Best Practices for Translating eLearning Content

eLearning has helped revolutionize education. While making it accessible to everyone, it has made learning more convenient and learner-centric. As a prominent segment of the education sector, eLearning is projected to witness consistent and promising growth in the future. From nearly USD 233 billion in 2022, the global eLearning market is expected to surpass USD 490 billion by 2028, thus registering a staggering growth! eLearning localization helps in many ways.

While these figures and the future overall seem bright and promising, eLearning can make a difference only when it is available in the user’s language. For instance, there’s no point in making purely English content available for Latin American learners predominantly speaking Spanish or Portuguese. Such content might not resonate as much with native learners. Translations are thus imperative, especially when the content providers aim to create a global outreach for their content.

Easier said than done, eLearning localization isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. It involves a range of complexities and factoring in numerous technical and linguistic factors. It requires eLearning translation and localization service providers to adhere to some best practices that would help them deliver accurately translated and localized content. So, here are some best practices to follow while translating your content.

eLearning Localization and Translation Best Practices

eLearning translation and localization demands a significant amount of planning and partnering with the right eLearning localization company. However, the project’s scope goes beyond thought and choices. So, here are some best practices companies should adhere to while dealing with eLearning translation and localization.

1. Prepare the Project’s Scope

With a broad spectrum of tasks and activities, handling localization without properly planning for it could take the project for a toss. Hence, you should first analyze the eLearning localization project’s requirements. It may include multimedia requirements, languages, type of study material, and the local target audience.
Partnering with a professional eLearning localization company can help. Their services can secure the translation of written text, graphics, linked documents, and interactive elements with accuracy, matching the target audience’s tone and style. In addition, you should consider reference materials, study guides, and instructional documents for an eLearning localization project. A careful consideration of all these aspects can help you translate and localize the content more effectively.

2. Select the Languages

The next best practice on the list is selecting the languages. It includes choosing languages based on the markets you intend to target. Adopting a phased approach can help here. Planning for all the markets and languages at once may make it difficult to manage and distract focus, especially considering the linguistic complexities involved in each. Accordingly, you should begin with a few languages, complete localizing the content for it, test it, and then move to the next set. It will help you plan for every language, focus on each, and ensure effective localization.

3. Include Voiceover and Captions

Captions and voiceovers are another essential aspect of eLearning content localization. You may keep captions but they could be closed by the users to allow in different ways of learning. Captioning or voiceover can be used to provide translation of various types of content pieces.

While dealing with eLearning localization, you should translate content in multiple languages. For instance, you should translate audio and video content in various languages. You need transcription and subtitling to prepare audio and video components in virtual learning assets. Partnering with professional translation services can help you translate eLearning materials into multiple languages, thus saving resources and enhancing learner outreach and engagement.

4. Integrate Cultural Adaptation

It is also essential to include cultural adaptation to ensure cultural relevance and appropriacy of the translated content. Cultural adaptation involves knowing how the cultures of the source language and the intended language are varied and changing the content to accommodate those differences.
Understanding and including cultural differences can make the content more effective and resonating and simplify it for the target audience.

5. Test the Translated Content

Another significant aspect of eLearning localization practices is having the native speakers test the localized content. Native speakers can serve as the best judges and critics of a particular localized content, as they are the closest to their language, and culture and have a better understanding of their learning needs. They can help you find mistakes, and shortcomings, and suggest improvements in content localization. Although it may take some time, the step can prove crucial considering the true feedback you’d get.

6. Use the Translation Memory Tool

Translation memory is a tool that saves already translated content and suggests translations for similar content. The tool helps translators ensure that all the translated content has the same terms and language. Using a translation memory tool wouldn’t directly aid in translation. However, it helps enhance translation consistency, and quality and saves a lot of the project’s time. Companies would be able to deliver more in less with a translation memory tool on hand.

7. Leverage Visual Aids

Visual aids like videos, pictures, etc. help explain sophisticated ideas and concepts easily in eLearning materials. Irrespective of the language a learner uses, visual aids in eLearning localization can help users understand the content better. In addition, visual aids can help learners not speaking the same language. Overall, using these aids can help enhance the learning experience, no matter the user’s language.

Are you endeavoring to target multiple learner markets at a time with your eLearning content? You need eLearning localization services. At Filose, we are a professional eLearning localization company with over a decade of experience, expertise in 100+ Indian and foreign languages, and localization for eLearning content from various domains, including science, literature, technology, finance and accounts, and many others. Connect with us at sales@filose.com to learn more about our eLearning localization services.

Ref. No – FLB10231043