Localization Specialists

After receiving a localization assignment, specialists meet with executives and other stakeholders to create a localization strategy that covers the objectives, scope, budget, timeline, and deliverables for the project. At some employers, a localization project manager may take the lead in developing the strategy, but the specialist will participate in strategy meetings.

Once the localization strategy is created, specialists conduct research about the market. They need to understand their target audience (e.g., teens, senior citizens, women ages 25–45) and have an extensive understanding of the culture that speaks/writes their target translation language (e.g., Japanese, Arabic, German, Mandarin). Of course, some languages are spoken in more than one country, which requires the localization specialist to learn about the history, religion, pop culture, slang, and societal taboos in the country (or countries) where the localized product or service will be sold. To increase the challenge, some countries have multiple official or national languages, and the specialist may need to localize products or services in more than one language. They also must be familiar with the terminology that is used in their industry (e.g., information technology, healthcare), as well as have knowledge of marketing, product management, and search engine optimization strategies.

Once they understand the market, specialists get to work. Let’s use an example of marketing materials that need to be localized from English to German. Specialists first create a rough translation from English into German. This isn’t as simple as translating word-to-word. The localization specialist must identify the German words and phrases that convey the proper tone and message to the German audience. They also must be aware of cultural and other issues in the English version that might be off-putting to German consumers. If localizing marketing content for a specific audience—for example, those between the ages of 18–30, specialists might include slang or cultural references that are popular with that age group. In addition to localizing the text, the specialist may replace photographs and/or videos that appear in the marketing materials to better cater to German sensibilities. Other components that may be changed include the design, colors, and even humor in the marketing materials.

Once the project is completed, the marketing materials undergo a quality assurance review to ensure that they meet the project objectives and scope and that the information is accurate and culturally appropriate. The specialist revises the marketing materials based on feedback from the client and other stakeholders.

To do their work, localization specialists use computer-assisted translation, translation management systems, software localization, localization testing, and quality assurance tools, as well as desktop publishing tools, machine translation systems, and subtitling and captioning tools. Advanced artificial intelligence is increasingly used in translation/localization software, so specialists must understand the pros and cons of using this technology.