This function depends on an external file.  If this is a "util" function (app-independent), then this json file should be packaged with this function.  If you don't want to do that, then this is a "shared" function.

If this is a shared function, I suggest you move this function into shared/i18n.py.  That file can include utils/i18n.py (this file), and then all imports can just be `from shared.i18n import xxx`