Most apps that list "supports 18 languages" mean one of two things. Either the labels on buttons were machine translated, or a freelancer was paid to render the strings in a hurry. The cycle phase descriptions, the symptom names, the tone of voice in a notification, the way you say "follicular" in a language that has no clinical tradition of the word, are usually left in English or rendered badly.
We tried something different. mylune ships with 18 languages, and five of those, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Marathi, received the same level of editorial care as the English copy. This post is about what that actually looks like.
Translation is not localisation
A translation is the same sentence in a different language. A localisation is the same idea in a different culture. Those are different problems.
A translation engine can tell you that "ovulation" is "अंडोत्सर्ग" in Hindi. A localisation has to decide whether that word means anything to the woman reading it. In many Indian languages, the clinical vocabulary for menstruation, fertility, and reproductive health is borrowed from Sanskrit, used in textbooks, and almost never spoken aloud. If we used those words, we would be technically correct and practically incomprehensible.
So we worked with native speakers, women, who think about health in those languages every day. We asked them to write the strings as a friend would say them. Not the medical dictionary version. The version a sister would use in a WhatsApp message.
Five languages that took the longest
For Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, and Hindi, the work went well beyond strings. It included:
- Period and cycle terminology. The word for "period" varies regionally, and many traditional terms carry stigma. We chose words our reviewers said felt private but not euphemistic.
- Phase descriptions. The four cycle phases are a Western clinical framing. We kept the underlying biology but wrote the phase descriptions in a voice that does not lecture and does not assume the reader has heard the words "follicular" or "luteal" before.
- Symptom labels. "Spotting," "tender breasts," "cervical fluid," and "discharge" all have clinical and colloquial versions. We chose the version our reviewers would actually type.
- Tone in notifications. A reminder to log your period should not read as a lecture or an alarm. It should feel like a small note from someone who knows you. Notification copy in every language was rewritten for warmth, not just accuracy.
- Self care prompts. The voice of a phase based prompt or a daily reflection cue has to be culturally familiar. A prompt that lands as "supportive" in one language can land as "patronising" in another.
This is the part of localisation that most apps skip, because it is slow and expensive and does not show up as a feature on a tour. It shows up in whether the app feels like it belongs in the user's hand.
What we are honest about
mylune currently ships translations in 18 languages. The five Indian languages above, plus English, received editorial review of every health string. The remaining twelve languages were translated by professional translators but have not yet received the same level of cultural reviewer attention.
We do not pretend that machine quality and culturally adapted are the same thing. The app indicates which languages have full editorial review and which are in the second tier, and we are continuing to bring more languages up over time.
We also do not promise zero errors. Real localisation is iterative. If a string in your language reads wrong to you, we want to hear about it. The contact form on this site reaches the team and we read every message.
Why a privacy app sweats this so much
A privacy app has to be trusted, and trust is built in language. If the phase description for ovulation reads like a textbook, the user will not believe that the team behind the app understands her body. If the privacy promise itself reads like a translated legal disclaimer, she will not believe that the architecture behind it has been thought through.
The voice of the app is the only voice the user gets to hear. Getting it right in every language she might choose is part of the product, not the post launch checklist.
What is still left
There is more to do. We are extending review tier work into Kannada and Malayalam. We are adding more Spanish variants for Latin America. We are gathering feedback on how the cycle phase descriptions land in Arabic and Vietnamese contexts where the clinical framing is less familiar.
We will keep updating this list as the work ships. The goal is for every language tier to feel like it was written first in that language, not last.