In a global economy, with a geographically dispersed workforce, with most communication being through mail and chat rather than face-to-face, most professionals are getting increasingly adept as using online communication – and adopting online learning. eLearning can cater to the needs of employees who speak different languages by being amenable to translation.

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If you are into e-learning, making custom-designed e-learning programs for global consumption can bring your organization a large bouquet of benefits, both in terms of speed with which it reaches the market and the cost of making them, besides also retaining and translating your training objectives into global training.

If you are experienced in this field, you know that if training is to be beneficial to the learner, you need to localize your training modules. Obviously, this means much more than getting a good translator on the job. There are other more important factors that come into play when you consider taking your e-learning packages worldwide. These are:

• Is English enough? Perhaps not: It is widely known that most of the developed workforces of the world necessarily speak and work in English. But just because they know English well enough to use it as a working language, does that mean that they understand it best?  Studies have pointed to the fact that learning in one’s first language is understood best and is most effective. So, if English is one’s second or third language, the learner is bound to face immense difficulty in understanding and retaining what he is exposed to. This therefore not just reduces understanding of the subject but could also lead to misinterpretation of the same.

• The learner’s culture gives him a vision of life: For a learner, his culture is his pair of eyes through which he sees the world. A part of this is one’s language and the values his society gives important to. Such factors have an impact on learning styles. For this reason, it is necessary that an e-learning module be adapted to one’s culture and country. If this is impractical, an option is to design Web-based modules especially targeted to multicultural audiences which could radically improve efficiency of training.

• Adapting to the learner’s market and culture: Which country are you writing for? Get a handle on that and identify common cultural pointers between countries that speak the same language. If a particular country has some unique needs, find an expert in that country who can give you the best inputs on this.

• Use country-specific text or neutralize it: If you’re writing region-specific text, take care not to make culturally inappropriate comparisons in writing, or use slang, metaphors or make any other ethnic-related references that could be hurtful.

• Translate and localize e-courses: In order to get the best out of your e-learning courses, you need to plan in advance the design and delivery mode so that content can be suitably created to suit the country in which it is to be taught. If the content that must be localized is identified much in advance, the e-learning course can be easily deployed. The translation and localization can be the most costly aspect to course development if not done right. After the content is neutralized or adapted to suit key markets, the technical and design models can be internationalized and the translation initiated.

Share your thoughts on the same.

In this blog, I will share my experience of working on Multi-lingual eLearning courseware development.

First and foremost, you need to develop multilingual courses in such a way that it is easy to translate and localize into multiple languages. Especially, if there is voice-over in the course, which needs synchronization with the animation.

Avoid using the images with text superimposed on it. If textual content is required, then add it to the top of the images separately, but avoid merging it with the image.

If you’re using authoring tools like Lectora, Captivate, Articulate, etc., then you can use the translation tools to develop the translation file easily. If you are using other course development tools like Adobe Flash or coding, then you need to create the translation file manually. This format works for the legacy courses, which are developed without considering translation in future.

Please look at the below format for Non-voiceover course. This format is applicable to any languages. In the below format, you will find 3 tables.

• In the first table, you need to write the translation language details.
• In the second table, you need to include all the general text for translation.
• In the third table, you need to put the text page wise.

In Table 1, you need to type the source and the translated language and the date of translation. Translator should update the versions after each revision or changes.

Table1

Table 2 consists of global content including all the general content based on the course like GUI text, help, glossary, resources pages etc.

• Page #: This column is used as reference for translators and developers.
• Source Text: Put all the source text. Break the content into paragraphs. Use separate rows for each paragraph.
• Translated Text: In this column, the translators will translate text based on the source text.
• Image/ Buttons/Other Text: In this column, input all the words included on the images (If present).
• Translated Text For Image/Buttons/Other: In this column, the translators will translate the image text.

Table3

Hello! Today we will learn about how we can use Lectora translation tool for rapid development of translations. In this blog, I will show you one page translation procedure demo using Lectora 2008.

Let’s translate one page of English course into Simplified Chinese.

First, we need to export all the content into the translation text file. This can be done easily using the inbuilt tool available in Lectora.

Click on the Tools menu item from the Menu bar, and then click on the Translation Tool menu item.

The Translation Tool dialog opens. In the dialog box, choose the ‘Export text to a translation file’ option. Next check ‘The current page only’ option; since this is a demo, we are translating only one (current page) only.

Click on the ‘Browse’ button for the location to save the exported text file. Enter the file name and click on ‘Open’ and then click the ‘OK’ button.

At the end of the procedure, you will be able to see the exported file. Let’s view the text file.

In the document, you will come across instructions like ‘Do not edit this line’ in red. The translators need to be informed about not to delete or translate these instructions. They need to translate only the text below the instruction line.

Let’s have a look at the document translated by the translator. Here is the translated file, Click to view the document. Except for the instructions line, the text is translated into Simplified Chinese language.

After we receive the translated document, we need to import it into the Lectora to replace the English content with Simplified Chinese. Let’s see how to do it.

Again click on the ‘Tools’ menu item from the ‘Menu’ options and then click on the ‘Translation Tool’ menu item.

Next, check the radio button next to ‘Import text from a translation file’. Check the ‘Increase text box size if needed’ option to adjust the text size of the translated content automatically by Lectora.

Click on the ‘The current page only’ option to import as this is a demo.

Click on ‘Browse’ button to locate the translated file and then click on ‘OK’ ‘button. The translated content will replace the text content in the original language on the page.

Check for any formatting / alignment issues. Similarly you can do it for the entire course.

If you need to localize the course you can replace the images and other objects like Flash, manually. Once you are finished with editing the text and localizing the content, the course is ready to publish.

In today’s global economy, as organizations operate in hundreds of languages and locales, the need for global localization is very much on the rise. The need to train organization’s culturally and linguistically diverse workforce effectively is very important and using their own language as a medium is considered the best way.

Imagine elearning content development on Product Training or Sales Training that needs to be delivered in 10 different languages… a mammoth task.

We at CommLab do this job very well. Last year, we translated and localized more than 30 courses in 14 languages. I am sharing some lessons we learnt from this experience. These experiences can come handy if you are considering translating and localizing elearning courses yourself or outsourcing it to third party companies like CommLab.

Text & Images:
Avoid having text superimposed on images as this requires the translated text to be once again inserted in the image. You cannot do that without opening the image file. This translates to increase in work, manpower time and cost. So try to avoid text on images.

Special Storyboards:
Always use custom-made storyboard formats or templates to send the original content to the translators. The template should have a provision for the translator to add the translated content, juxtaposed with the original content. Besides ensuring accuracy of the content, it’s easier for the translator and the production staff to see the content in both the languages side by side. Avoid sending screen shots containing the content as it is difficult to read the negligible writing on the screen shots. You can create your own storyboard formats or ask your vendor to create them for you.

Audio Script:
Seek clarification from the subject matter experts (SMEs) on how to pronounce abbreviations (like HACCP, TOEPM) or technical words. Incorrect pronunciation of commonly occurring word can cause havoc with the quality, timelines and costs.

Dialects:
Do you want French? English – Canadian or European? Spanish – Mexican or European? Chinese – Mandarin or Cantonese? Mainland or Hong Kong? Please clarify before you start.

Choice of Narrators:
Always chose more than one. The one you chose may not be available.

I hope the list is useful. Feel free to add from your experience.

RK Prasad

CEO