How placeholders and variables make localisation more complex
Most people picture translation as working with sentences. But some of the most complex localisation work I’ve done involved content that wasn’t sentences at all – just fragments, waiting to become them.
In one project, the content I was asked to localise was made up of strings – fragments of text that would later be assembled by a platform into full sentences, depending on what a user was searching for. Variables like {event}, {location}, and {product} sat inside those strings, acting as placeholders for content that would only exist at the point of display.
In English, this works cleanly. The language is flexible enough that word order and grammar rarely cause problems when a variable is dropped in. In Italian, German, or other languages with grammatical gender and more complex sentence structures, it’s a different matter entirely.
Take a sentence like “Get your {event} tickets at competitive prices.” In English, it holds together regardless of what {event} turns out to be. In Italian, the translation depends on knowing what that event is. Because the articles, prepositions, and word order all change depending on the noun. Without that context, you’re making assumptions. And assumptions at scale lead to errors at scale.
The approach that works best in these situations is to provide multiple translation options alongside detailed notes explaining the reasoning behind each one; what changes depending on context, what the alternatives are, and what questions need answering before a final decision can be made. It requires close collaboration with the client, often across several rounds of review, and linguists who are comfortable working with ambiguity and communicating their decisions clearly.
It’s one of the less visible complexities of localisation, but it’s exactly the kind of thing that separates a careful, considered process from a straightforward word-for-word translation.