<commit_before>title: Why software translation is a waste of time
tags: l10n, i18n
date: 2017-05-24

> **Disclaimer**: I am not a professional software developer, and my opinion
> might not be as authoritative as yours.

My native language is not English and since my first encounter with computers I
have used multiple localized and non-localized computer programs. All these
years of *"user experience"* have led me to believe that software localization
is more often harmful than not.

Software translation is a waste of time. Generally.

I am not against localization as a whole. It has many positive aspects like
supporting foreign date and currency formats, right-to-left writing or
alphabetical sorting. But translating user interface, configuration files,
error and log messages to other languages had destructive consequences most of
the times I've seen it.

## Documentation loss

The moment software is translated its documentation becomes fragmented and
incomplete. Even if the developer translates 100% of official documentation
they will still lose everything written by others (blog posts, forum questions,
bug reports).

I was twelve when a friend of mine gave me a book on photo editing. The authors<commit_msg>Fix error in publishing date<commit_after>title: Why software translation is a waste of time
tags: l10n, i18n
date: 2018-05-24

> **Disclaimer**: I am not a professional software developer, and my opinion
> might not be as authoritative as yours.

My native language is not English and since my first encounter with computers I
have used multiple localized and non-localized computer programs. All these
years of *"user experience"* have led me to believe that software localization
is more often harmful than not.

Software translation is a waste of time. Generally.

I am not against localization as a whole. It has many positive aspects like
supporting foreign date and currency formats, right-to-left writing or
alphabetical sorting. But translating user interface, configuration files,
error and log messages to other languages had destructive consequences most of
the times I've seen it.

## Documentation loss

The moment software is translated its documentation becomes fragmented and
incomplete. Even if the developer translates 100% of official documentation
they will still lose everything written by others (blog posts, forum questions,
bug reports).

I was twelve when a friend of mine gave me a book on photo editing. The authors
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