Embodiments relate to systems and methods for generating and storing translation information as package metadata. A physical or virtual client machine can host a set of installed software packages, including operating system, application, and/or other software. A package manager tracks the set of installed packages and language resources available for the installed set. The package manager can host or access a set of package attributes which include language specifications which indicates a language that should be used for search, display, and/or other activities. The language specifications be used to link to remote a remote repository storing various language metadata, including translations of source text. The resulting translated descriptions of source text from applications or other objects can be received and locally stored as translation information on the client machine. Translations can be periodically generated and/or updated.