Translation Stories: How I helped localize a crypto trading simulation app in Russian with Localazy

Translation Stories: How I helped localize a crypto trading simulation app in Russian with Localazy

We are using Localazy to build Jedie, an innovative crypto-trading simulation app in two languages: English and Russian. Sneak into our dev kitchen to see how we tackled some of the unique challenges of bilingual UI copywriting.

Last summer, I joined the team developing a mobile crypto trading simulator with rewards in tokens. Jedie’s founders targeted international audiences and decided it would be best to do so through two languages: English and Russian. As if getting the trading language right alone wasn’t enough of a challenge for the team!

Why Russian? The founders speak this language and are well-connected within the huge Russian-speaking crypto community, that exceeds 20 million active users across post-Soviet countries alone. Overall, about 251 million global speakers of this language form an attractive market.

Anyway, the team needed someone to write their User Interface (UI) copy. As an experienced English copywriter and a native Russian speaker, I was the perfect match.

🙋🏻♂️ A new boy in town

When I joined, the project was already well underway. The team had been using a bunch of tools, including Figma and Localazy. And while I knew the former, the latter didn’t ring a bell.

The project manager recorded a video for me to demonstrate how to pair the two in my work. I watched it. Then I watched it again. And again. Mind you, the video was great, but I am the type who learns new technology best by trying my hand at it. And when I tried Localazy, it was a breeze to pick up.

🔩 Hammers & screws: Working with Figma

Copywriters and designers use different tools. Figma offers powerful UI design features, but some of my previous clients have required me to write with it. And that was as painful as driving screws into wood with a hammer, so when I first heard the F-word, I took a deep breath.

I didn’t know then that a straightforward process awaited me. I started by creating uniform keys, aka strings, for each UI element featuring text in Figma. Some of them had been pre-set and listed for manual import into the design layout.

While adding keys to Figma, I created the same-name keys in Localazy. Some were already there, imported from Figma through an integration.

Most of the UI copy had been pre-written in one of the two languages by the designer just enough to give me a sense of what each element did. Once I had rewritten the copy in Localazy, the designer bulk-exported it to Figma through the integration to check if he needed to move things around.

As a result, I didn’t have to write in the designers’ application. I sometimes toyed with the copy in Figma to preview how it would fit into the app layout, and that was it.

Most of the time, I worked within an interface tailored to writing copy in multiple languages. Localazy’s clean design, ease of navigation, and useful features helped me nail the UI copy and localize it in Russian.

🇷🇺 Russian localization: Challenges to tackle

English is the app’s first language, but that doesn't make Russian-speaking users any less of a priority. So, instead of translating, I wrote in the two tongues simultaneously, keeping both audiences in mind and handling the specifics of the Russian language right away. Here is how this affected the process.

1. You need to provide extra placeholders

Numbers, dates, usernames, and crypto tickers are all dynamic elements. To put them in context, we used a placeholder like this %@.

E.g. Your account has been topped up with %@.

We also added keys ending with ._example, where the placeholder is replaced with –surprise!– an example.

E.g. activities.account.topped-up.details._example – Your account balance has been topped up with 100 USDT.

For Russian, we had to add more keys containing placeholders and the respective examples because of how plural nouns are formed. There are two ways in English and three in Russian, and the relationship between them is quite complicated:

2. Impossibly possessive

In English, showing possession is simple — you just add ’s, as in "the dog’s hair."

In Russian, it’s more complicated: the word's ending must change according to one of six grammatical cases, depending on the context. However, this approach doesn’t work for usernames composed of Latin letters and numbers, like Jedie.

So, we left usernames as they are because context is usually enough for the reader to interpret a phrase correctly in Russian. Here is what this looked like in Localazy:


3. A case for true translation

My university professor used to say that translation begins where the dictionary ends. And our work on Jedie made a perfect case for that. For some terms, we had to come up with equivalents in Russian that a dictionary, a translation automation tool, or generative AI could never come up with.

For instance, the direct equivalent to conditional actions we used in Russian translates into English as conditional closing orders. And a parent offer became копируемая сделка (a copied trade).

4. The grammatical fluidity of genders

Remember that Limp Bizkit’s song where Fred is blasting, “It’s all about the he-said she-said BS?” Well, the literal translation into Russian wouldn’t be as punchy because the verb “say” would take two different forms: male and female.

In most cases, you just add the -a ending to the male verb to change its gender into female (сказал+а for said). But sometimes you have to use two different endings indicating past tense: пошёл vs. пошла. Luckily, we only dealt with the former case.

A common practice in Russian when the gender is not clear is to take the male verb and place (а) at the end. See how we did it:


Keep in mind that developers often add the gender category in user profiles to solve this problem and serve the appropriate verbs. Maybe Jedie will follow suit in later builds with something similar.

5. Terms you shouldn't translate

Trading emerged far away from today’s Russian-speaking countries. As a result, most of the terms, like Take Profit (TP), Stop Loss (SL), and Order entered Russian after they became the industry standard.

There have never been adequate equivalents. In translation, you would either have to describe them in multiple words, or come up with equivalents the industry would universally accept. As the latter never happened and the former was impractical, these terms have been traditionally transliterated.

Transliteration involves creating a word in the target language that mimics the pronunciation of the foreign term. For example:

  • take profit – /teɪk ˈprɒfɪt/ – тейк-профит
  • order – /ˈɔːrdər/ (US), /ˈɔːdə/ (UK) – ордер

Depending on the context, some terms could be either translated or transliterated. But even if you can translate a word, the equivalent will often be much longer.

Here are a few examples:

  • long – длинный
  • short – короткий
  • slippage – проскальзывание

As mobile design needs to be economical, we favored transliteration wherever applicable. For the same reason, we left out articles and punctuation in the English version where doing so wouldn’t confuse the user:

6. Instruct or enable?

Are you familiar with infinitives and imperatives? According to Cambridge Dictionary, an imperative verb is “used to describe the form of a verb that is usually used for giving orders.”

And an infinitive verb is “the basic form of a verb that usually follows ‘to’. " Look at the verb be in these two examples and tell me how it is different (not the context):

So, which form should be used on buttons? A seasoned marketer will probably lean towards the imperative because it sounds like a call to action, and we want the user to interact with our app as much as possible. But some actions, like 'cancel', 'delete profile', and 'log out', aren't quite the interaction you want. The solution is to check the convention.

In some languages that offer both forms, like Bulgarian, you're expected to use the imperative. Meanwhile, Russian generally favors the infinitive. As someone using both languages daily, this made me stop and think for a moment. 🤔

⚡️ How Localazy streamlined our work

I loved Localazy’s clear, hassle-free design and UI. But it is the following features that made the real difference for me:

Search

Whenever the team renames things or changes how the app works, they send me a screenshot or the related key. I search Localazy for this key or key phrases from the screenshot and edit the copy accordingly.

Version history

This feature has leveled up our collaboration. If someone changes a key’s copy, I can see who did that, when it happened, and exactly what they changed. This saves everyone's time.

Translation notes

In addition to the version history, Localazy enables key comments. If a key requires the attention of a designer or a developer, I can add a comment in the translation note and be sure they will see it.

Moreover, the integration automatically generates a link to the respective key in Figma, which is shown in the comment section for quick reference.

Handy shortcuts

As a copywriter, I use keyboard shortcuts to save time. But Localazy steps it up by reducing copying to one click. That's one small code tweak for developers, one giant leap for user experience.

Tracking untranslated keys

Localazy lets you add keys in one language and add translations later. We did so every time before a new release date. I would later add the missing translations as Localazy conveniently showed me the untranslated phrases one by one.

Automated suggestions for microcopy

Not every phrase requires a well-thought-through equivalent in another language. There are a lot of standard microcopy elements, including captions like 'cancel', 'password', 'settings', etc. And Localazy does a great job here, suggesting multiple translation options from Google, Azure, DeepL, and Open AI. In fact, you sometimes get adequate suggestions for less common phrases like these:

☝️One major tip on localization

Translation is nonlinear. It requires human creativity, industry expertise, and, above all, empathy. You need to be able to put yourself in your reader’s shoes and imagine yourself using the product of your work. And this is especially important when localizing software.

Luckily, we have had a great team with the Jedie app. It included professionals in crypto trading, project management, design, and mobile development. We have always been there for each other. If there’s one major tip on localization I could share, it’s this:

Automation tools will not replace a great team. But equip a great team or expert with specialized cutting-edge software, and they will nail any project

The good news is that Localazy isn’t just a digital tool. The company behind it can provide a Continuous Localization Team with the linguistic and cultural expertise for your multilingual application. You can learn more about Localazy’s translation services here.

Author: Mick Chistopolov

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