What is Target Language?

A target language is any language you translate into; together with the source language it defines a language pair, such as English to German. Each target in a project carries its own state: coverage percentage, outstanding review queue, glossary decisions, and formatting conventions.

Targets are not interchangeable in cost or difficulty. Translator availability, machine translation quality, text expansion behavior, plural complexity, and script direction all vary by pair. German strings tend to run long and stress layouts; Arabic adds RTL; Slavic languages multiply plural forms. Planning a locale rollout means planning for each target's specific traps, not just multiplying word counts.

A practical note on granularity: choosing targets means choosing locales, not just languages. Shipping pt covers Portuguese generically; shipping pt_BR and pt_PT commits you to maintaining both but reads natively in each market. Most teams start broad and split a language into regional targets when the market justifies it.