English-to-English Localization
Is it really localization if you’re not changing the language?
Obviously, the answer is “yes.” Automakers localize their products by placing the steering wheel on the left or right, yet everything remains in English.
So it is with a marketing campaign. A client is launching a campaign in several English-speaking countries: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, even Hong Kong. Nobody consulted me on the campaign – why would they when translation is not involved? – but I heard about it through the grapevine and weighed in.
This is a localization issue. Even though the other locales all use English, we are, in effect, translating content for them.
Mind you, it’s not the kind of localization effort that calls for translation memory and engineering, but there is a big QA lesson from localization that I’ve tried to impress on the team: We need to run the campaign past a stakeholder in each country during this process.
If it’s worth going after customers in the other locales, it’s worth researching terminology, spelling and suitability to get it right, and part of that is in-country review.
“Do NOT try to get this right yourself,” I’ve told the marketing team. “No matter how much research you do, you’ll miss something that an in-country local would spot in a heartbeat.”
What do you do differently for English-to-English (or French-to-French, Spanish-to-Spanish, etc.) localization?