"Before going to the UK, in my mind, the word localisation did not exist. I remember on my flight to the UK I talked about my career plans with a boy sitting next to me. I said I should become an English teacher.
However, my mind changed after I took the localisation module as part of my Chinese/English Translation and Interpreting MA at the University of Nottingham. Eric's teaching led us to a new world.
The process of localisation is not just about translating the text itself. When a product enters a foreign country, it must go through the process of localisation to adapt to the target cultural market and technological background, which are often different from the original region. For example, when Arena of Valor, a well-known game in China, entered the European and American markets, the heroes in the game changed from the original ancient Chinese characters to European mythological characters.
When looking for a job after returning to China, I clearly felt that others only understand translation, but I know localisation.
I am now working for a software development company, and I often oversee localisation projects. Having witnessed games developed by our company enter different international markets in different languages and having seen the advertisements I helped design attract attention from international players, I have a great sense of achievement. I often feel very sentimental about working in an area that I had never imagined before."
2019-2020 届毕业生，现工作于总部位于北京的软件开发公司，负责市场开发，经管本土化项目。
在去英国读研究生之前，本地化这个词在我的认知中就是无。我记得在我去英国的飞机上，我和坐我旁边的同学聊起未来的职业规划，我说学英语嘛，我应该会成为一名英语老师吧。直到我来到诺丁汉大学，接触并学习了本地化课程，我才了解到，原来翻译领域中还有本地化这么有趣的事情。Eric带我们了解本地化，模拟实践本地化流程，鼓励我们多感受，吸收这个世界的多样文化。
本地化的过程不仅仅是翻译文字本身，比如王者荣耀，国内很有名的一款游戏，在进入欧美市场的时候，游戏内的角色从原本的中国古代人物转化成了欧美神话的人物。一款产品在走出国门的时候，必然要经历一个本地化的过程，以适应与原地域截然不同的文化、市场、技术背景，更好的开拓市场。回国后找工作的时候，我有明显的感觉到，别人是只了解翻译，而我还了解本地化。
我现在在软件开发公司工作，我经常会接触本地化项目。看着我们开发的游戏以不同的语言进入到各个国家的市场，看着我经手的广告受到不同国家玩家的关注，我就很有成就感，同时也很感慨自己会在曾经从未想象过的领域工作。