You’ve just created an amazing course with beautiful graphics, engaging content, and relevant knowledge checks—and you’re ready to share your course. Then, you get the word: This course will be translated into 10 different languages and shared with learners all over the world.
Immediately, you start asking yourself how translation will impact your content. Will the key messages still come across as intended? Will the graphics make sense? And will the training have the same impact you want it to have on your workforce, no matter what language they speak?
Good news! It’s not too late to adapt your course for your global audience. Use this list of best practices to review and update your course before you translate to make the localization process fast and easy.
And next time you build a course, make sure to identify your audience before you get started. That way you know if you need to keep these tips in mind as you’re designing.
We’ll start out with some content tips, and then go over some guidelines for graphics. Here we go!
Course Content Tips
1. Use active voice.
Say what you mean and eliminate any unnecessary words. Write in the active voice and use adverbs and adjectives sparingly.
❌ Your bicycle has been damaged.
✅ A car crushed your bicycle.
2. Keep it short and sweet.
Your objective is to get your point across to learners. Short, simple sentences are easier to understand and translate. Remember: If the translator misunderstands what you’ve written, your message will be lost in translation.
❌ Michelle is going to visit her grandparents who live in Boston after her work meeting.
✅ Michelle is going to Boston for work. Afterward, she’ll visit her grandparents
who live nearby.
3. Use basic vocabulary.
Don’t use “utilize” where a simple “use” will do. Jargon, slang, idioms, and colloquial expressions are often difficult or impossible to translate. Plus, they make the content harder to understand, even for native speakers!
❌ Let me know when you get your ducks in a row.
✅ Let me know when your bags are packed.
If you have to use industry jargon, brand terms, or other complicated words, make sure to choose a translation tool like Articulate Localization that allows you to create a glossary. That way, these terms are translated correctly everywhere they appear.
4. Use terms consistently.
It can be tempting to use synonyms to avoid repetition. However, when you’re writing for localization, it’s best to use terms consistently to avoid confusion and mistranslation.
❌An authoring tool is a program that allows you to create multimedia
projects, like e-learning courses. There are many different authoring apps
on the market.
✅ An authoring tool is a program that allows you to create multimedia
projects, like e-learning courses. There are many different authoring tools
on the market.
5. Avoid humor, sarcasm, pop culture references, and sports analogies.
It can be tempting to use humor, cultural references, and emojis to catch your learners' attention. But humor varies greatly from one culture to the next, making it one of the most difficult things to translate. And when you include cultural references, you run the risk that translators will translate the words literally instead of figuratively. Even emojis—which might feel universal—are often used to mean different things by different groups of people. When you’re creating content for people worldwide, it's best to aim to be culture-neutral, so nothing gets lost in translation.
❌ The ball is in your court. (Sports reference.)
✅ It’s your responsibility to do something now.
6. Avoid phrasal verbs.
A phrasal verb is an expression that includes a verb and an adverb or a preposition. For example: to look down on, to bring up, to fill out, etc.
What makes these expressions particularly difficult for non-native English speakers is that the meaning often changes dramatically depending on the preposition or adverb that follows the verb. For example, “to get back at” means “to retaliate” or “to get revenge,” but “to get back into” means “to become interested again.” Whenever possible, replace phrasal verbs with an equivalent one-word verb to ensure correct translation.
❌ Did you hand in your assignment?
✅ Did you submit your assignment?
7. Use relative pronouns.
English speakers often omit relative pronouns like “that” or “which” to shorten sentences without changing the meaning. For example, “The clothes he wore were new” means the same as “The clothes that he wore were new.” It’s better to include relative pronouns for translation purposes, as they improve readability and comprehension.
❌ The clothes I bought are hanging in the closet.
✅ The clothes that I bought are hanging in the closet.
8. Avoid ambiguity.
When you’re writing for localization, you want to make absolutely certain that there’s only one way to interpret your text. That’s because ambiguity in your content can lead to mistranslation.
For example, “I saw a woman on a mountain with binoculars” could mean either you saw a woman standing on a mountain who had binoculars or you were looking at a mountain through your binoculars and saw a woman.
One way to improve clarity is to replace pronouns (like “he” or “she”) with proper nouns.
❌ Jane isn’t coming over tonight. Tell Sarah we’ll see her next week. (Who does the “her” in the second sentence refer to: Jane or Sarah? It’s unclear.)
✅ Jane isn’t coming over tonight. Tell Sarah that we’ll see Jane next week.
9. Avoid phrases with too many consecutive nouns.
Technical or compliance documentation often uses noun strings—a series of nouns used one after the other without any prepositions to describe complex concepts. For example, “employee performance evaluation procedure.” Together, these four nouns make up the name of a procedure used to evaluate employee performance. They’re intended to make things easier, but they usually end up doing just the opposite. When there are no prepositions, readers are forced to infer the relationship between the words. Whenever possible, break noun strings into smaller units, adding in prepositions and verbs as necessary.
❌Our employee relations improvement program is one of this year’s top priorities.
✅One of this year’s top priorities is to improve employee relations.
10. Make a note of anything that needs to be adapted.
It’s not always possible to create content that’s 100% optimized for localization. Sometimes, you have to include things like currency, measurements, dates, times, temperatures, and phone numbers that have to be adapted for each language and country.
Depending on the course subject, you may even run into some larger differences related to local customs and etiquette (for example, how sales calls are done) that need to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Make a list of any instances where specific adaptations are necessary and work with regional experts to adapt the content before sending it off for translation.
Graphic Design Tips
1. Leave room for language expansion.
If you’re creating your course in English, it’s important to know that equivalent text can be 20% to 50% longer when it’s translated into other languages.
If you’re using a responsive authoring tool, like Rise, you don’t have to worry about this because the layout will automatically adapt to accommodate the translated text.
However, if you’re using a slide-based authoring tool like Storyline, it’s best to keep on-screen text to a minimum, make sure there’s more than enough space for the text inside buttons, and leave extra space around text boxes. Otherwise, you’ll likely end up with overflowing text after translation.
❌ Without Extra Space
|
English Slide |
French Slide |
✅ With Extra Space
|
English Slide |
French Slide |
But what if it’s too late—and the translated text of your Storyline course is overflowing? If you’re using Articulate Localization, simply use the layout issue finder to easily identify and fix the issues. Easy peasy!
2. Avoid embedding text in images.
When you need to translate your course, every single piece of text needs to be editable. After all, if you can’t edit it, you can’t translate it!
If you have images with text in them, it’s best to remove it or replace the image. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a course that’s only partially translated.
3. Choose a font that supports your target languages.
Not all fonts support special characters, like accents. If you choose a font that doesn’t support an accent or character used in one of your localized languages, that character will be replaced by the same character in another font or by another character or symbol. At best, this looks unprofessional. At worst, it could change the meaning of the word completely.
| Font supports the German Eszett. | Font doesn't support the German Eszett so it replaces it with "fs." |
4. Keep complex text formatting simple.
It can be tempting to bold or highlight certain words to make them stand out, but this can lead to formatting problems after translations.
That's because often, what can be said with a single word in one language requires multiple words in another. Word order also varies across different languages, so bolded words could be separated from one another, which could look strange and confuse learners.
| She looked up the information on her phone before the meeting. | Sie schaute die Informationen vor dem Treffen auf ihrem Handy nach. |
| Sentence in English with two bolded words, side-by-side. | Sentence in German with one bold word at the beginning of the sentence and the other near the end. |
By sticking to simple text formatting, you'll reduce the margin of error and make the translation process go more smoothly.
That said, if you're using Articulate 360 and more complex formatting is required, follow these formatting guidelines for best results:
5. Avoid Country-Specific Images, Icons, and Symbols
They say an image is worth a thousand words for a reason. Images, icons, and symbols are often rich in cultural undertones. Using a culturally inappropriate image might confuse learners or prevent them from understanding the message.
If you’re localizing your course into multiple languages, it’s best to choose culturally neutral images as much as possible so you don’t have to customize your graphics for every language version.
For example, instead of using an illustration that shows a specific currency, try using a pile of unidentified coins.
|
❌ Country-Specific Image |
✅ Culturally Neutral Image |
6. Be aware of differences in color symbolism.
In Western cultures, red is often used to mean “incorrect” or “forbidden.” But in China, it’s a color most people associate with happiness and prosperity. The color green, which is often used to mean “correct” in the U.S., is associated with death in some South American cultures.
It’s important to be aware of the meaning of these colors in the countries where you plan to share your course to avoid confusing or offending your learners. If you’re designing a course that will be localized in a country where color meanings are significantly different than in your home country, use colors that are neutral in both countries instead.
7. Choose characters carefully.
Characters are often used in e-learning scenarios to help learners understand how the information they’re learning applies to their daily work. For this reason, it’s important to choose characters learners relate to.
This can be challenging, especially when your audience is made up of learners from all around the world. One way you can get around this challenge is by asking your learners to choose their own avatar in the beginning of your course. Another option would be to use a diverse range of characters, so every learner is represented at some point during the course.
8. Accept that some adaptations might be necessary.
It’s not always possible to design your course content so that no adaptations are necessary during the localization process. The goal is to make localization easier and ensure that your course design doesn’t interfere with learning.
When you come across things that will need to be updated for each language, make a note of them.
Wrap-up
If you keep these tips in mind as you’re creating your course, not only will the localization process go more smoothly, but your global learners will find it easier to relate to your content. And when your learner relates to your content, it’s more likely that the training will be effective. And isn’t that what everyone wants?
If your localization has you feeling overwhelmed, this should cheer you up: now you can translate, validate, and manage your e-learning without leaving Articulate 360.
Already an Articulate 360 subscriber? Contact your admin about starting a free trial of Articulate Localization.
New to Articulate 360? Contact us to learn more.
Looking for more localization tips? Check out this helpful article series: All About E-Learning Localization. Join the discussion in our Localization group, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice sent directly to your inbox.
