Localisation
Localisation is adapting content for a specific locale, not just translating its words. It covers language, but also date and number formats, currency, local references, imagery and cultural expectations, so the content reads as though it was made for that place.
How it works
Localisation starts from translated language, then adapts everything around it: dates, numbers, currency and address formats, units, imagery, colour and layout, and any references that assume local knowledge. Software and websites are usually built for this in advance, a step called internationalisation, so content can be swapped per locale without re-engineering.
Done well, a localised page carries no trace of the source. A reader in the target market should not be able to tell it was written somewhere else, because nothing in it, from the phone-number format to the examples used, sits wrong for where they are.
How SourceTarget uses it
SourceTarget treats language as one layer of localisation, not the whole job. A quote can cover straight translation, or translation plus the local adaptation a piece needs to read as native.
For Australian audiences that often means localising into and out of community languages while keeping formats, terminology and tone right for a government or health context, with human review on anything published.
Localisation compared with Transcreation
| Localisation | Transcreation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it changes | Formats, references and wording to fit a locale | The whole message, to recreate its effect |
| Fidelity to source | Stays close to the original meaning | May depart from it entirely |
| Typical content | Products, documents, websites, UI | Campaigns, slogans, creative |
| Judged by | Accuracy and local fit | Whether it provokes the same response |