An important tip for Developers!

[hacer619]

Hello Developers,

Windows phone market share is increasing day after day, but mainly it has big market shares in Brazil, UK, Finland, Italy, Russia, Mexico(increasing), France(increasing), India(increasing), USA(Increasing). What I meant by 'increasing' is, the number of downloads from these countries is significant. As a developer, I see most of the app downloads from these countries. However, downloads from countries within the middle east are pretty low, but if you add them you would find a significant number and all the countries in the Middle East use Arabic language.


Now my point.


If you want to publish an app to the windows or windows phone store, and want to get better reviews and more downloads, make sure you localize your apps with languages of the countries listed above if possible. Truth be told, localize your apps with these languages: Portuguese, English, Finnish, Italian, Russian, Spanish, French, Indian, English, Arabic respectively with countries listed above and you will see significant improvements to your app reviews and downloads.

 

[DBDev]

Thanks for the info! I'm sure someone will find it useful :wink:

 

[nemecek_f]

Does anyone here have some experience with crowdsourced localization?

 

[Bulow]

Not exactly crowdsourced, but when I released my latest app, I was contacted by blogs that wanted to write about it. I spoke with them for a bit, and those from non-english speaking countries often asked whether I had any plans to translate it to their respective languages. I said I might, but that I didn't have anyone to help me translate it, and they were all willing to help me out.
Now I'm having it translated to Danish, German, Spanish and Hindi (I speak the first three, although I'm not confident enough with spanish and german to translate it all by myself, so I suggested that I could make an initial draft and then they would correct it and fill out all the holes.)

My point is, that if people like your app, they will generally want to help you out, just try in forums around the internet. (If you speak just a little of any languages other than english, it will help you a lot to first approach them in their native language, even though you may have to switch to english)

 

[crash1989]

Good tip , thanks for sharing.
Just a correction from an Indian dev - there is no language called Indian, you cannot localize apps(it is a massive undertaking, let me put it that way) for India coz from North to South there are more than 20 major languages spoken .. it is called a subcontinent for a reason. (Languages of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

My suggestion for India is as follows:
The official Language of India is English (specifically British English not USA), so it is ok if you can make apps in English and leave them. My app is in the Top 20 sports apps in India and it is only in English so it matters less. However in case you really wish to use localization my suggestion is to do it in Hindi coz that's the most widespread language .

 

[Bulow]

Yes you're right. The guy I spoke with is from Kerala and thus doesn't speak Hindi, but he said a lot of people in their online community do, and he set me up with someone who does speak hindi. The reason that I went with Hindi specifically is that it's the 4th most widespread language in the world (according to Wikipedia).

As an indian yourself, would you say that a hindi version would be appreciated by the hindi-speaking part of the indian WP community?
Even though almost everyone in Europe speaks English, people just seam to like it more if it's translated to their mother tongue. (I personally find it annoying though, because a lot of tech terms often get over translated)

 

[crash1989]

Yes you're right. The guy I spoke with is from Kerala and thus doesn't speak Hindi, but he said a lot of people in their online community do, and he set me up with someone who does speak hindi. The reason that I went with Hindi specifically is that it's the 4th most widespread language in the world (according to Wikipedia).

As an indian yourself, would you say that a hindi version would be appreciated by the hindi-speaking part of the indian WP community?
Even though almost everyone in Europe speaks English, people just seam to like it more if it's translated to their mother tongue. (I personally find it annoying though, because a lot of tech terms often get over translated)

Yes, people do appreciate local languages anytime, but I think an even better option is to allow for them to choose between English and Hindi (or whatever local languages) ... Most smartphones users in India do understand English pretty well from what I see, just see it as a bonus feature.

 

[Bulow]

You're right. Letting them choose has always been my intention, since I hate it when I'm forced to use an app in my mother tongue (it has even been reason enough for me to abandon some apps). Besides from that, forcing Hindi on all indians would be stupid, since not all indians speak hindi, and similar situations could arise with people temporarily living in a country where they don't know the official language.

Still, I think there's a fine balance, since additional translations add to the numbers of tasks in each update cycle.

 

[hacer619]

Good tip , thanks for sharing.
Just a correction from an Indian dev - there is no language called Indian, you cannot localize apps(it is a massive undertaking, let me put it that way) for India coz from North to South there are more than 20 major languages spoken .. it is called a subcontinent for a reason. (Languages of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

My suggestion for India is as follows:
The official Language of India is English (specifically British English not USA), so it is ok if you can make apps in English and leave them. My app is in the Top 20 sports apps in India and it is only in English so it matters less. However in case you really wish to use localization my suggestion is to do it in Hindi coz that's the most widespread language .

Thank you for making this clear and up to the point