Unlocking the Mysteries: Top Linguistic Issues in Arabic Website Localization

Reputable companies always seek to localize their websites to have a global presence and international customers. However, sometimes the localization process is not done properly which leads to linguistic issues in the localized website. This paper aims at identifying the linguistic issues usually found in Arabic localized websites. It investigates five areas including food, automotive field, economies, medical tools, and flights to highlight general issues, not limited to a specific field. Additionally, it provides solutions to overcome these issues and produce an Arabic site that meets the target audience’s demands. The study employs a product-oriented approach, which concentrates on analyzing translations as final products. A qualitative analytical methodology is adopted to identify linguistic issues encountered during localization. Findings reveal that there are significant accuracy issues, including untranslated texts, omissions, and mistranslations. Additionally, terminology translation errors, that have a major impact on the understanding of the text, are found. While there are numerous fluency problems, they do not greatly affect the overall translation. The detected issues highlight that the localization process was not properly followed, and the necessary tools were not used effectively. This paper contributes to the translation and localization studies as it explains how to enhance the localized website quality.