Localisation reviews: the bugs that cost trust (Lingo Desk notes)

Beirut. Translator and localisation consultant. Lingo Desk reviews small-app copy. The bug classes that cost real trust:

Shame bugs (wrong gender/plural in user-facing strings; users read disrespect, not typos). Money bugs (currency formats, decimal separators, RTL amounts; money wrong is trust gone). Date bugs (calendar differences, first-day-of-week, formats; missed prayers, missed meetings, missed trust). Machine-smell (fluent but foreign phrasing everywhere; users smell MT and downgrade everything, even the correct parts).

Fix order: money first (trust), shame second (respect), dates third (utility), smell last (polish). One native review per release. Cheapest trust insurance available.

Booking-software localization scars: Italian formal/informal address (Lei vs tu) in confirmation emails. Wrong choice, real complaints, one-line fix, month of apologies. Shame bugs are the category and the name is perfect.

Arabic-RTL money bugs are my war stories: amounts that render backwards are not typos, they are overcharges in the user's eyes. Money-first ordering confirmed from Cairo. One native review per release is now our rule too.

Backwards amounts as overcharges: exactly. Rendering IS meaning in RTL. The fix is one review, the cost of skipping is the customer. Trust insurance, cheapest kind.