I work for a company and we create quite long courses (between 25 - 100 slides) using Storyline which often requires translating into at least 7 different languages. I was wondering what tips people could share that they have learnt along the way to make the process of implementing translation any easier!?
I would also be super interested in learning more about using Closed Captions option as a way to ease our woes around creating subtitles.
Here are my development tips for courses that will be translated:
Write the content with translation/globalization in mind. Here are a few tips for that:
Use simple sentences.
Use consistent terms. For example, don't say "the system" in one sentence and "the program" in the next.
Be sure dates are presented in an unambiguous format.
Spell out all acronyms and initialisms. For example, you might want a button to just say "FDA" in English. But the translation needs to be done for "Food and Drug Administration."
Avoid idioms.
Set all textboxes and shapes to "Shrink text on overflow." That will keep the object the same size even if the translated text is longer than the original. Alternately, put the text in a scrolling panel. The scroll bar would only show if it's needed.
Keep the potential for varying lengths in mind when designing slides. For example, I once had a 3-word English phrase that I originally wanted to present in a narrow 3-line object. But that became one really long word in Dutch, so I had to adjust the size.
Avoid photographs, illustrations, or any other graphic with uneditable (and, therefore, untranslatable) text.
Verify whether the font you want to use includes all the special characters used by the alternate languages. Otherwise, missing characters will either show up in another font or just show up as little boxes.
Each language has its own grammatical structure. Here are a few tips to avoid issues relating to that:
Use a complete sentence for the lead-in to any list of bullet points. (In other words, don't assume another language would put the words in the same order.)
Avoid fill-in-the-blank questions.
Avoid hot-spots placed over specific words. Again, those words will likely be in a different location and might not be together after translation.
Be careful about how you add emphasis.
ALL CAPS doesn't mean anything in languages that don't use upper- and lower-case characters. Also, an all-cap word might be mistaken for an acronym.
Bold and italics might distort some characters enough to make them illegible. Use with caution, especially with smaller font sizes.
Changing the font color works. At least, as long as the colors used are distinct for most people...
Highlighting works well.
Since I often have to test the translated courses, I usually turn off quiz shuffling. That just makes it easier for me to pass the assessment. (I wouldn't do this for a truly high-stakes quiz, but I think it's acceptable for most of them.)
Re: video captioning. It's partly a matter of preference.
If you use Storyline captions, you can get those translated, and keep the same video in each Storyline file. The advantage with this method is the simplicity, and the ability to adjust the captions a bit after the initial translation.
If you get the video itself captioned in different languages, you have to insert the proper video file into each translated Storyline file. The advantage with this method is that you have stand-alone captioned videos that could possible be used in other situations, e.g., ILT. (Of course, if you've got 360, you could publish a given slide as an MP4.)
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Hi, Adam,
Here are my development tips for courses that will be translated: