the language availability of your product to a desire for localization. In order to hear their voices, you may set up a voting system at your website. This allows you to easily find out what languages your users are speaking and what languages they want to see your product using. Once you’ve received a certain number of votes for a particular language, you know it is time to kickstart a language translation branch.

2. Let Your Users Fund Your Translation Project

In business, money is always the bottom line. If your users are begging for your product in a new language, they need to understand that the translation process is going to cost both time and money. When they do, they’ll be happy to cough up a little something to help the cause along.

One of the easiest ways to increase user engagement in crowdsourced translation at the donation level is by starting a crowdfunding campaign through a company like Kickstarter. These online fundraising websites have been very successful at helping start-up companies get the money they need to complete their translation project. Recently, a French-only franchise game called Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths launched its crowdfunding project for full localization in English and subtitles in Spanish. They had astonishing results! They more than met their $30,000 goal and raised an additional $15,000 to help complete their translation.

(Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths: Its crowdfunding page)

Translation stage

Remember all the money that you just raised with the help of your fans? Now is the time to spend it. The translation stage is where you take your plans, your funds and your users and mix them together until your translation is complete.

3. Hire (Some of) Your Users to Be Community Manager

In case no one has told you yet, here’s a little hint: A crowdsourced translation project is about as easy as tying your shoes with a crowbar. In order to save yourself the hassle of dealing with every detail and quirk of the translation process, you really need to choose a community manager.

A community manager can help by smoothing out the process of user contribution. While this person has no actual authority over other members, the community manager can rely on his or her recognition in the community to resolve problems. The duties of a community manager consist of approving user registration, implementing community policy as well as settling dispute.

You can recruit a community manager in a few different ways. Many people promote an already recognized translator. Not only does this person’s expertise give him an advantage as a community leader, but enormous contributions to the project can turn into the basis of moral authority. Others choose to directly invite users who are already very active in the community and have created personal relationships with other members.

4. Ask Your Users to Translate the Content

Your translation project isn’t going to go very far if you don’t have some translators on board. That’s why you need a good number of your users to have some translating skills. Still, you don’t want just anyone getting their grubby fingers all over your project. Make sure you’ve done your research on the people you add to your translation team. You should also find out the basic demographics of the people who are helping you. How many multilingual users do you have? What languages do they speak? Answering these questions will give you a good idea of how to best manage your user engagement in the crowdsourced translation schedule.

5. Let Your User to Vote for the Best Translation

For even the most devoted fans, it can be difficult to contribute time or money to a large translation project. But, as voters they can contribute to the project with a few simple clicks. By allowing users to vote, you get them engaged without taxing their personal and financial resources. Set up a page displaying all translated strings and ask your volunteers to vote for the most appropriate translation. You may be surprised by the accuracy of your results!

(The voting section of Facebook translation app)

Post-translation stage

Just because the translation is done, doesn’t mean the work is finished. Good user engagement in crowdsourced translation projects means keeping a schedule of continual quality assurance. This “debugging” is necessary to make sure your translated content is up-to-date and accurate. At this stage you should evaluate the translated content continuously and respond to feedback and fix any mistakes.

6. Let Your Users Be Your Reviewers

Your fans and followers are the perfect group of people to review your final translation. With a simple plug-in on your landing page, you can increase user engagement in the crowdsourced translation product by allowing them to make comments as they read or listen. You may even want to install inline review. With inline review, the system can detect the corresponding string of bad translation and send back to re-translation automatically. This dramatically reduces the turnaround time for the review process, and gives you a better product more quickly. You can also allow your users to suggest alternative translation options that may make your translation project more self-maintained.

Support various forms of engagement to leverage your social capital

Now you know how to let your user engage in your crowdsourced translation projects. As we have discussed, your users can engage at the different stages of the project in 6 key roles: initiator, funder, community manager, translator, voter and reviewer. Before you implement a crowdsourced translation project, consider how your users can help on each of these 6 ways.

One final tip about your upcoming community transition: support variable level of engagement. It allows your users to adjust their level of engagement easily. And, the more freedom you give your fans and followers, the more likely they are to jump in and help.

Have you ever tried one of these crowdsourced translation strategies? We love to hear what you have to say about your experiences with user engagement in crowdsourced translation! Just leave us a comment below.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts about the best strategies, tips and practices for crowdsourced translation. We want to help you make your translation project a success!

Reference: Wiki4us.com

Feature photo credit: adapted from opensourceway

How Evernote Reached 4 Million Users in China Within 1 Year

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Introduction

It’s a million-dollar question: how can tech start-ups gain access to China’s huge market? That’s not an easy question to answer. China is culturally unique, and its Great Firewall, along with the rapid proliferation of cloned products, can trip up even the smartest companies. Google and Groupon are two notable examples of companies that have failed to establish a foothold in the Chinese market.

Still, there are success stories. Take Evernote. After just one year in China, the popular note-taking app now has four million Chinese users. In this Localization Insight post, we’ll dig into the story of Evernote’s localization efforts in China, and draw out some key lessons for bringing apps to the world’s largest country.

(Photo: source)

An Easy-to-Recall Chinese Name

Evernote launched its localized service in China in May 2012. In a blog post announcing the launch, Evernote unveiled its Chinese brand name, Yinxiang Biji (印象笔记), which means Memory Note or Impression Notes.

Instead of translating its name based on pronunciation—as Google did (Gu Ge 谷歌)—Evernote chose to base its Chinese name on the app’s actual function. This makes it easier to relate the product to its uses. As a bonus, Evernote built a memorable pun into its Chinese brand. The second character of the brand name, 象, means “elephant”—which just happens to be the logo of Evernote, making the brand name easier to remember.

In another savvy move, Evernote chose a name that’s easy for Chinese users to pronounce. In general, “L” and “R” sounds are difficult for native Mandarin speakers to say (which means that “Flipboard” needs to take more efforts on its Chinese brand name). Yinxiang Biji, however, is easy for Mandarin speakers to say, and easy for them to remember.

(Image: source)

An Overseas Data Center in China

Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote, has noted that the most common request from users in China is for faster, more stable, and more compatible customer service. But because of the Great Firewall of China, Chinese users who want access to overseas networks have to deal with slow connection speeds. So, because data centers are often located outside of China, synchronization can be slow and frustrating.

As part of its effort to win customers in China, Evernote established its first overseas data center there. Apparently, the best solution to the terrible connection speed between China and the U.S. is to host the service inside the Great Firewall.

Security and Privacy for User Data

A common concern among Chinese technology users today is limited security and privacy online. When Yinxiang Biji was launched, its China team wrote an open letter to potential users, highlighting that they would adhere to the three laws of data protection developed by Evernote CEO Libin: user data would be personal, protected, and portable. The company has emphasized its dedication to securing the privacy of user data since the very beginning. Furthermore, users can still freely choose between Yinxiang Biji and Evernote International if they feel uncertain about Yinxiang Biji’s security.

Original Features in the Localized Version Can Be Accessed Quickly

After the launch of Evernote China (Yinxiang Biji), users complained that many features supported in Evernote’s international version were absent, such as Share (shown in the image below), the IFTTT Feature, and Toolbox. In response, after just a month Yinxiang Biji started providing applications like Evernote Food, Evernote Hello, Evernote Clipper, and Evernote Peak. Now, Yinxiang Biji supports almost all of Evernote’s integration.

(Yinxiang Biji supports Skitch, Penultimate, Web Clipper, Evernote Hello, Evernote Food, etc.)

Tailor-made Features and Integration in China

Besides including features that Evernote already has in its international version, Yinxiang Biji has localized its product with features and integration that are tailor-made for China. Since access to the 3G network is still expensive in China, Internet users prefer accessing mobile applications through WiFi. Accordingly, Yinxiang Biji includes a “sync only with WiFi” feature for users in China.

Just a few months after launching, Yinxiang Biji released its API for integration with local apps. The Yinxiang Biji app store, launched in December 2013, doesn’t just target international apps such as Pocket and IFTTT. It also integrates with local apps such as Weibo, Duoguo (a restaurant guide website), and UC browsers.

(Yinxiang Biji’s Trunk: link)

Yinxiang Biji has also integrated with Weibo and WeChat in an innovative way. Yinxiang Biji users can save their clipped content through their Weibo and WeChat accounts by simply creating an integral account. Outside of China, Evernote had offered this feature for Twitter users, but the tool was unpopular, and Evernote phased it out. Since it’s very popular to use messaging apps in China, though, Yinxiang Biji’s developers made sure to include this feature.

(Images of storing article in Yinxiang Biji via WeChat: source)

Although Yinxiang Biji’s integration with local social media isn’t perfect—for instance, it does not yet support the sharing feature for social media—developers have been proactive in creating apps for local use.

Localized Marketing Strategies

Yinxiang Biji also has marketing strategies tailored to the Chinese market, with an official blog and Weibo, and with content that is specifically targeted to users in China. For instance, Yinxiang Biji has invited users to write about how they use Evernote to make traveling easier. That content is sure to be popular in China, where traveling is all the rage.

(Travellers Using Evernote Campaign: link)

Localized Customer Service

Evernote also takes pride in its customer service. As mentioned, people in China are heavy users of messaging apps. To better serve its Chinese users, Yinxiang Biji supports real-time customer support on local social media. While international users won’t always get a response from Evernote’s official Facebook page or Twitter account, users in China will consistently get a response when they communicate with Evernote’s official Weibo and WeChat accounts. That kind of localized approach to social media and customer service ensures that Evernote will be more attentive to the needs of its customers in China.

(Yinxiang Biji’s official Weibo account: link)

How to Run an App in China

Edith Yeung, VP of Business Development for Dolphin Browser, recently told TheNextWeb that culturalization is the key to success in new markets. Entering new markets is not just about translating a language—it’s about having relevant content and relevant services that are attuned to the culture of a particular country. That approach certainly characterizes Evernote’s strategies in China. What they have done goes far beyond a simple English-to-Mandarin translation.

From watching Evernote closely, we’ve come up with four major lessons for anyone trying to enter the Chinese market.

1. Think Global from Day 1

According to Libin, Evernote’s leaders have wanted to reach out to China since their early start-up days. Thinking globally for your app from day one is important, both in terms of product design and business development. Bringing your product to the world shouldn’t just be an afterthought.

2. Localize, Don’t Just Translate

Translating your app is just the first step in reaching out to new markets like China. You have research the new market, understand the environment, and develop integration strategies that are suited to a given culture.

3. Know that Chinese Users Are Chat App Addicts

In China, there are many issues you have to cope with: censorship, new user habits, competitors, lax copyright enforcement, and so on. But, as Evernote demonstrates, a few clever strategies, based on a careful observation of customer preferences in China, can help you reach new users. In particular, remember that messaging apps are very, very popular in China—much more so than in the United States. Integrating your app with local social media is a good start in bringing your product closer to Chinese users.

4. Get the Perfect Chinese Translation for Your Brand Name

Brand name translation is not about getting something exotic to put on your logo. Your brand should already have value even before people hear the translated name. And the name shouldn’t just be a direct phonetic translation—it should be something that will be memorable, appealing, and easy to pronounce for Chinese customers. To use a Chinese idiom, having a good brand translation is like getting the dragon a pair of eyes.

Your turn!

Is your product available in China now, or are you planning to bring it here? Do you have anything to share? Feel free leave your comments below!

More Resources

[Analysis] What to learn from @Evernote “China Strategy” & Execution – Another extensive analysis of Evernote’s strategies in China by Chenyu Z. Provides some excellent detail on WeChat-Evernote integration.

Localization Insight is a blog post series written by OneSky that offers cutting-edge insights into localization in the mobile and web application industries. Please stay tuned by subscribing to our blog!

Reference: Geekpark (in Chinese), Techweb

Featured photo credit: Connie Ma

15 Tips to Motivate Your Crowdsourcing Translators

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Patrick Yip

For many crowdsourced translation projects, the most challenging problem they encounter is how to motivate their crowdsourcing translators. To move people’s heart is not easy, but there are some ways that work. In this blog post, we share 15 tips to increase your volunteer’s incentive to engage in your localization project.

Problems

Love Cannot be Forced

The mechanisms of crowdsourced translation are love and loyalty. People do not engage in your project for monetary rewards, but for their fondness. However, it is difficult to turn your users’ love into concrete and solid contribution.

Free Rider Problem

This is a classic Economics 101 issue. As with all public goods, people are tempted to await for the release of native language support without translating a single string.

Psychology

To solve the problems, it is important to know the psychology of motivation. There are, in general, three push factors for people to engage in things without monetary rewards:

Recognition
Growth
No hardship

Recognition

Recognition is a basic human psychological need. People want recognition and positive feedback from others to acknowledge the contribution of their work. Otherwise, people may feel that their efforts are wasted or doubt its meaningfulness.

Growth

Knowing things are growing, whether it is their project or themselves, is good sign for people to continue their work. It shows that there is some prospect in their piece of work that is worth putting effort into.

No Hardship

People tend to avoid pain and hardship, especially when they are working as volunteers. Make sure the atmosphere is not filled with boredom and bitterness.

Solutions

Here we offer fifteen ways to improve participants’ incentive based on the three push factors mentioned above.

Recognition

#1 Show Genuine Need for Their Help

When you establish a localization campaign, you should set your goal clearly (what languages you want to translate, why, and by when). Arouse the compassion in your users’ hearts. Show your need for them.

#2 Set Up a Leaderboard/Hall of Fame

Create a publicly accessible page on your site where people can see how much your volunteers have contributed. Sort them accordingly. This can promote an atmosphere of playful competition (see #14), as well as recognize volunteers’ contributions.

(source: facebook)

#3 Thank Them Regularly

A leaderboard is only a static page. No one knows who is topping the charts without clicking on the link, so you also need to thank your volunteers regularly by sending e-mails or making announcements. Tell them that this project won’t be making progress without their contributions. You could also highlight the contributors of the month and show your gratitude.

#4 Announce the Progress Regularly

In addition to making e-mail announcements about progress, you can announce progress publically. Tell the public how your translation project has gone so far. Celebrate the achievement of any milestones of your campaign.

#5 Write Their Stories

Another way to recognize your contributors is to write stories about them. Interview them. Listen to their experiences with your product. Hear their motives and joys of translating your product. Your translators should be bilingual/multilingual users, and they may come from diverse backgrounds.

#6. Give Them Unique Branded Gifts

You may also offer your translators some branded products that are unique to the campaign. Lovers of your product would also love to receive a mug or t-shirt printed with your product’s logo.

#7 Adopt the Contribution Rapidly

It is a strong positive signal for users to see their contribution published. That’s the biggest recognition of their work. So apply contributions more rapidly. Sometimes you don’t even need to release the translation upon completion.

Growth

#8 Use a Progress Gauge

A progress gauge can be used to show the percentage of work that has been done to date, and how much is still needed to meet the goal. Update the progress gauge regularly to let your users know how things are going.

(photo: source)

#9 Quantify Their Contributions

Use point system to turn translators’ contributions into quantifiable indicators. They can view how much they have done each time they login. It is a growth parameter for them.

#10 Promote Dedicated Contributors

Make the job of volunteer translator like a career path. Grant some special access rights to those contributors who are very devoted to your project. For instance, give them the right to approve the final translation before it is released. You can even promote them to be the community managers who have the authority to approve new registrations, set policies and norms, and resolve disputes. People love to have increased impact on a community that they care about.

#11 Offer Official Certificates

Offering certificates may benefit the career development of some of your volunteers, such as translators and interpreters. Send them official certificates from your organization with the details of the nature and the quality of work they have contributed. Certificates should look highly professional. This solution can attract users from the translation profession.

No Hardship

#12 Ask Them to Vote

This tactic allows a variety of involvement in your crowdsourced translation project. Some of your users can be passionate readers, but they dislike translation work. To bring these users into play, have them vote for the best options of translations, as opposed to actually translating material themselves.

(photo: source)

#13 Make your translation UI more tempting

Some users may hesitate to help if they see a myriad of strings to translate, since they may prefer making a few translations only. You can still use these volunteers by making your translation UI contain fewer translation strings. The best format would be simply an original string and a box to place a user’s translation. Once they have started contributing at a pace that is comfortable for them, they may be more open to contributing more.

#14 Set Up a Competition

Competitions and games can add a little fun to your crowdsourced translation project. You can make use of suggestions #2 and #5, sending gifts to the best or most prolific contributors in the game.

#15 Double Your Rewards Near Completion

If you are looking for a last resort to boost the progress of your project when you are near your goal, you can double the points or rewards for translation of the remaining 10% or 20% of content. It can boost volunteer engagement, especially when combined with competitions (see suggestion #14).

We would love to know if you have any comments or any tips to share with us. Please leave your comment below! 🙂

Reference: wiki4us.com

Feature Photo Credit: opensourceway

The Secret of Monetizing Messaging Apps by Localizing Emoji

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Patrick Yip

Craving for emoji globally

Did you not use any emoji in your online conversation today?

Emoji have spread around the world while it began as a Japanese phenomenon (Thanks to Apple’s introduction). Asian chat apps like Line and WeChat prove that selling emoji stickers can be a highly profitable business. Western rivals such as Facebook are also joining the craze in the past few year. Although selling

Although selling emoji stickers seems promising, there are other localization challenges that we have to avoid, especially if an app is going global. Read this blog post to learn more.

The little things that make huge money

Emoji are not just for fun. It is a killer feature that can make millions of dollar.

In 1990s, the creator of emoji and Japan’s largest mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo produced a series of best-selling pagers after they introduced a heart symbol in their messaging function. Nevertheless, its core customers were gone soon after NTT DoCoMo removed this feature in newer models.

Heart emoji – the first emoji in history

The Japanese messaging app Line monetises sticker as one of its major revenue channels. In Line, some of the stickers are for free, but others may cost around 170 yen (about $1.75) for a pack of 40. The total delivery of these sticker messages is tremendous. Line says now its users send more than one billion stickers per day. The sales of sticker alone have contributed around $10 million in revenue to Line. Line has become one of the fastest-growing messaging apps in the world with more than 230 million users internationally.

Line achieves so much success with emoji stickers

The making of sticker also creates a lot of business opportunities in collaboration with artists and businesses, including Sanrio and The Walt Disney Company Ltd, and attracts more users and fans.

The emoji craze is due to the attractiveness of image-led communication. Performics shows that photos is the most engaging type of media on social media. Tessa Mansfield, senior vice president at research firm Stylus, suggests that communicating via emoji has created a kind of “digital slang” and “personalized conversation” for young teens.

Localization errors in emoji that even Line and Apple made

Confusing content to particular cultures

However, if an emoji is not well localized, the content may lack user’s sensibility, and lead to low usage.

Some emoji, like heart icon and smiley, are universal. But for many of them, their content is still biased towards Japanese culture. It tends to confuse many non-Asian users.

For example, a popular sticker pack in Line which is called salaryman, consists of pictures about the daily routine life of a typical white-collar businessman in Japan. This set of emoji works well in Asian contexts, where crazy working hours and commuting are not rare, it lacks sympathy in North American or European contexts.

Line stickers are popular in Asia, but look confusing to some westerners.

Low respects for ethnic diversity

Cultural sensitivity and respect for ethnic diversity are important in a globalized world. We all understand that.

But even Apple made mistakes on it. In the collection of 800 emoji in iOS, there are only two emoji portraying non-Caucasians. One is a turban and another looks vaguely Asian. None of them are black people.

Apple’s emoji set lacks Black people

There’s a petition on Do Something asking Apple to introduce a more diverse roster of emoji for the iOS7 emoji keyboard update. It calls for at least four characters with darker skin tones in the next update.

How to localize emoji right

Localization is not just about translation. It is also about adapting into local culture to meet local need.

That’s why cultural sensitivity in localization is important. Cultural sensitivity refers to the comprehensibility and cultural appropriateness of a product. There are four ways to improve cultural sensitivity.

Be diverse

Emoji are human-like images or icons. We should deal with emoji’s cultural issues as how we do for human photography or filmography.

Discrimination against gender, ethnicity, sexuality and even impairment should be eradicated when designing emoji. Check the number of emoji and stickers about different social groups and make them more balanced.

Study communication cultures

Understanding of local norms is the key to localization success.

Facebook discovered that the way Asians use emoji is not simply to express emotion. The context where the emoji is placed is also important. For example, a face on a beach with the sun glaring means they are happy, but not that they are attending to beach.

In US, however, only the emotion of the face on the emoji matters, not surroundings. So more explicit tone of emoji is needed in Western context.

Collaborate with local brands or artists

Collaborating with local businesses and artists is a short cut of localization success. Line, for example, is proactive in this aspect. To consolidate its 15 million user base in Spain, recently Line scored a

To consolidate its 15 million user base in Spain, Line scored a partnership with Spanish football clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. After installing Line and connecting with specfiic accounts, you will receive stickers featuring the two football clubs for users for free.

Sticker of Messi on Line

Allow customizing emoji

If a chat app has open culture in code, it may also allow users to customize emoji. Remember what MS Live Messenger did for emoticons in the old days. Let local creation meets local demands.

Corporate messaging app Slack is doing it right. It allows users to customize emoji that is unique to their user group. It helps add humor and localness among work communication.

There are apps that let users create emoji. MyEmoji Creator allows users turn photos into emoji in messages as well as share them via social media.

But again, customization can be a two-sided blade. Remember to do the best practices in preserving cultural sensitivity when allowing customization.

Build a killer chat app by doing localization right

Nowadays, 80% of Line’s users are from overseas markets, including 18 millions in Thailand and 17 million in Taiwan. Mr. Morikawa, chief strategy and marketing officer of Line, attributes its global success to its localization efforts. As mentioned above, collaboration with local firms is important to Line’s development of emoji and stickers.

After all, native content is king. The more local emoji is, the more successful the messaging app is in the local market.

What’s your take on localizing emoji? Any funny example that you came across? Please feel free to let us know below!

Feature Photo Credit: Gizmodo

3 Ways to Save Localization Cost for Your Apps

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Patrick Yip

How to save on localization cost

Imagine that you are a taking a cab to sightsee in a foreign place. You tell the cab driver where you want to go. When the bill meter keeps beeping, your mind keeps worrying. Finally you get there, pay the bill, and just realize that you want to go a little bit further. But then the driver tells you, “sorry you gotta pay again”. What words come into your mind? Stupid, or…?

Some developers may share such experience when they attempt to get their apps localized. They feel like paying too much when they submit their string files, as they are not familiar with the target language and the process itself. Particularly when developers have to modify their product, localization becomes a recurring task to them. A penny saved is a penny earned. Here we share some tips to save your translation cost, especially for start-ups at their earlier stages of business.

During product design and product development

#1 Use placeholder

Placeholder refers to an expression or a symbol where substitution may take place by some literal string. For example, a website might want to display “Welcome back, John” to the user whose name is John whenever he revisits the website. In the code file, you’ll see something like “Hi %s”. The symbol “%s” then serves as the function of placeholder. Since placeholder is simply a dummy variable, it would not be translated throughout the process of localization.

With good use of placeholder, you can save the cost rapidly.Here’s an example. If you would like to translate the following text

“You just jogged for 30 minutes. Keep it up!”;

“You just jogged for 25 minutes. Keep it up!”;

“You just jogged for 25 minutes. Keep it up!.”;

If you use a placeholder to merge the three sentences into the following string, you can save up to 66% of the translation cost.

“You just jogged for %d minutes. Keep it up!”;

Before string submission

#2 Eliminate duplicated strings

Before submitting the resource files to your translation solutions, you may have to check your string deliberately to avoid strings being duplicated. Translation agents are like cab drivers – they only count the quantity of words for pricing. If you submit the same string twice, that means you have to pay double. So the advice to lower your cost is to check your strings again before clicking the “send” bottom.

Nevertheless, be cautious when you are checking the duplicated strings because the same text may contain different meanings. For example, the word “italian” may refer to a language, a form of culture or a nationality. Therefore, you also need to take a look at the usage of the duplicated strings upon checking.

For future updates

#3 Use translation memory

For future updates or revision, you may look for translation service provided with a feature called “translation memory” to reduce the translation cost. Translation memory is a solution that auto-detects the new content of the updates. Repeated phrases can be kept and remain consistent across all translated content. By doing so, you can save the translation cost and reduce manpower to check duplicated keys.

(Reference: Wikipedia) (Photo: source)