It should be simple. Our web site currently is translated into only a handful of languages, but we allow the visitor to pick from many different locales when viewing the site so that currencies, prices, dates and other such locale specific things can be displayed for the correct country and language. The idea is that we localize for most countries, but only translate into the few languages. We have had the problem solved and have implemented many web applications using this scheme, but for some reason we keep hitting problems and coming back to the issue. What is so hard about localization? Is it that we have the theory wrong, that our developers just need better training on the standards, or that localization is inherently hard? Let’s explore. (more…)