Pioneering Language and Localisation Through Klingon and Inuktitut with Soren Eberhardt

Soren: It was so awesome. We were working with a team of translators up there and I was the PM, but I was also doing a lot of engineering. And the PM on their end called me and he was close to tears. He was saying, I just opened Windows and it is in my native language and I can just go through this and I see the Start button in Inuktitut.

Brian: Today we are talking with Soren Eberhardt, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft. He has been working in the field of internationalisation and localisation for over 25 years, both on the vendor and client side, in different roles as translator, localisation engineer, and programme manager. He has taught localisation classes at various universities. Soren, welcome to The Native Experience.

Soren: Thanks for having me.

Brian: Did I pronounce your name correctly?

Soren: You pronounced the Americanised version correctly, which is also in my passport. But I do have some aliases. I am Sören in my native country of Germany. The umlaut got taken away from me. They decided they could not have that on official forms. Even today, for travelling, I cannot put my own umlaut in there. When I moved to the States over 20 years ago, email addresses did not support umlauts either. By now there are international domain names and email internationalisation, but all that was not in place back then. So I became Soren and I am totally happy with it.

Brian: Tell us about yourself and what you are nerding out on for fun.

Soren: I am married with two boys, 16 and nearly 13. That is my first job, being a dad. Regarding localisation, I have been in the language industry for at least 27 years. It has been very interesting to see some of the changes and some of the things that stay the same, all the way to how people react now to AI being comparable to how people reacted to MT and how they reacted before that to CAT tools. Sometimes it is interesting to see recurring patterns.

Soren: I love to travel when I get vacation. Nothing beats travelling for understanding other cultures. One of the things I do is taking one of my boys on an individual trip. My first trip was with my then six-year-old. We drove from Seattle to Denver going through national parks. I took my younger one who was totally into anime and manga to Japan last year, which was super cool. Japan is a totally developed country in many aspects, beating US infrastructure, but still so foreign. Super fascinating.

Brian: Tell me about a localisation or translation story from your career.

Soren: It took me a long time to realise some of the pioneering work I did because I was so bogged down in the project. Microsoft had this project where they broadly expanded their language set. There were language interface packs, nearly like a skin you install on top of Windows. You would get about 20% of the UI localised, but it was basically 80% of the user experience, the things people most often used.

Soren: We started with Catalan because of legal requirements. Certain institutions in Catalonia could not use just the Spanish versions anymore. Then we expanded into markets that were not yet big enough for a full version. I did some Eastern European markets that now have the full version. And there were a lot of African markets. I did Swahili, Zulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, and Afrikaans for the very first time that any big IT company had done that. Same for India, where we did several languages. It was super fascinating because I could not even read the scripts. With Tamil, I did not know where one letter ended and the next one started.

Soren: It was a great experience seeing how much identity people correlate with their language. The smallest language I did, and I am still really proud of Microsoft partnering with the Canadian government on this, was Inuktitut, spoken in the autonomous region of Nunavut. About 30,000 speakers. Not something Microsoft would ever do commercially, but it was awesome. We were working with a team of translators up there. The PM on their end called me and he was close to tears, saying he had just opened Windows and it was in his native language, seeing the Start button in Inuktitut.

Soren: When you are an English speaker, or even me as a native German speaker, you are so used to having products in your own language. But there are a lot of languages where people had to do a lot of lobbying work. I also did Maori with somebody who was travelling to Silicon Valley and Seattle trying to influence all the big companies to get Maori versions out. Maori is still in the portfolio. It clicked with me that these languages just do not have that status and it is an enormous support for them if certain products are available.

Brian: Did you have to translate into Klingon?

Soren: Yes. Microsoft Translator had a Klingon version fairly early on as a proof of concept for machine translation. They needed just a few sentences for the UX, so if you wanted to use Klingon you could switch the user interface. I needed to find a Klingon speaker. I went to the vendor and said, get me a Klingon speaker, I am okay if it is a second language speaker because there are not many native speakers we have access to. They sent me the biography and the person was highly qualified, on the Klingon Language Board. It was such a fun little thing. There are probably fewer Klingon speakers than the 30,000 Inuktitut speakers.

Brian: I know you have a passion for geocultural considerations. Talk about what that means.

Soren: When you learn a new language, you also learn about a new culture. It is not separable. One of the things often not considered part of localisation but that falls back on the localisation team is when you are not catering well for other cultures. The easiest items I am always wary of are political symbols, flags, and maps. Those can be super tricky.

Soren: Microsoft was very early with creating a team around that. Kate Edwards, probably known to nearly everybody in the localisation community, started a team that looked at these things. Microsoft had a head start. Ten years later, Google would sometimes make those mistakes. Two Central American countries were basically looking at Google Maps and one country said the border was here and this island was theirs. Microsoft had learned that with border disputes you need to be super careful. Even today, think about Russia and Ukraine. If a company still sells products in Russia, they have to show certain parts of Ukraine as Russian territory. But there is another view that says no. How do you negotiate those spaces?

Soren: It is a lot broader than just visible manifestations. It is really about trying not to offend users with a certain perspective. Language has such an elevated status now where you have to think about pronouns, gendering. In English, most profession terms are gender neutral. It is not the same in Spanish or German, where it is automatically assumed someone is male. If you have one male teacher and 99 female teachers, you still use the male form. There is more awareness now about the impact of language.

Soren: Hand gestures are an easy example. We try to avoid certain ones when travelling. But a product developer might not know that when they create icons. The OK gesture is offensive in Brazil. I worked on early versions of Microsoft Teams. They have tons of stickers and emojis. We went through the whole list. Sometimes I would say, do we really want to show alcohol usage? The Middle East might not respond well to that. Do we need it or do we just avoid controversy?

Soren: It is something you need to stay current on. You show the Twin Towers in 2000, it is all okay. If you show them today, it has a very different connotation.

Brian: How do we balance being respectful without fearing it?

Soren: Number one, there are insights that are hard to have when you are not exposed to those markets. The best thing is always to have people in the markets you can talk to. Finding somebody in the subsidiary who can take a look at things. Also look at what the possible areas are where things can happen. Whenever you show people, maps, flags, political symbols, look at those categories and figure out how to get somebody from the market. I would prefer not to rely on just one person because that can be tainted. The best thing is a review process. Then you start fearing it less because you have mechanisms that can control it. Also be aware that people do make mistakes. What is the worst case scenario and how can you mitigate that?

Soren: Microsoft has a team focused on making sure nothing bad happens. But they also know they cannot cover everything with reviews. So they provide general knowledge and educate people. That is super important. Do not keep it to yourself. If there are experts on certain areas, make sure the knowledge is shared. We have geocultural champions in different teams so the load gets distributed. If you can involve international team members early in product design, that mitigates a lot of problems. It is bad when you have a nearly shippable product and somebody says, wait, this image is really offensive. If you can have people from international teams involved earlier, even at the concept stage, that is much better. Educate the designers, the developers, and spread the knowledge. Microsoft does company-wide trainings where they raise awareness about how products work internationally.

Brian: What is the process we should follow?

Soren: Listen. Ask questions. Be curious. Do not assume anything. Share context as often as possible. And be self-aware.

Brian: That process is simple but not easy.

Soren: Simple and easy do not mean the same thing. But if you build that into your training and process proactively, you can solve a lot of problems before they start.

Brian: Do you see companies with this process implemented proactively?

Soren: The big IT companies in the US have invested most in this. A lot of LSPs, if they are bigger, are aware of the benefits. If they have clients asking for it, they can provide great consulting services. But they need to be asked. People sometimes consider it superfluous or a luxury. That can be super dangerous.

Brian: People call them soft skills, but they are probably essential.

Soren: Absolutely.

Brian: Soren, thank you. This has been incredibly educational, great stories, and very informative.

Soren: Brian, thank you for inviting me. It has been lots of fun.

Brian: Soren Eberhardt, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft. Remember, always strive for authenticity and embrace the power of native experiences.