What are the Top 5 Languages to localize an app for?

I think your list includes the ones that pay off best for the effort of translating. A bit googling shows they rank high on the list of languages with the most native speakers (see here and here ) and are at the top of the languages of Internet users Of course you would need to know iPhone usage in the countries, but it's obvious that the countries speaking those languages rank among the tech savviest countries French people are very well known to insist on the usage of their own language and take their culture very serious. So it's also important to have a perfect translation and maybe adapt things to their culture I think your list also reflects the top foreign languages teached in school.

Most Scandinavians for example speak English fluently and are used to watch uninterpreted U.S. TV shows. I wouldn't translate the app for them unless there's a very good reason.

I think your list includes the ones that pay off best for the effort of translating. A bit googling shows they rank high on the list of languages with the most native speakers (see here and here) and are at the top of the languages of Internet users. Of course you would need to know iPhone usage in the countries, but it's obvious that the countries speaking those languages rank among the tech savviest countries.

French people are very well known to insist on the usage of their own language and take their culture very serious. So it's also important to have a perfect translation and maybe adapt things to their culture. I think your list also reflects the top foreign languages teached in school.

Most Scandinavians for example speak English fluently and are used to watch uninterpreted U.S. TV shows. I wouldn't translate the app for them unless there's a very good reason.

This is the kind of answer I was looking for. For me, localizing is not really about money (ie "Making more sales"), but it's about experience, and to who it's really important. English is an extremely common language (In Canada for example, even the francophones usually speak english with decent fluency), but they too prefer their mother tongue.So that's the important part —— catering to those languages which will really boost user experience.

– jbrennan Aug 19 '09 at 14:34.

It should go without saying that you can't even begin to decide unless you decide where you're going to distribute your app and what it will do. Once you determine that, it should be easy to decide.

It's an iPhone app going into the App Store, so essentially 80 or so countries worldwide. – jbrennan Aug 19 '09 at 13:38 Yes, but you must say what it does. For example in Australia we won't use the 'Tipping Calculator' applications, etc.– Noon Silk Aug 19 '09 at 13:40 For Australians, I'd stick with English anyway.

I've never met anyone that spoke both. =) – Instantsoup Aug 19 '09 at 13:48 1 @Instantsoup, you should google for "strine" if you want to learn Australian (cultural cringe notwithstanding). – paxdiablo Aug 19 '09 at 13:58 Pax: heh.

I searched for that, not having heard it, then repeated it to myself a few times to actually get it. – Noon Silk Aug 19 '09 at 14:02.

Simplified and traditional chinese, to cover the markets in China, Hong Kong/Macau, and Taiwan. Although the iPhone is not officially offered in China, I'm sure Apple will reach an agreement with China Mobile or China Unicom sooner or later, opening up a potentially enormous market. Persuading people to pay is a different matter, but I can see that happening if they offer a chinese language service.

KT in Korea is also going to be officially offering the iPhone soon. There's another fairly affluent market, so Korean would be worth looking at. Russian and Brazilian Portugese are also worth considering, as Russia and Brazil are BRIC countries etc.And has been mentioned, English is a given, and the Japanese have now warmed to the iPhone also, despite earlier predictions.

From experience the biggest markets for Localizing software are: French German Spanish Italian Japanese These countries generally have the most paying customers for software and is also in no particular order. This list is generally referred to as FIGS+J Adding East Asian languages can be a good idea: Korean Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional Also don't forget about Russian. There is a lot more to go on also, for example you should really have some basis for localizing your product, market research for instance.

Your product might require to be internationalized, i.e. Tailored to a specific country. This could be as simple as making sure the flag in your application is correct, or worse even changing content.

For example a tick to mean something is complete is pretty common everywhere but Japan when a circle means Ok.

From my own experience, I have had an unexpected and absurdly large number of sales from Italy. This is for an English word puzzle game. I have no idea why.

Updated after some spreadsheet magic: 675 sales in US 236 sales in Italy 42 sales in England 36 in Australia 1 in France.

I get a lot of sales from Italy too and I can't see why... Apparently Italians spend a lot on apps. – Dimitris Oct 23 '09 at 9:27.

It all depends on your customers. Whom do you see as potential users of your application. If you mean those most ready to pay, it's probably English, Japanese and German.

It should pay off a lot in Japan if localized, since the Japanese are really alergic to English UIs. – Saifis Oct 27 '09 at 2:56.

Based solely on the most widely spoken languages, Mandarin Spanish English Arabic ndi This sort of data could be useful if you haven't yet decided what countries you want to tailor your app for. This could easily backfire on you if you don't research those populations and make sure that people who speak those languages have adequate access to technology.

1 Also, Mandarin is not a target for text translation. Various Chinese languages use two main character sets - Simplified Chinese (used in the PRC, which mostly speaks Mandarin), and Traditional Chinese (used in HK, which mostly speaks Cantonese, and Taiwan, which mostly speaks Mandarin). – Steve Jessop Aug 19 '09 at 13:57.

A good place to start might be to see if you can get some statistics on how the iPhone is selling in various countries. Japan is a wealthy nation, with a very tech savvy population, but if the iPhone isn't selling there it's probably not a good market. (That's just an example...I have no idea whatsoever how the iPhone is selling in Japan.).

Don't know about the other 4 languages but don't forget that the English which your other respondents place in their lists is the English spoken (and written) outside the US. If you only consider the language itself, pass this off as a joke, but when it comes to localisation (US Eng: localization) of date formats and other stuff, it probably bears more serious effort. Regards Mark.

Thankfully most of this is taken care of by the OS. – jbrennan Aug 24 '09 at 16:19.

Brazil has a lot of internet and iPhone users. You might take that under consideration. From what I see on the streets here is that most people speak marginal english, but they (we brazilians, at least most of) will prefer a translated app.

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