what’s your experience with the Chinese market? Simplified vs Traditional, conventions, pitfalls?
Hi everyone,
I’m currently preparing an iOS app and I’m hesitating about doing a full localization for the Chinese market, since it represents a significant amount of work. Before committing, I’d love to hear about your real-world experience.
In particular:
Simplified vs Traditional:
If you localized for Chinese, did you go with Simplified (`zh-Hans` / `zh-CN`), Traditional Taiwan (`zh-Hant` / `zh-TW`), or both? How did you decide based on your target users?
Conventions & expectations:
What are the main conventions you had to adapt to (UI text length, date formats, form fields, payment flows, etc.)? Any specific expectations from Chinese users that surprised you?
Common mistakes:
What are the classic errors you’ve seen or made yourself (machine translation, mixing scripts, hard-coded strings, ignoring regional variants, etc.)?
ROI / was it worth it?
For those who did it: did the Chinese localization materially affect downloads, retention, or revenue? Was the effort justified?
If you have examples, tips, or “I wish I’d known that earlier” insights, I’m all ears.
Thanks in advance!