Glossaries
Firstly, the fundamentals of our industry: GILT
Globalization (g11n) is the spread of information, knowledge and commerce around the world. For a company, targeting globalization means conducting research into new markets and planning the modification of goods and services for new countries, languages and cultures.
The process of globalization will involve localizing an organization’s website and software, its texts and terminology and perhaps its products and services. Language plays an important role in all aspects of globalization.
Internationalization (i18n) is quite a mouthful but it’s easier to understand than to say. Simply put, it is the preparation of products and services for their easy adaptation into new, international markets.
Internationalization starts in the planning stage and can mean that products and services are designed with a broad, multicultural audience in mind. A key focus in this area is the internationalization of software and the process of making it readily adjustable to different languages and scripts.
Localization (l10n) is a step beyond translation. It makes sure the translation fits the cultural context of its target language. It takes into account images, design and other elements that form the piece of translated content. Spelling, graphics, units of measurement, colors, dates, humor, cultural references and more can all be adapted for localization.
Localization ensures that the target audience receives the content as if it were originally produced for them.
When a website is localized, the invisible background text and information must also be adapted to the target culture context and page navigation and design should reflect local convention. As with general localization, user experience is the priority.
Translation (t9n) is the transfer of words and their meaning from one language to another. The original language, which we call the source, is produced in another language, the target. Pretty straightforward this one.
Here at t’works our job is to communicate information in a way that makes it accessible to the people it’s aimed at. Our objective is to eliminate any barriers to understanding and the intended audience is always our priority. That’s why we’ve created our glossaries.
In all sectors of the working world, people coin their own terminology to more easily encapsulate the specific processes, techniques, concepts and technology related to their sector. These words, phrases and abbreviations (the latter in particular!) can get in the way of proper understanding if they’re not correctly explained. The language industry is no exception.
Our t’works glossaries are designed to demystify and clarify the words we use when talking about our services and solutions. We hope you find them useful. And of course, if there’s anything else we can do to better illuminate our work, we would be more than happy to chat to you about it. Just get in touch here.
