Skip the exports, saving as Word, or sending other formats
When we tackle eLearning localization, we work in the same learning development platforms that you do when you develop the content. The best example, and the most common, is Articulate Storyline 360. There is no need for you to extract text for translation, just send us your Storyline (.story) Files and we’ll take it from there. Here’s how it works...
And, by the way, this goes for all the common learning development platforms- just check in with us for compatibility!
Our engineers work in Articulate Storyline 360 all the time
It’s actually our preference to get your eLearning and training content in the format you develop in. That’s because we use these apps every day, and seeing your content in context helps us provide you with a full-service, end to end, translation experience. That means you send us the Storyline files, we extract the content and translate it, then we put it back in Storyline, check the formatting and return the final content to you. We'll even handle linguistic QA and SCORM testing. When you get the foreign language course content back you can put it directly into your LMS. Can you do that? Maybe, but it gets a little more complicated behind the scenes.
A different character set, varying text length, and languages that read right to left
Let’s say you need a translation into Arabic. If you send us the text files and we return the Arabic localization, what do you have? Do you read Arabic? If you don’t, there’s not a lot you can do with the basic text files. First, it’s a completely different alphabet. Second, translations vary in length based on the language. A language like German is 30% longer than English when translated. You can’t just pour it back into a design and not mess up the layout. And Arabic, for example, reads from right to left. Yes, that looks backwards to a native English reader. Interesting desktop publishing issue we have developing here…
We have experienced eLearning localization designers and developers who do this every day
Think about the Arabic example above. It’s not extreme. The most common language we translate is Simplified Chinese. In both directions: from Chinese to the target language and from the source language to Chinese. And, BTW, Chinese uses pictographic characters. But you don’t have to worry about this or develop resources to manage this. We do it for you and that means better, more accurate eLearning translations, lower overall costs, and faster turnaround times. Even when you’re targeting multiple languages.
And then there are translated video soundtracks…or subtitles
Production and engineering of translated content is just one common issue. eLearning courses often have a lot of video- live action, animations, demonstrations, quizzes, etc. And they all have either voice-over tracks or subtitles that require translation, recording, and editing into the videos after translation. That means doing transcriptions, translating and localizing them, finding native speaking talent, rerecording the translated content (if you’re doing audio dubs), and editing it back into the video tracks.
If you choose the subtitle route, these have to be edited in. And we localize those voice scripts to ensure they don’t offend or become laughably funny when spoken in the target languages. On top of this, all the formatting, length, and character set issues covered earlier apply. We take care of all of these aspects. It’s not always easy but we’ve developed resources to do all of this. All we need are your source files, including Storyline, or your preferred platform files.
We do the hard stuff to make your life easier
eLearning localization is complex. Many different media elements, specialized formats, production and engineering, and video editing. Multiply these by multiple languages and it can be a daunting prospect. But it doesn’t have to be. We have extensive experience managing these translation projects for our eLearning and training clients, and our systems are in place and tested. Our project managers understand the complexities of eLearning localization, based on managing it daily. The goal is to take these tasks off your desk while helping global learners learn in their own languages, always their preferred way to learn.