What is localisation?
Localisation (also spelled localization) is the process of adapting translated content so it feels natural and appropriate for a specific country, region, or culture — not just linguistically correct, but culturally right.
Translation vs localisation: what's the difference?
Translation converts words from one language to another. Localisation goes further — it considers how those words land in a specific cultural context.
Think of it this way: a translator converts the sentence. A localiser asks whether the sentence should even exist in that form for that audience.
Localisation typically involves adapting:
- Dates, times, and number formats (e.g. DD/MM/YYYY vs MM/DD/YYYY)
- Currency symbols and pricing conventions
- Spelling conventions (British vs American English, for example)
- Tone and register — what sounds professional in one culture can sound cold or overly casual in another
- Imagery references, idioms, and humour
- Legal or regulatory language specific to a country
- Units of measurement
A simple example
Imagine a US software company launching in the UK. They translate their product into English — but their English uses American spelling (color, canceled, license as a verb), references zip codes, and formats dates as month/day/year.
To a UK audience, this feels foreign — even though the language is technically the same. Localisation would correct all of these details so the product feels like it was built for the UK from the start.
The same principle applies across any language pair. A Spanish translation for Mexico will need different localisation than one for Spain — different vocabulary, different idioms, different cultural references.
Where is localisation used?
Localisation is used across a wide range of industries and content types:
- Software and apps — user interfaces, error messages, in-app copy, and documentation
- Websites and e-commerce — product descriptions, checkout flows, and customer communications
- Marketing and advertising — campaigns, taglines, and social media content
- Legal and compliance documents — contracts, terms of service, and regulatory filings
- Video games — dialogue, menus, and cultural references within gameplay
- Healthcare and pharmaceutical — patient information, clinical trials, and medical devices
At TranslationsInLondon, we provide localisation across all of these areas. If you need content adapted for a specific market, get in touch for a free quote.
Is localisation the same as internationalisation?
Not quite — though the two terms often appear together, especially in the tech industry.
Internationalisation (sometimes abbreviated as i18n) is the process of designing a product so that localisation can happen easily — building the infrastructure to support multiple languages and formats.
Localisation (sometimes abbreviated as l10n) is then the act of doing that adaptation for a specific market.
How is localisation different from transcreation?
Localisation adapts content to fit a cultural context while staying close to the original meaning. Transcreation goes a step further — it recreates content for emotional impact, even if the words change significantly.
Localisation is typically used for functional content (software, documents, websites). Transcreation is typically used for creative or high-impact marketing where tone and feeling matter as much as message.
Read more: What is transcreation?