Mobile phone menu<\/p>\n
I have been involved in a localization project of a mobile
\nphone company for quite a while. Localization means that all the
\ndisplay menus and users' guides of a product, in my case, a
\nmobile phone, should be translated into Bahasa Indonesia without
\ndisregarding local standards and cultural norms.<\/p>\n
Recently my manager in Singapore sent me a series of questions
\nfor the purpose of collecting Indonesian language specific
\nconventions, one of which deals with date format as follows:
\nWhat order is used in Bahasa Indonesia's date format? Is it date-
\nmonth-year, or month-date-year?<\/p>\n
What are the separators used, periods or dashes? What is
\ncommon usage of the long version of dates? Is it \"4 Maret 2001\"
\nor \"Maret 4 2001\"?<\/p>\n
Does it need a leading zero (4-3-2001 or 04-03-2001)?<\/p>\n
The same questions arise with the use of time format, whether
\nleading zeros are needed in writing, for example, five minutes
\npast nine. Is it 9.5 or 09.05 of 9.05? Are periods or colons used
\nas separators?<\/p>\n
To find out the answers I referred to the general guidelines
\nfor Bahasa Indonesia released by the Language Center (Pusat
\nBahasa) and the guidelines published by several publishers
\nincluding Gramedia but only some questions were answered. The
\nguidelines are therefore far from complete.<\/p>\n
As an official institution in the development and
\nstandardization of Indonesian, the Center should provide
\nguidelines which are as complete as possible.<\/p>\n
It should even provide the English version so that foreign
\nlocalization engineers involved in similar projects would have a
\nreference besides, of course, a good bilingual Indonesian
\ndictionary.<\/p>\n
Recently the leadership of the Language Center was handed over
\nfrom Mr. Hasan Alwi to Mr. Dendy Sugono. It is hoped that as the
\nnew head of the Center, Mr. Sugono will speed up the development
\nof Bahasa Indonesia. As a first step, he may want to make
\namendments to the general guidelines, making them more complete
\nand also providing an English version.<\/p>\n
ADRIANUS HIYUNG TJUNG<\/p>\n
Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/mobile-phone-menu-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }