eLearning has become essential for businesses to train their employees and customers globally. With the onset of COVID-19, the demand for online services has increased, making it even more necessary to develop and implement thorough eLearning programs.
But when you consider translation, eLearning has its own challenges. At LinguaLinx, as a Language Services Provider (LSP), we know translating training programs is a big responsibility.
Quite often, there has been considerable investment to get them to the native language version, and their use within a company might even be business critical.
In this article, we’ll look at the most important requirements and considerations when having your eLearning translated.
The more simple the language that’s used in the training, the easier it will translate accurately.
Best to avoid colloquialisms and a lot of local references as these may not be understood by users or be able to be translated properly to the target language.
Rarely is an eLearning package made of just one form of media. Training these days is rich and dynamic. All the elements need to be translated. Here are a few considerations when looking at different forms of media:
Text – What is the target language? What is the length of the translated text compared to English? Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese have a word count that is at least 20% more than English.
Imagery – What is the market you’re going into? Is your training for a Muslim region where you’d have to ensure any imagery in the training is appropriate to their customs on showing skin? Even if it’s not this cultural inappropriateness, the more your imagery reflects the world of the user, the more they’ll engage and feel that you care about their culture.
Video – Videos will need to be adapted to the new language. Is it best to use sub-titles, voice-over, redub the lines with actors that speak in the target language or reshoot the content completely? There are pros and cons for each method. Broadly put, reshooting is expensive (but shows you care and could be most accurate), and sub-titles can be done fairly inexpensively (but if your workforce has literacy difficulties, the message could be ineffective).
Audio – Audio faces the same challenges as video. Do you use voice-over, redub lines or recreate everything from scratch? Each of the options has a different price tag, and maybe you need to use a mixture of options to vary eLearning modules.
Design and User Interface (UI) – How is the UI going to be affected by the new language? Are you moving from English to Korean, Japanese or a Chinese language? These are read vertically and require redesigning the UI to accommodate it. The same goes for languages that read right to left like Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi or Urdu.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are crucial for translating eLearning content due to their deep understanding of specific fields. They grasp the unique jargon and concepts of your industry, ensuring accurate translation of specialized content.
SMEs also understand eLearning pedagogical requirements, which helps in creating effective educational content. They can accurately translate industry-specific terms, making the content comprehensible to your target audience.
Additionally, their cultural insights ensure the translated content is culturally sensitive and appropriate.
Translation is converting words or media from one language into another. Localization is taking the content and completely immersing it into the target culture. It’s considering everything about them and making sure the content is relevant for that specific demographic.
Imagine you’re a doctor explaining the concept of “staying healthy” to a five year-old. And then you have to explain the same concept to fifty year-old. They’d be very different conversations. You’d customize your answer and your language specifically for each to make it relevant to their lives and understandable to them. When translating, this detailed attention to your audience is called localization.
There are some common pitfalls when it comes to localizing eLearning content, but there are also some easy ways around them when you see them coming.
It goes without saying really, doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised how often full testing isn’t done on translated eLearning programs. The translation is reviewed, but no user testing is done.
SME’s need to review the program as a whole, and test subjects need to take it through its paces to make sure all of the code, the media and the design is intact and understandable.
Translating eLearning training isn’t cheap. The value is worth the investment if it’s done correctly. Don’t rush.
If there are five new markets you’re heading into, tackle them one at a time. This way, if things need changing, you have to make that change in one language, not five.
This thought process isn’t contradicting the last section, you still want to get one language successfully under your belt before you start on the next one.
However, you can plan for the next one. We’d suggest doing things like leaving a little bit more space for text so that you have to redesign your UI as little as possible as you move from one language to the next.
Your LSP will help you put a process in place and pull the team together to translate your eLearning effectively, on time and on budget. Lean on them.
Choose the right LSP partner and have them guide you through the process. They’ll make sure all the different forms of content are considered, it’s localized and thoroughly tested before it goes live.
If you need to translate eLearning products, we’d love to sit down and talk with you about it.
Consultations are free and there’s no obligation.
With LinguaLinx, you won't ever have to worry about your message getting lost as it’s translated. You know you're in good hands with our ISO 17100 compliance, twenty years of professional translation experience, and the organizations whose trust we've earned.