EN→ZH SaaS Localization Checklist: 12 Things to Check Before You Ship

Shipping a Chinese version of your SaaS product is not a word-for-word swap. It is a product change: the UI gets shorter, the punctuation changes, the way users scan a screen changes, and a single broken placeholder can make a checkout page unusable.

I have been translating and reviewing EN→ZH SaaS, e-commerce and technical content for the past two years. This is the checklist I use before a Chinese build goes live.

1. Protect every placeholder and variable

Check {name}, {{count}}, %s, %d, <strong> and any custom tokens before and after translation. A translator can accidentally translate the token itself, duplicate it, or drop it. Run a script that compares the source and target token sets, and fail the build if they differ.

2. Check string length in the actual UI

Chinese is often shorter than English, but not always. Button labels, tabs, table headers and mobile cards can still overflow. Test with the longest strings in the product, not the shortest. Pay special attention to:

• onboarding tooltips
• pricing tables
• error messages
• date pickers and filters

3. Build a glossary before translating

Pick one Chinese term for each core concept and keep it everywhere: workspace, dashboard, plan, seat, invoice, integration, webhook. If the glossary is missing, the same English term will become three different Chinese terms across the product.

4. Choose Simplified or Traditional — and never mix

A single string in the wrong variant looks unprofessional. Decide the target variant at the start, put it in the brief, and run a variant check at the end. Do not let a machine translation engine silently switch variants mid-project.

5. Localize dates, numbers, currency and units

10/12/2026 is ambiguous. Use an explicit format such as 2026年10月12日 for Chinese UI. Check:

• decimal separators
• currency symbols and placement
• file sizes (MB/GB)
• time zones
• percentage formatting

6. Handle plurals and counters correctly

Chinese does not mark plural nouns the same way English does, but ICU plural rules and measure words still matter. Check strings such as 1 file / 2 files, 1 seat / 5 seats, and any counter with a number. Do not leave English plural logic in the Chinese string.

7. Use full-width Chinese punctuation consistently

Chinese sentences use ，。！？：； rather than , . ! ? : ;. Mixed punctuation is one of the most common signs of an unfinished localization. Also check quotation marks and brackets, and remove spaces that only exist because of the English source.

8. Decide what stays in English

Product names, API terms, code snippets, keyboard shortcuts and brand names often stay in English. Write this down. If the rule is “translate feature names but keep the product name,” make sure the whole build follows it.

9. Localize screenshots, onboarding images and alt text

A translated UI with English screenshots is still an English product. Update:

• onboarding images
• empty-state illustrations with text
• help-center screenshots
• image alt text
• video subtitles

10. Review legal and consent strings separately

Privacy policy, terms of service, cookie consent and payment consent need a careful human review. Do not let a UI translator improvise legal wording. Use a reviewer who has seen the Chinese legal text before, and keep the English and Chinese versions aligned.

11. Do in-context QA, not just file QA

A translation can be correct in a spreadsheet and wrong on the screen. Test the Chinese build in staging:

• create an account
• complete checkout
• trigger validation errors
• open every settings tab
• check mobile layouts

12. Keep a defect log and a sign-off

Record every issue with the screen, string key, source text, target text and severity. At the end, get a written sign-off from the product owner. This protects both sides and gives the next translator a useful history.

A quick pre-launch pass

If you only have one hour, do these five things:

1. Compare placeholder sets.
2. Search for English leftovers.
3. Check the top 20 screens at mobile width.
4. Verify dates, prices and plural strings.
5. Read the checkout and error states out loud.

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I am Alex Chen, a freelance translator and localization specialist working from English and Russian into Simplified Chinese. If you are shipping an EN→ZH product and want a second pair of eyes, email me at [e-mail].