World Cup is here with a plethora of World Cup applications (see here for instance: http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2010/06/symbian-gurus-ultimate-guide-to-the-2010-fifa-worldcup-on-symbian.html or here http://mashable.com/2010/06/10/world-cup-android-apps/). If you would like to global with your application what would you need to take into account? There are 32 countries in the competition and couple of hot favourites to unseat the reigning champion Italy (in the absence of Finnish team also my long time favourite).
| Country | Languages | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | English | Sorry mate, this is the World Cup not the Ashes |
| Japan | Japanese | |
| Korea DPR | Korean | |
| Korea Republic | Korean | |
| Algeria | Arabic | Yes, right-to-left writing is supported too |
| Cameroon | French, English | |
| Côte d’Ivoire | French | |
| Ghana | English | |
| Nigeria | English, (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba) | |
| South Africa | Afrikaans English (South African English) Southern Ndebele Northern Sotho Southern Sotho Swazi Tsonga Tswana Venda Xhosa Zulu |
Host country with 11 official languages. |
| Honduras | Spanish | |
| Mexico | Spanish | |
| United States | English | |
| Argentina | Spanish | Two words: Lionel Messi |
| Brazil | Portuguese | You have 5 already |
| Chile | Spanish | |
| Paraguay | Spanish | |
| Uruguay | Spanish | Stop it, I know what you are thinking |
| New Zealand | English | |
| Denmark | Danish | |
| England | English | |
| France | French | What is “handled the ball” in French? |
| Germany | German | Whatever you do: avoid the penalties |
| Greece | Greek | |
| Italy | Italian | |
| Netherlands | Dutch | |
| Portugal | Portuguese | |
| Serbia | Serbian | |
| Slovakia | Slovak | |
| Slovenia | Slovene | |
| Spain | Spanish | Number one favourite |
| Switzerland | Italian, French, German, Romansh |
So what if you had a simple web service going live July 11th congratulating the new World Cup winners? How would you make sure that visitor will see the greeting in their own language? By crowdsourcing you your localization of course. See the example project at: http://www.getlocalization.com/WeAreTheChampions
By the way, if you really want to build an app like this go on and sign up to our free beta.
Get Localization Blog 