Every organization or E-learning platform plans to have its content translated to meet the needs of varied users and learners. Many organizations who are planning on getting translation done are neglecting a few key elements. Mistakes are made over time, but the good news is that they can be prevented by following the plan below:
- Project analysis
- Glossary & style guide preparation
- Aligning SME with linguist
- Brief training to linguists
- Review
- Quality control
- Deliverable
1. Project analysis:
Before stepping in to translation, the very first step has to project analysis. Check these details before moving forward:
a. Does your content is Paragraph format or MCQ or mix of both?
b. Does your e learning content has Video or images?
If E-learning has videos make sure translated content is embedded in video.
If the content has images make sure content in images are properly translated and properly well
in images.
c. Does your content has any idioms or phrases?
If your content has any idioms or phrases, make sure they are properly localized. In this context you need Localization not translation. Choosing translation for idioms or phrases gives literal meaning which makes content wrong and your target users cannot use.
Choosing translation and Localization is wise choice and success of any translation depends on it. All this planning comes in Project analysis.
2. Glossary & style guide preparation
Consistency is key for any translation or localization. There are many synonyms for an English term. When huge volume of content has to be translated in short time, your vendor need to onboard multiple linguists for translating content, when different linguists work on content it is obviously possible to have consistency issues. In order to avoid that repetitive terms or key terms will be included in glossary.
Style guide is another important factor. This style guide provides detailed guidelines to linguists in terms of tone of translation, style to be included and information to be followed through overall e learning content translation. This style guide has to be prepared in each language you are planning to translate your E learning content.
3. Aligning SME with linguist:
Translation is art and linguist are the experts with their domain experts can translate content yet E learning needs SME support to make sure the content is apt.
There is always a possibility of arising different opinions on translation. In order to have everyone on same page, it is needed to aling SME with linguist such that SME can provide preference, do’s and don’ts to linguists to get accuracy in translation.
4. Brief training to linguists:
This is a very simple step. Yet many service provider avoid it. It doesn’t take more time, infact it saves lot of time by reducing errors, giving fine quality. To get best output, one needs to explain linguists about project plan and what is expected from them.
5. Review:
You have completed translation, now is the time for review with SME. Translators are expected to get maximum score of translation in terms of typos, grammar, omissions, context, addition, meaning edits, consistency of terms usage and the list goes on.
With the proposed set of guidelines SME will review content and provide comments through which if any modifications are needed can be completed.
6. Quality control:
Review is completed. Quality control is the step where whole content is cross checked again and doing rectifications, cross checking wheather guidelines, style guide and glossary were followed.
With the help of SME and QC we can get 99.8% Quality score for E learning content translation.
7. Deliverable:
If you have worked on a translation project in the past, you know how frustrating the back-and-forth can be without these steps for translation preparation. It will take little additional time and effort to set up these processes initially, but it will definitely pay off in the long run.
We at Naarg Data Media Services have customized project plans for every translation, planning to translate your content, have any queries, do not hesitate to contact us.
By Sudeepthi Garlapati
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This article is quite informative. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Teja.
Didn’t know these many steps were needed to get good quality localized content. For sure this article helped me in getting an idea on Translation.
Thank you for letting us know that this article helped you. True proper planning will save lot of time and help in getting good quality.
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