Professional translation/localization services - Localization

Hi,
I have translated some apps and games into other languages and it has worked really well, i have noticed that my downloads have increased.
I dont have many time for localization exchanges, so i usually use professional translators. I would want to know, if you have tried them, which are the best services to translate the apps and games into other languages.
My experience:
- AppLingua. It is a good service, it works great but it is really expensive. https://applingua.com/
- OnTranslate. This is a new service that i have tried and it has worked great for me. The price for professional translations are the best ones. 0,04 € per word in expert translations is great. http://ontranslate.com/
- Icanlocalize: I have tried ICanLocalize but i am not very satisfied because they have not been fast in the translation. It is also expensive http://www.icanlocalize.com/
- Google Play translation partners: They work correctly too, but they are very very expensive so i think will not try them...
Please share your experience!
Thank you!

Thanks for sharing! I've had the experience with Google Translate. It was awful Users compained loudly...
Than I decided to pay. I was looking for an agency that would meet my criteria:
1) have experience doing app translation
2) each translator is NATIVE speaker in the target language
3) reasonable prices
In the end I chose Alconost. Since than I have no problems with localization.
By the by I guess quality and money go hand and hand in this industry, and good job can't be cheap... decide for yourself

Related

A Fantastic Audible and written Language translation service for Touch Pro

A while ago I did a thread on language translation software and I am pleased to hear from a business that for years has had books that help people learn languages for times when you may find yourself overseas. Now I am happy to say you can now get this software on your pocket PC including the Touch Pro for under $10. Here is a posting I put in the general section of this website.
After doing a few enquiries about a fantastic language translation software that I heard was available on the iphone I was told that this software is now available on Windows Mobile Pocket Pc's. Its not freeware but at under $10 its well worth it. I first came across this language translation in a book but now you can get it on your pocket Pc and it comes with both written and audible translation. Its from Lonely Planet and you can purchase it from Handmark. Here is the link.
http://handmark.resultspage.com/search?w=lonely+planet&device=&x=16&y=12
Ignore where it says uncompatible for Touch Pro as I have it on mine and it is working fine. The software was just developed prior to touch pro release and as such it is coming up as not compatible but as I have sai it is working perfectly on my Touch Pro

I've always been impressed/jealous...

of people who dont speak english naturally, yet have the patience to learn such a difficult language. im always impressed and flattered by foreigners who speak incredible english with great grammar and sentence structure, especially when people like me who have trouble getting the rules straight when we already should know them. what makes learning english even more incredible is that there are over 1,000,000 words in the english language (most arent used anymore but they still can be). german comes in at a very distant second place with just over 300,000 words. and most english words have at least five other words that mean the exact same thing. random english words fact: there is no single word in english for "the back of the knee". anyways, its great to hear people speak english as their second language. so, kudos (slang for "congrats") to all you non english speaking people who have the incredible patience to learn something that does not come naturally to you. i do hope to learn german one day, because i have family in germany; and maybe even learn russian too. again, thanks to all aspiring linguists around the globe.
p.s. sorry if i use words that are big/fancy. i have a bad habit of doing that.
Thank you, I feel flattered as a foreigner and I think my decent english is due to watching a lot of television. Like talk shows and movies. Actually imo english is easier to learn than dutch or french etc. because most foreigners grow up with hearing english stuff around them. This almost never the case in England nor America. It's just the universal language, so there's less need to learn extra languages.
Sent from my HTC
I´ve learned as a second language due to my mother is teacher/translator English/French.
Remember when I was a kid watching the movies in English, even if I did not understood a single word.
I consider I speak quite well (much better than my writing skills)
shoemeistah said:
Thank you, I feel flattered as a foreigner and I think my decent english is due to watching a lot of television. Like talk shows and movies. Actually imo english is easier to learn than dutch or french etc. because most foreigners grow up with hearing english stuff around them. This almost never the case in England nor America. It's just the universal language, so there's less need to learn extra languages.
Sent from my HTC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, there are absolutely no errors in your English. God I wish I was that linguistically skilled. English is that common in other countries? I never would have guessed that. By the way, I absolutely love Europeans. I think they are the most pleasant people to be around (at least I think they are). I've only been to Europe once, but my dream is to visit every country in Europe. There is just something so wonderful about Europe. Anyways, you Europeans keep being awesome!!!
For example my mother moved to the US from the Czech Republic in the 80's, she grew up around many other languages and now speaks 9 (I cant name em all if i tried). And All 3 of her children (myself included) speak English to her, English for her is a second language but we speak to each other easily and she even thinks in multiple languages now. I have a lot of respect for her
It's not just in Europe and the US where English is the 'universal' language! Don't forget us down under (eg. Australia and New Zealand). I never realised how hard English would have been to learn until I did French in Year 12, especially given that English technically my equal first language. I speak Cantonese at home, for those who are interested. It's a real shame that, in Australia, another language isn't something that it required to graduate from high school (college in British and American English?) though. It's amazing how some people can speak so many languages. I wish I had that ability... And or patience.
winmofreak said:
kudos (slang for "congrats") to all you non english speaking people who have the incredible patience to learn something that does not come naturally to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. It's not so hard if you're using it for some 30+ years...
And you must remember that main language used in computers is english... so anyway I had to learn it better when I selected my profession... which originally was computer programming.
For me English in my 3. language. We have our own language in the Faroe Islands that is only spoken by some 60-70.000 people in the whole world. Our 2. language is Danish. But TV is the main reason that mostly everyone in the Faroe Islands speaks English quite good. My son is 3 years old now and has already started learning some English. All the cartoons he gets to watch are in English.
M_T_M said:
I had to learn English fast 'cause saying "Yo quiero job" only took me so far in this country
Thanks for the motivation and kind words anyway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not even going to touch that issue... BIG hot button issue... But yeah, you've got a good point, when you need to learn something in order to survive, you're going to learn it fast.
I was forced to learn Engrish, at gun point.

[Q] Professional translations - is it worth it?

Hello developers,
I'm planning to translate my application to a couple of languages and I was wondering whats the best way to go? Could anyone that translated his application anwser me the following questions? (I'm really interested in the real life statistics not theories)
- Did automatic translations boost the number of download in your app? How much if any?
- Does going from automatic translations to professional translations boost the number of download to justify the money spend on them? Or is it better to make automatic translations and dump the money into app marketing?
- What're the good and not so expensive sites to get professional translations?
So no one ever localized their apps?
buggs2k said:
Hello developers,
I'm planning to translate my application to a couple of languages and I was wondering whats the best way to go? Could anyone that translated his application anwser me the following questions? (I'm really interested in the real life statistics not theories)
- Did automatic translations boost the number of download in your app? How much if any?
- Does going from automatic translations to professional translations boost the number of download to justify the money spend on them? Or is it better to make automatic translations and dump the money into app marketing?
- What're the good and not so expensive sites to get professional translations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this is an old thread but...
- Did automatic translations boost the number of download in your app? How much if any?
A bit in countries like Germany, but not a great deal. Enough to cover the cost in our case. It perhaps gave us 5-10% more downloads although obviously this is only an educated guess.
The problem is to be effective you need to repeat your marketing in the said language too (so G. Play description, blog postings, and so on).
- Does going from automatic translations to professional translations boost the number of download to justify the money spend on them?
Yes, IMHO not worth doing automatic translation, you'd be better off with English than badly translated text.
- Or is it better to make automatic translations and dump the money into app marketing?
See above really. If you have limited funds I'd suggest doing one or two languages well. In fact do one, and see if you notice any difference (then at least you'll have your app ready to add more languages if you want to)
Of the languages we support the most cost effective are German, French, Spanish, Russian. It probably depends on your app a bit. Koreans are good buyers of apps, but our app doesn't support the Korean language yet.
There are a couple of features of German (in particular its verylongwords) which make our app more useful there.
- What're the good and not so expensive sites to get professional translations?[/QUOTE]
I used oneskyapp which seems to be fairly reliable, it's something like $0.10 per word from memory. There are a couple of glitches in their website but other than that it's a well-designed service.
There are others I'm sure.
German
reserved
The reply might be a little late but for anyone else looking into this.
Imagine you finding an app developed from China with really bad English (if you are a native English speak).
Your perception of the app will diminish before you even download it. Using auto translation services might actually make it worse.
As a minimum get the app profile translated into the language of your choice, then perhaps the keywords.
buggs2k said:
Hello developers,
I'm planning to translate my application to a couple of languages and I was wondering whats the best way to go? Could anyone that translated his application anwser me the following questions? (I'm really interested in the real life statistics not theories)
- Did automatic translations boost the number of download in your app? How much if any?
- Does going from automatic translations to professional translations boost the number of download to justify the money spend on them? Or is it better to make automatic translations and dump the money into app marketing?
- What're the good and not so expensive sites to get professional translations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

English <> Russian: Professional Translation Services

Hello everyone.
First off, a little bit of a bio: I'm a 24-year old professional Russian translator with almost 7 years of experience and a degree from the top-rated Russian linguistics university. I've worked on all kinds of projects before: legal documents, technical manuals, letters, business correspondence, mobile applications, you name it. I've been active on reddit for the past 1.5 years translating iOS apps and iOS jailbreak tweaks of all sorts, so I've got the necessary experience in this particular field.
I do this mostly for fun, and I believe my services (especially considering the quality of product you will receive) are among the best on the market value-wise.
Right now I charge $20 for continuous life-long translation of your app, no matter how complicated the task is. That means I'll be there for you pretty much 24/7 to localize any updates for your app on short notice.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you're in need of quality service for a moderate price.

General Read this before complaining about Google related things not working on your X90PP

Some may feel "targeted" by this thread. I don't really care, though. I feel it was necessary to post this.
Imagine buying a phone meant for Chinese market, and then whining and moaning on XDA forums about some features (Google Play) - that are meant for the GLOBAL market, i.e NOT China- not working properly.
People buy this phone for its cameras. Everything-Google being wonky on China phones (again, phones meant for the CHINA MARKET) is nothing new. And no, it's not just Vivo phones.
If you didn't know that, well... sucks to suck, I guess?
You didn't do [enough] research prior to purchasing, and now you are venting on the forums. Cool, but I'm pretty sure nobody wants to read your bs complaints.
It's kinda like buying a Blu-Ray disc from another region and then whining online that it doesn't work on your player. Get how stupid you sound yet? Vivo never released this particular model for the global market. It's China only, for the time being, at least. You can import it of course, but at your own risk. And that's exactly what some of you don't seem to understand. Somehow you feel entitled to your non-global phone having perfect Google Play functionality. Ridiculous.
If Vivo decides to improve the functionality of Google features on the X90 Pro+, good! They don't have to, though.
If they decide to absolutely do nothing about it, oh well. Again, they don't have to do anything. We'll try to find workarounds.
Do you understand what I'm saying to you right now?
When a China citizen purchases a phone in their country, there's zero Google stuff pre-installed on that phone. And guess what, the large majority of people in China DON'T install Google stuff, EVER. Because they don't need it. Google is not used in China. They have their own search engines etc.
We are here to help each other, find workarounds to problems. That's what these forums are for. Think twice before making a post whining and bashing brands, because it's very likely that your complaints are completely invalid.
Thanks for reading.
{Mod edit: Inappropriate language edited. Oswald Boelcke}
jericho246 said:
Some may feel "targeted" by this thread. I don't really care, though. I feel it was necessary to post this.
Imagine buying a phone meant for Chinese market, and then whining and moaning on XDA forums about some features (Google Play) - that are meant for the GLOBAL market, i.e NOT China- not working properly.
People buy this phone for its cameras. Everything-Google being wonky on China phones (again, phones meant for the CHINA MARKET) is nothing new. And no, it's not just Vivo phones.
If you didn't know that, well... sucks to suck, I guess?
You didn't do [enough] research prior to purchasing, and now you are venting on the forums. Cool, but I'm pretty sure nobody wants to read your bs complaints.
It's kinda like buying a Blu-Ray disc from another region and then whining online that it doesn't work on your player. Get how stupid you sound yet? Vivo never released this particular model for the global market. It's China only, for the time being, at least. You can import it of course, but at your own risk. And that's exactly what some of you don't seem to understand. Somehow you feel entitled to your non-global phone having perfect Google Play functionality. Ridiculous.
If Vivo decides to improve the functionality of Google features on the X90 Pro+, good! They don't have to, though.
If they decide to absolutely do nothing about it, oh well. Again, they don't have to do anything. We'll try to find workarounds.
Do you understand what I'm saying to you right now?
When a China citizen purchases a phone in their country, there's zero Google stuff pre-installed on that phone. And guess what, the large majority of people in China DON'T install Google stuff, EVER. Because they don't need it. Google is not used in China. They have their own search engines etc.
We are here to help each other, find workarounds to problems. That's what these forums are for. Think twice before making a post whining and bashing brands, because it's very likely that your complaints are completely invalid.
Thanks for reading.
{Mod edit: Inappropriate language edited. Oswald Boelcke}
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Click to collapse
Good job buddy. A post like this was long overdue even when it should be mandatory to search and read before importing a chinese device.
I don't have any issues, notifications arrive in time, etc.
If you have any issues or do you work and research or just get another phone
Before google was blocked by the chinese governement - it was widely used. Still many people use google via VPN.
But yes - google apps that require to be system apps like Android Auto or Google assistant will never work on a China OS phone that has no root. Becasue the Chinese government doesn't allow google to be used.
This is not about what Chinese user wants, but what the CCP dictates.
Also spyware going crazy (you can check with Rethink DNS how many connections are built up to Chinese servers all the time) to fulfill the CCP data hunger is something immiment to any China OS phone. Yes that includes apple phones sold in China (or maybe even global ones activated in China) or any other phone officially sold in China, else it would not be allowed to be sold.
There are plenty more issues than just google when buying a China OS phone - and most sites mentioning shortcomings do not mention them.
A good clue of what the Vivo phone spyware will likely collect can be to read reports about Feng Cai or BXAQ:
https://7asecurity.com/reports/analysis-report_bxaq.pdf
e.g.: All calendar entries, phone contacts, country codes and dialed numbers;
All stored text messages (SMS);
All information accessible for various installed apps + an MD5 hash of the app;+
Well said.
I'm super happy. I just hope to be able to add a card to Google wallet and I can't ask for more in a phone. Got over my initial disappoint about that issue as I can just use my actual card.
Camera is a photographer's dream and everything is so fast and smooth.
The Chinese can spy all they want as I'm in the UK with no relation to China. Could. Not. Care. Less
Haskren said:
The Chinese can spy all they want as I'm in the UK with no relation to China. Could. Not. Care. Less
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Click to collapse
Weill it could actually be much worse - it's really not unlikely the Chinese government has superuser access on all China OS phones. They used to do this with an app, but it would be much easier for them to do this with inbuilt tools:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-app-on-xis-ideology-allows-data-access-to-100-million-users-phones-report-says/2019/10/11/2d53bbae-eb4d-11e9-bafb-da248f8d5734_story.html
This way it cannot be discovered easily at all like with the app they used to.
Implications of this - oh but I have absolutely nothing to worry are stupid in my eyes. How do you know the Chinese government doesn't have data breaches? The data that is known about you - would be easily enough to destroy your finances. There have been breaches in China and chinese users were financially harmed by data breached. As a foreigner you are less likely target but that data could be easily sold.
Any website offering pay services now has to secure itself from card scanning, because credit card numbers aren't expensive to buy anymore (usually missing CVC - sometimes with CVC ) those credit cards come usually from data breaches (and yeah a shop doesn't see the full credit card number - so it's not the shop that breached that data).
e.g. the vivo secure keyboard. I mean how do you know your credit card number doesn't end up in China when using it? It's enabled by default... I would not trust it a dime.
The past has shown problems already on greater scale, google up XcodeGhost and Tencent...
here it comes, another thread blocked by this guy.
If your so afraid if getting your data leaked just don't use Internet. Don't leave your house cause ur neighbours will leak your position aswell. If you're so afraid of the Chinese, just buy another Smartphone.
extremecarver said:
Weill it could actually be much worse - it's really not unlikely the Chinese government has superuser access on all China OS phones. They used to do this with an app, but it would be much easier for them to do this with inbuilt tools:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-app-on-xis-ideology-allows-data-access-to-100-million-users-phones-report-says/2019/10/11/2d53bbae-eb4d-11e9-bafb-da248f8d5734_story.html
This way it cannot be discovered easily at all like with the app they used to.
Implications of this - oh but I have absolutely nothing to worry are stupid in my eyes. How do you know the Chinese government doesn't have data breaches? The data that is known about you - would be easily enough to destroy your finances. There have been breaches in China and chinese users were financially harmed by data breached. As a foreigner you are less likely target but that data could be easily sold.
Any website offering pay services now has to secure itself from card scanning, because credit card numbers aren't expensive to buy anymore (usually missing CVC - sometimes with CVC ) those credit cards come usually from data breaches (and yeah a shop doesn't see the full credit card number - so it's not the shop that breached that data).
e.g. the vivo secure keyboard. I mean how do you know your credit card number doesn't end up in China when using it? It's enabled by default... I would not trust it a dime.
The past has shown problems already on greater scale, google up XcodeGhost and Tencent...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Everybody knows this happens with chinese phones , nothing new .Why have you bought one ? I mean you were aware Vivo its a chinese company , right ?
vendetta17 said:
Everybody knows this happens with chinese phones , nothing new .Why have you bought one ? I mean you were aware Vivo its a chinese company , right ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's simply not the case. So far phones produced in China for global market spy much less than phones produced for China. Because even Iphone produced for China or Samsung produced for China will have to comply with the Chinese government orders on receiving the content of all messages, a list of all phone calls and more data (maybe even all call content).
There is a difference between China OS phone and Chinese global phone - and most people do NOT know this.
And then - as long as there is no sticky for China OS phones listing exactly what google services are unreliable (like google wallet) and which don't work (e.g. Android Auto, google Assistant, Google Backup, Google Location History) or restrictions like very hard to exchange system launcher - and if you do you receive a notice that you have to click away (but not click on it) every reboot or every few days - most people simply aren't aware of all the problems.
I haven't seen a single review of the X90 Pro+ listing all the missing google services - on the contrary the say it's easy to install google playstore and everything works (notebookcheck) - showing that they clearly never used the phone as daily driver (but 90% of the readers will not know this!) to XDA review mentioning only Android auto and okay google not working (that way you believe the rest - including conversation with google assistant does work) or Chinahandys.net which goest the furthes but still misses some points - however does explain to remove vivo.pem (single review ever mentioning this) if you want to receive notifications - but still misses out on location history and google backup.
If the reviews all mentioned the above problems, then much less people would buy China OS phones in first place, and then it really would be justified saying don't vent about google stuff not working. But the fact is that the reviews all miss this. Even more they often tell you that you can just flash the global firrmware (in case of Xiaomi) - though with Xiaomi 13 for example this has become super complicated, and very easy to brick your phone while doing so.
That goes so far that Trading Shenzen advertises google wallet working - and I still think it's possible to get it to work so far on every phone - and people just not having the right framework installed - but there is no guarantee whatsoever it will continue to work with Android 14.
Same for updates - all the reviews mention either the global update policy which doesn't apply, or like chinahandys saying no guarentee but 2-3 years of updates including major android versions - which again ist not true - because e.g. Vivo X70 Pro+ never got Android 12, and very likely a single major updgrade - Android 13 - and very very delayed security patches (and as long as you use Android - those patches are essential - they have nothing to do with google itself).
Many people buying the X90 Pro+ come from Huawei P30 Pro or even Mate 20 Pro - those had really good / reliable software with the caveat of course of being stuck with Android 10 due to the Huawei ban. However no single other Chinese brand ever got close to the Huawei software quality...
And no - I wasn't aware of most of those points - before buying - because no damn review mentions them! And I thought chinese phones = China OS chinese phones when it comes to spyware (similar to bloatware ). But this is simply not the case. I didn't know that the China spyware costs a lot of battery life (see identical phones on dxomark or gsmarena battery tests - with the China OS version usually having 7-15% less battery life, espcially standby much shorter!)
And youtube reviews are even worse - they usually mention no single point at all of the above.
jericho246 said:
Some may feel "targeted" by this thread. I don't really care, though. I feel it was necessary to post this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I stopped reading here.
When a company advertises that the phone they sell will work 100% with Google Payment applications and banking apps which require secure/high integrity. Then when I pay them for that phone, I expect these things to work. When it doesn't work, I demand compensation. That's fair, that's life.
Honestly threads and posts like this belong on Reddit where you can scream into the void at your own expense and because you literally have nothing else better to do. I for one have better things to do.
Writing a long-winded rant that no one who values their time is going to read really tells more about yourself than it does about the people you have directed this thread at. Here's your free bump. But I'll make sure to ignore all of your posts going forward. I suggest others do the same.
EDIT: I got a 15% refund of my 512GB Vivo X90PP, because it doesn't pass SatfetyNet. That brings the price down to just under 850€ for me. Also this will likely be fixed in the next software update, as the trial/beta update has Google Pay working for everyone on XDA who has tested it so far.
So partial refund + working on next update. So I guess the joke is on you for not having done your own research. Clearly I did mine.
luontokoodaus said:
I stopped reading here.
When a company advertises that the phone they sell will work 100% with Google Payment applications and banking apps which require secure/high integrity. Then when I pay them for that phone, I expect these things to work. When it doesn't work, I demand compensation. That's fair, that's life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aight, you sound upset (for no good reason), so let's get this over with quick. Show me where Vivo actually stated that the Vivo X90PP supports "Google Payment applications".
I'll save you the trouble; you can't, because they never advertised it. Google is never mentioned anywhere.
Now if you are talking about resellers like Wonda Mobile or Trading Shenzhen, then your issue is with them, not Vivo.
Greetings to all. Just a friendly reminder about XDA Rule 2.3:
2.3 Flaming / Lack of respect: XDA is about sharing and this does not involve virtual yelling (flaming) or rudeness. Flaming or posting with a lack of respect is unacceptable. Treat new members in the manner in which you would like to have been treated when you were a new member. When dealing with any member, provide them with guidance, advice and instructions when you can, showing them respect and courtesy. Never post in a demanding, argumentative, disrespectful or self-righteous manner.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While everyone is entitled to post their opinion, we ask only that you do so in a polite and respectful manner, or not at all. So let us please leave the name calling out
of it shall we. Thank you.
-Regards: Badger50

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