eLearning modules with training content in different languages are essential to the growth and success of modern companies. From training videos and onboarding materials to continuing education and development, multilingual eLearning platform integration keeps your team on the same page – as long as your target audience, your diverse employees and customers, can understand it.
Changing the language of an eLearning course and its training materials does more for the user experience than you might expect. So much of what we retain from information and education is driven by cultural norms and expectations. When you change the language, you change the cultural expectations. But professional translation services for your digital learning management system can help you bridge the gap.
Why Digital Courses Need Professional eLearning Translation Companies?
How well a person retains information depends on how much they understand when it’s presented. eLearning courses are designed to get your team on the same page – about internal processes, safety standards, and role responsibilities. But if your eLearning translations and tools are falling short, language barriers may be the issue.
If you’re working with a multilingual workforce, in one country or around the world, providing translated content for your eLearning courses in your employees’ native languages can help increase understanding, information retention, and compliance.
While Canadian French translations are a legal language requirement, it’s not the only one. In Canada, about 4% of workers use a language other than French or English at work. A workforce with diverse linguistic backgrounds means nearly 700,000 people require language accommodation to understand and retain important information.
What Changes in eLearning Tools and Translation?
eLearning translation services go beyond word-for-word document translations. These help you create engaging, culturally appropriate versions of your education and training courses for every audience. Our professional translators preserve the instructional value of your course and its goals while helping you tailor the content to each audience, ensuring your employees better understand.
These changes in cultural expectations influence the way information is presented; formality of language, culturally specific training examples, legal compliance information, even numbers, colors, and currency displays adjust. In some languages, the formality of address carries great significance for managers, employees, and customers, while in others it doesn’t. Your eLearning transition must be tailored to this.
Our eLearning translation company can also help you adapt your translated eLearning course to multiple technical platforms.
Deliver Accurate Cultural Contexts: Exploring eLearning Translation vs eLearning Localization Services
Multilingual translation services convert words from a target language to a source language. A word-for-word translation is necessary in technical disciplines like law and healthcare – but your eLearning content may need more.
In a word-for-word translation, your eLearning course may fall short; the examples may not register, the pacing may be too fast or slow, or the images or colors may convey a different message than intended.
That’s where eLearning localization services come in.
What You Get with eLearning Localization for Digital Content
Localization services for eLearning courses consider the broader cultural context and adapt the learning experience. eLearning Localization considers the front end (language, examples, pacing, legal compliance, cultural context) and the backend (user interface) to give every person taking the course the same opportunity for success.
Ultimately, the goal of localization is to give you an eLearning course that supports business success in America as it does in Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan.
Localization and Employment Laws
Onboarding or training programs often cover important legal information, including workers’ rights, benefits, HR policies, and labor laws. These policies may be specific to a state or country, but when your employees’ demographics change, the legal information in your eLearning courses must be updated as well.
Sick leave policies in Ontario don’t apply to workers in England, Mexico, or Ukraine. If this information isn’t updated, it can leave employees confused and expose the company to legal liability. Localization ensures that every section of your eLearning course, including the technical and legal information, is correct and appropriate.
The Benefits of Working with Professional Localization Services
Increased Engagement and Course Completion
Courses that feel awkward or offensive have lower engagement rates and higher dropout rates. Localized eLearning courses can help fix this. Over 60% of people show higher engagement with training with localized eLearning content. eLearning localization can also be completed faster, since employees understand and retain more.
Improved Retention Outcomes
What’s the point in putting your employees through a course they remember 5 minutes after they’re done? Businesses waste time, money, and resources when eLearning courses aren’t tailored for specific audiences.
When courses are designed for a specific audience and have instructional clarity, people can engage more and pay better attention to the information, rather than trying to translate it all in their head as they go.
Smooth Translation Process
When you work with a professional translation company, you can expand the reach and the relevance of existing programs, without re-inventing the wheel, or adding more tasks to your team’s busy to-do list.
Your translation project is overseen by a dedicated project manager who keeps pieces moving so your courses are ready to use when you receive them.
Preparing your eLearning Courses for Translation and Localization
The most intensive translation projects are for highly localized courses, designed for one specific audience. If you create an eLearning course with translation in mind from the start, the process is smoother and faster.
Use Plain Language
Humor, idioms, slang, and pop culture references don’t translate well. Common English phrases (“think outside the box” or “hit it out of the park”) may not mean anything to global learners. Being concise and direct is the best way to approach an eLearning course for a multilingual audience.
Be Consistent
Use the same terms across modules. If you’re referring to employees as “employees”, suddenly calling them “team members” in another module creates confusion. Acronyms should be defined, and jargon should be kept to a minimum.
Design with Text Expansion in Mind
French translations of English can run 10-30% longer than the original. In a digital platform, the space has to come from somewhere. Using flexible containers and responsive layouts can make the localization process easier. We also recommend avoiding embedding text in graphics and leaving extra padding around essential UI elements.
The fonts you use may need to be adjusted for eLearning translation if they do not support accents or non-Latin scripts.
Incorporate Multimedia Elements for Multiple Languages
Video, subtitles, voiceovers, and interactive elements will all require specialized handling for localization. Subtitles may need to be rewritten and re-timed, while voiceovers will usually be rerecorded.
eLearning translation services from our translation agency ensure your entire program functions as a unified whole across all target language versions. If you need multilingual subtitle services (KW subtitle translation services) or voiceover services, (KW multilingual subtitle services) we can help.
Plan for Growth and Scaling
As your company grows, expands, and changes, your eLearning courses must keep up. Building these courses with the ability to make changes means your investment goes further, and you don’t have to make an entirely new course when you have a big policy change or expansion.
We use translation memory tools to store approved translations, enabling fast, easy updates to content. We also use glossaries to ensure consistency in terminology across every language and module, making it as simple as possible to update your eLearning translations.
Create Employee and Customer Satisfaction with eLearning Translation and Localization Today!
JR Language Translation Services Canada is your trusted eLearning translation and localization partner for global learning. We will have your digital courses, audio scripts, and interactive assessments’ translations focus on capturing diverse learners from around the world. With native-speaking translators who ensure linguistic accuracy, cultural fluency, and subject-matter expertise in specialized content, and a dedicated project management team who follow all confidentiality and safety protocols, we make the translation process simple, easy, and effective.
Our translation and localization solutions offer seamless integration of visual elements and maintain consistency when converting text. Our experienced linguists will deliver content that appeals to your diverse team, with technically precise visual assets, and maintain an articulate storyline without sacrificing quality. Request a free, tailored quote for your eLearning course and multimedia content for your international markets today!