On Internationalization and Localization

Internationalization and Localization PHPKonf 2018

Pascal Birchler  @swissspidy

Why Internationalization?

Internationalization is not an afterthought

The process of creating a product in such a way
that it can be easily adapted to speciﬁc local languages and cultures Internationalization (I18N)

The process of adapting a product or service to a
particular language, culture, and desired local “look-and-feel.” Localization (L10N)

“Localization is like translation but with a cultural twist” Localization

Locales

Locale ≠ Language

American English ≠ British English

Flag ≠ Language

ﬂagsarenotlanguages.com

12/05/2018

Numbers

123 456.99 123,456.99 123’456.99 123.456,99

Right to Left Icons Symbols Puns Timezones Legal Currencies Numbers
Formal/Informal Support Units Idioms Temperature

Dealing with Locales

Locale Detection

example.com/tr/blog

Accept-Language: es, en-gb;q=0.8, en;q=0.7

Internationalization in User Interfaces

“Our target audience does not mind an English-only user interface.”

Symbols ✅ ⭕

Personal Names

Unicode

David Lloyd George

Lang Leyen Little Lovett von der

Implications for Field Design

Left-to-Right Right-to-Left

Internationalization in Development

Pick a Technology

<xliff version="1.2"> <file source-language="en" target-language="en" ...> <body> <trans-unit id="title_hello_world"> <source>title.hello_world</source>
<target>Hello World</target> </trans-unit> </body> </file> </xliff>

string gettext ( string $message )

string gettext ( string $message ) translations.pot tr_TR.po tr_TR.mo

String Extraction

function translateIt( $str ) { // Do something. gettext( $str
); } gettext( 'Foo' ); ✅ translateIt( 'Bar' ); ❌ gettext( 'Baz' ); ✅

$foo = 'Hello World'; gettext( $foo ); ❌

echo $num . gettext( ' items' ) ❌

if ( $num == 1 ) printf( __( '%d item'
), $num ) else printf( __( '%d items' ), $num )

printf( ngettext( '%d item', '%d items', $num ), $num )

printf(_n('%d item', '%d items', 1), 1) printf(_n('%d item', '%d items',
2), 2) printf(_n('%d item', '%d items', 5), 5)

Beyond Numbers

gettext( 'They play football' )

MessageFormatter::formatMessage( "en_US", "{gender, select, ". "female {She plays football}". "male
{He plays football}". "other {They play football}". "}", ['gender' => 'female' ] )

Gettext vs. MessageFormat vs. ?

Resources

cldr.unicode.org

w3.org/internationalization

Localization Management POEditor LingoHub Poedit Transifex GlotPress PhraseApp

icu-project.org

Conclusion

1. Don’t make assumptions

2. Understand cultural values

3. i18n from the beginning

4. Don’t reinvent the wheel

Thank You.

On Internationalization and Localization

On Internationalization and Localization

More Decks by Pascal Birchler

Other Decks in Technology

Featured

Transcript