Localization studio · Brooklyn, NY
Plainspoke localizes app interfaces, help-center content and patient-facing instructions into Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole, then reads every line aloud with a native speaker before it reaches your users.
What to send
We work from your files so keys, placeholders and links survive the trip. Three kinds of material cover nearly everything we’re handed.
String exports in the format your engineers already ship. We leave your keys, placeholders and plural rules untouched and flag any line that can’t survive a longer translation.
Articles come back with their IDs, headings and internal links in place, so your redirects and search index don’t need re-wiring when the Spanish site goes live.
Instructions for use, quick-start cards, discharge sheets and on-device prompts. Your regulatory team signs off the final; we mark every line they should read twice.
Specimen
A dosing line looks easy until you meet the word for “tablet.” Here is the kind of margin note a project returns with.
Take 1 tablet twice a day, with food.
Source line from a device companion app.
Tome 1 tableta dos veces al día, con alimentos.
Formal “tome,” never “toma,” for instructions. We ask which word your pharmacy label uses: tableta or comprimido.
Tome 1 comprimido duas vezes ao dia, junto com alimentos.
“Comprimido,” not “tablete.” The second one is a chocolate bar in Brazil.
Pran 1 grenn de fwa pa jou, ak manje.
Short verbs, no borrowed French register. A Creole speaker reads it aloud before we sign off.
What to expect
No retainer, no seat licences. Every project gets the same four commitments, written into the quote.
Services & prices
Starting prices for a typical scope. Native-speaker review is already inside every figure below.
Up to 5,000 words per release, with placeholders, plurals and character limits respected and a glossary you keep.
Up to 25 articles per batch, with link checking, preserved article IDs and consistent product terms across all of them.
Read-aloud check and a query log for your regulatory team. Back-translation is $310 per document if your QA asks for it.
A native speaker walks your build on a device and returns annotated screenshots of every clipped, broken or odd line.
Rush work under five business days adds 25%. Projects over $2,500 start with half up front; the balance is due on delivery.
A note from the proofing desk
Spanish often runs a fifth longer than the English it came from, and Haitian Creole rarely lines up word for word at all. We test the translation on your real screens, so a clipped label is found by us and not by a patient.
Book an in-context passThe studio
Plainspoke is a Brooklyn studio for the unglamorous half of a product.
The error message at 2 a.m. The dosing line. The settings toggle nobody reads until it matters. That is the copy we spend our days on, in the three languages your support inbox keeps asking for.
Before the first file
We translate it with care and flag every line your regulatory or clinical team should review. We don’t certify translations or replace your own sign-off.
Because it is routinely missing from vendor menus, and the people left out are often the ones reading the instructions most closely. Our reviewers are fluent Kreyòl speakers, not French speakers working from a dictionary.
Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese by default. Spain Spanish or European Portuguese on request, at the same rate.
Changes under 10% of the word count are folded into the fee. Beyond that, we re-quote in writing before we touch anything.
One fixed fee, itemized by language and by step: translation, review, testing. There is no retainer and no per-seat charge.
Start a project
Send a sample or simply describe the work. A fixed-fee quote comes back within two business days at most, usually sooner.
Email files or describe the project. Ten strings or a whole help center, either works.
A fixed fee by language and step, within 48 hours.
Glossary first, then the draft, in your file formats.
A second native speaker reads it aloud and marks what sounds off.
We walk your build and send annotated screenshots back.
Mon–Thu 9am–5:30pm
Fri to 1pm
Visits by appointment