An enterprise’s success relies on connecting with customers and showing how its products solve their problems. When expanding internationally, companies often focus on content translation as the primary tool to build that relationship.
Unfortunately, translating content into local languages only goes so far. Global audiences expect to enjoy the same top-tier user experience as customers in the home market. Companies must consider cultural and linguistic factors to create messaging that resonates with international users. They must look beyond language and adapt their products, computer programs, user interfaces, and content for globe-spanning markets.
In other words, companies must tailor their offerings to a user’s specific locale.
Businesses that understand what a locale is and its significance in international expansion can create a seamless and authentic experience for their transnational customers. Learn how you can do it, too.
What does locale mean?
When discussing products and software, locale's definition refers to a set of regional preferences that shape interface, content, and terminology, making a user interface more relatable. Beyond language, full localization ensures alignment with a user’s locale by adapting various elements: regional spelling or vocabulary differences, currency and pricing, date formats, measurement units, and shipping policies—all factors that vary by region.
The meaning of locale goes beyond just translation—it’s about creating a familiar, user-centered experience. No matter where a customer lives, a properly localized website’s content, user interface, and settings should seamlessly adjust to their locale, consistently delivering the same high-quality experience.
What are the differences between language and locale?
Language and locale are related concepts, but they aren’t interchangeable.
Language is a communication system that’s essential to human interaction. It lets people convey ideas, thoughts, and emotions via symbols, sounds, and gestures. Whether spoken, written, or signed, languages allow collaboration, instruction, and expression.
Selecting the appropriate language is one element of matching a product to a user’s locale, but it doesn’t stop there. Incorporating geographic and cultural elements will refine communication beyond words. By considering locale, companies can tap into various cultural conventions to curate software applications and products that cater to specific markets. Here are some elements that contribute to locale customization:
1. Regional terminology
Although some countries share common languages, such as the U.S. and the U.K. or Canada and France, their vocabulary, spelling, and terminology are mutable. In particular, slang terms might be totally unfamiliar across borders.
Localization bridges the cultural divide by incorporating expressions common to the region.
For example:
| UNITED STATES (EN) | UNITED KINGDOM (EN) |
|---|---|
| Cookies | Biscuits |
| Chat online | Have an online chinwag |
| Color | Colour |
| Bar | Public house (aka pub) |
Localization can also help avoid embarrassing misunderstandings. For example, a common noun like “pants” in America actually refers to underpants in England.
2. Prices and currencies
Companies operating in international markets should display their prices in the local currency. Rather than creating an entirely new platform, many e-commerce websites provide settings to automatically switch product prices based on user locale.
3. Dates and units
Date formats vary significantly between countries.
- In much of Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and South and Central America, dates are arranged day-month-year.
- In China and Japan, it’s year-month-day.
- In the U.S., dates are commonly month-day-year.
- Conversely, Canada varies situationally, encoding dates in all three formats.
Units of measurement are another consideration (e.g., Fahrenheit versus Celsius, metric versus imperial).
Internationalization of dates and units according to local standards demonstrates an understanding of the country’s systems and increases clarity for consumers.
4. Time formats
Most countries are equally familiar with 12- and 24-hour clocks. The primary difference is how they manage time fractions.
Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English speakers typically divide the hour into quarters and halves and refer to them according to the closest hour. In this system, 10:30 p.m. becomes “half past 10” or “half 10.” In non-English Germanic languages, halves refer to the upcoming hour instead of the preceding, so speakers would say “half 11” rather than “half 10” to relay 10:30 p.m. Arabic speakers also incorporate thirds of an hour into time descriptors relative to the nearest hour.
5. Shipping options
To create a positive shopping experience, display shipping costs and carriers tailored to the options available in each geographic region. Providing localized shipping details not only simplifies the purchasing process for customers but also builds trust by ensuring transparency about delivery times, fees, and available carriers. This level of customization demonstrates an understanding of regional logistics preferences and enhances overall customer satisfaction.
6. Compliance
Adapting content and product offerings to meet regional compliance standards is crucial, as each country has specific legal requirements impacting everything from labeling and marketing to privacy and data protection policies.
For example, certain regions impose strict regulations on advertising to children, which may necessitate adjustments to both digital and physical marketing materials. Similarly, the European Union enforces rigorous data privacy standards through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Complying with these local laws reinforces customer trust, demonstrating the company’s commitment to transparency and respect for regional regulations.
7. Products and services
Organizations can segment their product catalog based on the following factors:
- Traditions, values, and norms
- Celebrations and festivities
- Geographic location
- Climate and environment variables
- Population density
For example, a clothing retailer may not promote a line of snow boots as aggressively to users from the Middle East or Northern Africa. They may also time sales to coincide with national and religious holidays appropriate for the area.
By considering locale, companies customize their marketing and products according to the linguistic and cultural conventions of the region. Their efforts create a user-friendly experience for their target audience and establish the organization as a respectful and considerate presence in the marketplace.
How to create locale-specific content on your website
When expanding into international markets, businesses don’t want to create a new website for every region. Instead, they need a solution that seamlessly adapts content for diverse audiences without duplicating efforts. Smartling’s Global Delivery Network facilitates the process, producing localized websites, applications, and landing pages in any language with ease.
Once configured, Smartling gathers your website's content to create a mirrored version in the translated language. The GDN then delivers localized content instantly based on user-selected language preferences or automatically detects them using browser settings, IP addresses, or cookies from prior visits.
The GDN also keeps your content up to date by detecting and translating source copy changes with translation memory, which is quicker and more cost-effective than manual methods. To further streamline the process, the GDN Crawler can automatically scan your website on a set schedule, ensuring that static, dynamic, and interactive elements remain current. It can also extract translatable text from functional programming languages like JavaScript. For added flexibility, Smartling users can customize the Crawler’s functionality across multiple deployment environments with features such as adjustable schedules, scope filters, and custom connection headers.
Users who want to take their localization further can adapt to different locales by deploying content specific to a geographical region. These actions tailor website content specifically for audiences in different countries or markets. Here are four of the most common types of locale-specific content:
Language-specific content within pages
Smartling’s GDN permits users to rewrite or adapt elements of their source code to any locale using the Content Swap option on the Smartling dashboard. Content Swap allows users to replace or modify parts of a translated page to display region-specific information.
Images
Like Content Swap, the Image Replacement function allows users to replace visual assets on their mirrored site with localized or more culturally appropriate images. Localization best practices for web content recommend using text overlays rather than embedded text in images. However, when your design requires custom images, the GDN lets you easily load in locale-specific versions.
Content authored in-language
If an organization has written content in a foreign market’s language or has translated text from the source site, users can use the dashboard to prevent content from being translated by the GDN in two ways:
- According to URL: Apply the “No Translate” class to the URL via the Smartling dashboard.
- According to markup: Add the “No Translate” class to the HTML code, element class, or element ID.
Language-specific content at scale
Smartling can work with your website's tech stack to signal when your content should be modified according to the requested language. This enables localization at scale by combining specific page layouts or catalog items according to geographical regions with the translation capabilities of the GDN.
The GDN includes functionality to read and modify connection headers. It automatically includes a custom outgoing header value, formatted as X-Language-Locale. The format leverages the ISO 639-1 standards of two-letter codes to identify the language and two capital letters representing the locale.
- French (France) = fr-FR
- French (Canada) = fr-CA
- English (U.K.) = en-GB
- Spanish (International) es
- Spanish (Columbia) es-CO
Depending on the language identifier added by the GDN your source website can determine what content to display to the end user visiting the translated site.
Market to international audiences with Smartling
Let Smartling assist your organization in reaching new audiences, no matter where they’re located. Our platform helps companies maximize the efficiency of their translations while optimizing localization efforts.
If you’re unsure where to start, we’ve provided a helpful eBook, the “Ultimate Guide to Translating Your Marketing Materials.” This free manual provides useful advice and pointers to build an international marketing strategy that connects your product with a global audience through translation and localization.
