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Localized captions, not just translated

Localized captions, not just translated
TL;DR. Machine translation handles meaning; it doesn't handle marketing register, idiom, or string length. The cheap fix isn't 50 copywriters — it's a structured review pass where a native speaker spends ~5 minutes per locale on the 3 captions that actually appear in the first three carousel panels. That's the 80/20.

One-click translate is genuinely useful — it gets you 50 locales of captions in seconds and ~85% of the way to acceptable. The remaining 15% is the difference between captions that read natively and captions that read like a foreigner translating ad copy. That gap matters most for the first three panels of your carousel, because those are the panels the App Store shows in search results.

What machine translation gets wrong

Three failure modes, in rough order of how often they show up:

  1. Marketing register. English ad copy uses imperative verbs ("Get organized.", "Track your runs."). German prefers nominal style ("Mehr Organisation."). French often uses impersonal infinitives ("Organiser son temps."). A literal translation imports the English register and reads as foreign even when grammatically correct.
  2. Idiom. "Make it your own" translates literally to something nobody says. "From zero to hero" becomes a meaningless phrase in most locales. Idiomatic English copy needs rewriting, not translating.
  3. String length. German is ~30% longer than English on average; Russian and Polish often longer still. A caption that fits in one line in English overflows in three locales without anyone noticing until export. Japanese and Chinese are shorter — leaving awkward whitespace if the layout was sized for English.

The 80/20 review pass

You don't need a copywriter per locale. You need a fluency check per locale on a small number of strings. Specifically:

  • The first three panel captions. These are what shows in search.
  • Any caption with idiomatic English. Run them past a fluent speaker per locale; rewrite rather than re-translate.
  • Any caption that looks too long or too short after translation. Layout will tell you which.

That's typically 4-8 strings per locale. A fluent speaker can review in 5 minutes. Across 50 locales that's ~4 hours of total review time, which is achievable through Upwork, Fiverr, or community contributors at indie-developer prices.

Where to find reviewers cheaply

  • Upwork / Fiverr. Search for "[locale] proofreading marketing" and look for reviewers with a portfolio of app-store or marketing-copy work, not generic document translation. Expect $5-$20 per locale for this scope.
  • Your own users. If your app has users in a given locale, ask. Most will say yes for a small gift card or just the credit. Their feedback is also more useful than a generic translator's because they understand your app.
  • r/translator / language-specific subreddits. Free, slower, hit-or-miss quality. Worth trying for very small budgets.
  • Hire one human translator for your top three locales only. For most apps 80% of paid installs come from English, Japanese, German, French, and Chinese variants. Pay a real translator for those; accept machine + fluency check on the rest.

Common locale-specific gotchas

  • German. Compound words. "Project management" becomes "Projektmanagement" — fits one line. But "Get more done with project management" becomes much longer. Rewrite for nominal style rather than literal translation.
  • Japanese. Mixed scripts (kanji, hiragana, katakana) carry meaning. Pure katakana for an English loanword reads as foreign or technical; the same word in kanji reads as native. Native review matters.
  • Chinese (Simplified vs Traditional). These are two separate App Store locales. Apple treats them as such; many translation tools collapse them to one. Verify.
  • Arabic and Hebrew. RTL layout. Your caption position relative to the device frame should flip. Most generators don't auto-flip; check exported screenshots manually.
  • Portuguese (Brazil vs Portugal), Spanish (Spain vs LatAm), French (France vs Canada). Treat these as separate locales for the top 3 captions. The rest can share a translation.

The character-count check

Before you ship, render every locale's caption against your actual carousel layout. Anything that overflows or wraps awkwardly needs editing. Mokbi's locale switcher in the header shows you what each language looks like in the actual layout, which catches this faster than export-then-eyeball.

When not to localize captions

Some apps are stronger with English captions across every market. Common cases:

  • Pro/developer tools. Most users in this segment are English-comfortable and the brand reads as more legitimate in English. Linear, Figma, and most developer-facing apps keep English in most locales.
  • Gaming with strong brand IP. When the brand is the hook, English captions can outperform localized ones because they preserve the brand vibe. Test this; don't assume.
  • App where the entire product is text-based and not translated. If the screenshots show English UI, localized captions create cognitive dissonance. Better to localize the product first.

What to do this week

  1. Run one-click translate. Export captions for your top 5 paid-install locales.
  2. Hire one reviewer per locale for ~$10. Have them check the first three captions only.
  3. Re-import edits. Verify layout doesn't break in each locale.
  4. Ship the top 5 locales first; machine-translated rest. Iterate the rest as install data shows you which markets reward investment.

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