3 x 7 can be a lot more than 21,sometimes!

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2012/01/25 07:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2012/01/25/10260491.aspx


So we currently have the Building Windows 8 (An inside look from the Windows engineering team) Blog.

It is localized into French, aka Français.
 
And it is localized into German, aka Deutsch.
 
And it is also localized ino Brazilian Portuguese, aka Português (Brasil).
 
We didn't skip localizing into Korean, aka 한국어.
 
And it was also important localizing into Japanese, aka 日本語.
 
We didn't ignore localizing into Chinese, aka 简体中文.

And last but not least we localize into Russian, aka Русский.

As a Blog being localized, the project goals are clear.

The blog will build interest and enthusiasm among developers, IT Pros, and enthusiasts for the next version of Windows. It is the engineering blog for Windows 8, and the content is provided by Steven Sinofsky and the Windows engineering team.

For the WWLI content localization team, our goal was to accomplish the following:

We are now well over 45 blogs in., and feedback has been  really good.

But we didn't stop there.

We also have a Windows Store for developers Blog, and we have started doing the localization for the very popular IEBlog as well.

And each will be localized into those same seven languages!

Quite a grid we'red building:

Building Windows 8
An inside look from the Windows engineering team

Windows Store for developers IEBlog
French Conception de Windows 8
Vision en coulisses de l'équipe d'ingénierie Windows
Blog Windows Store pour les développeurs IEBlog Français
German Die Entwicklung von Windows 8
Einblicke in die Arbeit des Windows-Entwicklerteams
Windows Store-Blog für Entwickler IEBlog Deutsch
Brazilian Portguese

Criando o Windows 8
Nos bastidores com a equipe de engenharia do Windows

Blog da Loja do Windows para desenvolvedores IEBlog Português
Russian Создание Windows 8
Взгляд изнутри от группы разработчиков Windows
Магазин Windows: блог для разработчиков IEBlog Русский
Japanese Building Windows 8
Windows エンジニアリング チームによるブログ
Windows Store 開発者向けブログ IEBlog 日本語
Korean Windows 8 빌드
Windows 기술팀 내부 모습
개발자용 Windows 스토어 블로그 IEBlog 한국어

simplified Chinese

Building Windows 8
来自 Windows 工程团队的内部视点
面向开发人员的 Windows Store 博客 IEBlog 简体中文

Nothing short of Amazing!


John Cowan on 25 Jan 2012 8:22 AM:

It sounds very weird to talk about "localizing" text. When we localize an application (or a kitchen appliance, for that matter), we are basically changing the labels on *things*, the same things in all versions.  But to localize prose is to change it altogether.

Furthermore, there is the question of the *degree* of localization.  It is one thing to translate a history of France into German, and another thing to "translate" it into a history of Germany!  (Presumably both versions would start with the emperor variously called Charlemagne or Karl der Grosse, and take it from there.)  I'm guessing that these blogs you speak of will be mostly translated, perhaps with some amount of truly local content -- this is what Reuters does in its non-English newswires, for example.

If SIAO were to be localized in Chinese, would it be a straightforward translation of your text into Chinese?  Or would it be more like "What Michael would write if he spoke and wrote Chinese"?  Or would it be "What Michael (or a Chinese version of him) would think Chinese people would like to know about various topics such as MS and MS?"  

Michael S. Kaplan on 25 Jan 2012 8:31 AM:

The goals of localizing these three Blogs are rather specific and cover your concerns, I think.

Localizing *this* Blog might be a bit harder to do, I think!


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