Canada

To which language should you translate to localize in Canada?

Canada has two official federal languages, English and French, eight provinces in which English is the official language, one in which French is the official language, one province and one territory in which both French and English are official languages, and two territories with different mixes of English, French and Aboriginal languages (from the Dene, Inuit and Cree families) counted as official. To simplify.

In practice, almost everyone in Canada speaks one of the two federal official languages (and a bit under 80% as a mother tongue). A large majority of Canadian French speakers live in Québec, but they are present through Canada, with significant communities in Ontario and the Maritime provinces on the eastern coast (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island). Most English speakers are not bilingual, and while a larger amount of French speakers are, localizing in Canada still means localizing in both languages. In fact, in some cases it’s illegal not to : the Charte de la langue française (Charter of the French language) mandates the use of French by businesses operating in the province of Québec (nearly a fourth of the population).

Canadian English is fairly close to American English, though it retains some elements of British spelling. We use localize like the Americans, but colour like the British. French Canadian has a more complicated relationship to its European variant, and the differences are strongly dependent on register. The differences are small in technical, academic or administrative contexts, but a natural, somewhat informal voice in Canada is very different from the same in France, from the use of pronouns like tu and on, to the use of anglicisms (and which anglicisms), to preferences in structure. In both cases, speakers will generally understand the variants, but they will notice the differences and those differences will grow more jarring the more a text has creative or marketing intent.

Official language

English (58.7%; 23.53 mln), French (22%; 8.8 mln).

Actual languages

English (58.7%; 23.53 mln), French (22.0%; 8.8 mln), Punjabi (1.4%; 561k), German (1.3%; 521k), Italian (1.3%; 521k), Spanish (1.3%; 521k), Chinese (1.2%; 481k), Tagalog (1.2%; 481k), Arabic (1.1%; 441k), Polish (0.7%; 280k), Portuguese (0.7%; 280k), Ukrainian (0.6%; 240k), Dutch (0.5%; 200k), Russian (0.4%; 160k), Inuit (0.1%; 40k), other (7.5%; 3 mln).

What the top 150 best localized websites in the world do in Canada

(Top 150 websites listed in the Global by Design ranking – published annually by Byte Level Research, this report provides a list of globally localized websites, showcasing best practices and emerging trends in their globalization)

• 131/150 localize by translating into both English and French
• 6/150 localize by translating into English
• 1/150 localizes by translating into both English and German
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Simplified Chinese
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Czech, Hungarian, Nederland, Polish and Swedish
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Polish, Thai, Ukrainian, Turkish, Romanian and Bahasa Indonesia
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, French and Simplified Chinese
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, French, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese
• 1/150 localizes by translating into English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese