eLearning Translations from English into Multiple Languages for Improved Employee Performance

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart – Nelson Mandela

eLearning translations into multiple languages entails two tasks:

01

Translating the text and audio script in the English language eLearning into the desired foreign languages

02

Developing and publishing the courses with the translated text and audio via authoring tools

Wait… Isn’t translating in-house a good idea?

Not really.

Using full time employees who happen to be native speakers of foreign languages to do your eLearning translations may seem like a smart move at the outset, but it can backfire due to any of the following reasons:

Quality

Translating is a skill that is acquired after years of training. Just because a person is a native speaker does not mean the output will be accurate. Professional translators have expertise in the subject and are almost always proficient in two or more (English and one or more foreign) languages.

Timelines

Your in-house translators have other primary responsibilities and would consider eLearning translation as an additional task. This could delay delivery times, and you can’t really force them to stick to the schedule.

Cost

The cost of your employee’s time is sometimes much higher than what you would pay a professional translator, not to mention the time away from actual work that the employee will have to spend on translating your content.

Special Software

Professional translators use special “memory tools” to use and reuse oft-repeated words and phrases, greatly increasing efficiency and speed.

Efficient Processes

Professional eLearning translation companies have time-tested processes to translate, edit, validate and format the translated text for making the subsequent course development easy.

Therefore, outsourcing your eLearning translations is a SMART move!

So, do you need two companies – one to translate and one to produce?

When choosing an eLearning translation and localization partner, you need someone who can take care of both tasks – translating the text and audio, and developing and publishing the translated courses using the most appropriate authoring tools.

Your end goal is a translated, localized, functional course, which is what a full service eLearning and translation partner can bring to the table.

CommLab India has been translating text and audio, recording in foreign languages AND developing the translated courses using a plethora of authoring tools. We follow industry best practices and offer the full spectrum of services – the design and development of the English course to delivery in multiple languages for your global audiences.

Eliminate the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors with CommLab India

In addition to translators, we have access to a huge pool of professional narrators. As experts in their domain, they also understand the value of the right tone and diction for each topic. So, you would never need to look elsewhere for your eLearning translation needs.

By offering translation services in all major international languages, we ensure you don’t have to deal with multiple eLearning translation vendors. No more losing sleep over tracking which course is due from which vendor or how to select a narrator.

Our eLearning Translation and Localization Process

Plan for translations even before designing the Master course

When we design your master course (English), we follow the best practices of eLearning translation and localization to ensure your course is eLearning translation-friendly, right from the start.

Here are a few things we do:

Ensure a minimum of 30% white space onscreen to accommodate expanded translated text
Use internationally accepted formats for units of measurement, dates, and currency
Avoid the use of region-specific idioms, symbols, colors, images, and references to sports, colloquialisms and culturally-dependent humor
Avoid embedding text (labels) on images
Avoid using slang, jargon, and redundant text, both onscreen and in the audio script

We develop courses in authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline and Lectora Inspire that make it easy to translate courses using their Export/Import feature.

In addition to the onscreen text, we ensure each part of your course is translated, including the audio script, image labels, video subtitles, and additional resources such as job-aids and glossary.

See How We Did It for Our Clients

Have 20 online modules to be converted to 10 languages and need them within the next two months?

We can deliver.

CASE 1: Achieving Scale

We’ve translated 50 mini modules and online assessments for a major healthcare firm into 5 languages (Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese), in 3 months.

CASE 2: Designing the Master Course

For one of our clients in the manufacturing sector, we translated 2 eLearning courses on product sales training into 5 languages (German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese).

We designed and delivered 2 master courses (in English) and 10 translated courses within 5 months using the authoring tool Articulate Storyline 2.