Did you know that 72.1% of Internet users prefer to dwell on websites translated in their native language? That’s a lot of people.

But that’s fine. You see, with today’s technologies you can translate your text into any language you choose. “Okay, so what?” — well, people who browse products described in their native tongue tend to trust those seller companies more.

So, by localizing your content, you can tremendously increase the number of your clients, sales, and, of course, grow your business. And the truth is that the localization industry is also evolving along with other digital businesses.

To prove it, we at Alconost have researched and listed the top 5 localization trends you can take advantage of in 2020. Let’s dive in!

1. E-Learning & Training Translation

Webinars and training videos have grown significantly in the past years and tend to do the same in the future. And the necessity of localizing video education materials grows even further. Adding subtitles to your digital stuff is not enough nowadays. Some other vital features include graphics, navigation buttons, audio, video, and formatting.

“A lot of work…” that’s what you are probably thinking. Frankly, localizing e-learning materials has never been an easy task… and whatever you do, you need to put some effort into making your e-learning stand out for the natives.

However, with a translation management system (TMS), you can automate a vast amount of tedious tasks and merely make your life easier. Using features such as workflow management, translation memory management, and glossary make the process feel like a breeze. We at Alconost work with almost every high-level TMS that ensures you get great value for your money. You can head to our website, check out TMSs we work with to pick the one that better suits your needs.

2. Video Translation

A recent study shows that 85% of Facebook videos are watched muted. What does this mean? Subtitles play a vital role here, that’s what it means. And this translation method will undoubtedly grow tremendously in 2020.

So how to easily add subtitles to your fantastic video? As we mentioned above, you can usually do the job quite well uploading the video files to TMS, where they get translated. It helps you to automate most of the processes, making the translation hassle-free, even enjoyable.

Besides the subtitles, you can also go for a voice-over translation. Of course, this would require both time and money investment. But once completed, the video quality will jump over the roof.

3. Customer Service And Audio Translation

Did you know that by retaining only 5% of your customer base, you have a chance of potentially increasing your monthly revenue somewhere between 25% and 95%? Fascinating, right? And what’s an easy way to achieve that? — by providing exceptional and outstanding customer service.

Many companies start to realize that the easiest way to make money is not by searching for new clients but by diving into their current customer base. So one of the most effective ways to handle your help requests professionally, thus retaining your customers for life, is to help them in their local language. And customers’ service translation is crucial for that.

4. Crowdsourcing

If you are looking for a cost-effective and accurate localization method, that engages with active users and invites them to help you deliver translations for your website and apps…

…crowdsourcing does the job fantastic. And there is speculation that this trend will significantly grow in 2020.

However, keep in mind that using crowdsourcing may not deliver the quality you are seeking. Also, managing the aggregate of your community can be really time-consuming. Though it’s a very cost-efficient localization technique, and you are barely sensing the drainage out of your pocket, the text quality might be very low and sentences might sound awkward if the community members aren’t on the same page.

Therefore, we do not recommend using Crowdsourcing for professional tasks that actually make a difference in your business. Instead of helping you to grow your business into local markets, the crowdsourced translation might actually make your brand look bad and lose you the trust of your potential clients.

We had some crowdsourced translation experience with GitLocalize, a platform for continuous localization of GitHub projects. However, soon after its acquisition, we’ve switched from the crowdsourced to professional human translation, making GitLocalize free at the same time. And it was the right step, in our opinion, since GitLocalize gained more credibility and got noticed by enterprise clients, too.

All in all, in our experience, the value you get for a real and a professional translator is simply unmatched. But if you’d like to engage with your community more often than not, then crowdsourcing is suitable for plain texts.

5. Machine Translation & Post Editing

Another popular localization trend is machine translation, along with post-editing. This method is perfect when you need to get the job done quickly. It’s mostly suitable for basic website pages, product reviews, and articles.

How does the process work? Machine translation handles your entire text. However, machine localization most times is lacking accuracy in words and phrases. So it might produce some awkward sentences and words in the native language.

To avoid that, you have to hire a real translator. The difference here is that the translator only edits the text, which is done 40% quicker than if you had to hire a translator to re-write the whole text and then edit it solely.

Though this localization trend is speculated to grow tremendously in 2020, keep in mind that it’s suitable only for basic texts. We don’t recommend going for machine translation if you have some important content to be translated. For instance, we have a quick alternative to machine translation — the Nitro translation platform. It’s a professional human online translation service, where all the orders get completed within 2 to 24 hours.

Well, these are currently the five growing localization trends we’ve spotted at Alconost on our localization projects. Some of them might work for you, while others might also not.

We hope our considerations were helpful for your future projects. Stick with localization, and you will inevitably make your global users happier.

You might also find useful:

How to Localize an App or Game? Top Ten Free E-learning Sources
App Localization in Ten Steps — Tutorial

About the author

This article has been written by Alconost, a global provider of localization services for apps, games, videos, and websites into 70+ languages. We offer translations by native-speaking linguists, linguistic testing, cloud-based workflow, continuous localization, project management 24/7, and work with any format of string resources. We also make advertising and educational videos and images, teasers, explainers, and trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

Top 5 Localization Trends in 2020