How to Localize Your Educational Content

With the constant growth of the educational industry owing to globalization, implementing a solid localization strategy has become essential to the companies and organizations that want to reach out to new prospects.

English speaking population in the world constitutes only 26.3 %, according to a study, which seems quite surprising since it is assumed that English is spoken everywhere in the world. But then again, the audience you are targeting matters the most. For instance, if you are going to cater to the Middle Eastern markets, you should be able to translate your content in the language they can relate to.

According to EF, English proficiency among the population is quite low in most of the countries in the MENA region.

For instance, Middle Eastern countries like Egypt or Tehran tend to be more diverse when it comes to their culture and language. Therefore, educational material provided to them with the right language can eliminate the challenges faced by the audience and most importantly, your business can grow substantially.

If you are planning to translate your educational content or e-learning material, you need to understand the translation and localization process and the best practices to execute the process efficiently by a suitable media localization service provider, such as Contentech. Here are some of the steps that can help you in the process.

Storyboarding phase

First of all, the content that you wish to translate needs to be gathered so that you can get started with the translation process. It includes the educational courses in textual form, relevant images and other objects such as video elements and audios.

Once you are done with putting all the elements in one place, you can sort them according to their sequence so your content doesn’t get jumbled up.

Translating the content

Depending on your translation partner, you will have different ways to go about it. The most preferable method, however, is to get it translated by a native first and then, getting it reviewed by a linguistic expert.

In this phase, the integration of your content happens sequentially by extracting it from the source. All the files are then translated according to the target language.

Reviewing the content

Courses and content are then evaluated by the subject matter experts and linguists. The purpose of the evaluation is to remove the errors that could otherwise be offensive to the target audience. Furthermore, your translated content might take less textual space; therefore, it is necessary to make sure the white spaces don’t appear in an odd manner compromising the readability for the audience.

You can make this process seamless if you have a good translation partner. Contentech is a renowned service that provides Swahili, African, Turkish translation services and many more across the globe.

Best Practices 

 If you want to make the process a success, here are few of the tips that can make a great difference:

Understanding your audience

For you to undergo a translation process, you need to do your prior research first beforehand and study the cultural preferences of your audience. Why is it important? Because Middle Eastern countries have a diversified culture, so, you might need more than one localized translation versions for your content.

Relevance to the target audience

Make sure you understand the cultural nuances of the target market and design the content according to what they can find relatable. For instance, using idioms and expressions most suited to the audience can help them understand the content more effectively. Similarly, you can also use timely and well-placed references in the content related to sports, music, and arts.

The goal here isn’t just to translate the content but to transform it and make it more nuanced.

Expansions in text

There is a great possibility that the translated version of your content would be longer than its original version, hence, the text container wouldn’t be able to confine the text without making it look awkward. What can we do about it? If your translation partner has an aesthetic sense and is detail-oriented, you won’t even have to address them on the intricacies of the process. In case you still face problems regarding that, make sure the navigation bars and other containers are flexible enough to accommodate the translated version of the text.

Coordination and communication

Keeping all the stakeholders in the loop is one of the most important practices that can greatly affect the outcome of the process. To make the coordination more effective, you can assign any stakeholder, a point of contact, as this would avoid misunderstandings and everyone would be on the same page.

Professional translation companies use technologically advanced project management systems to aid communication among stakeholders.

Contentech is one of the major LSP’s providing quality and consistency to clients across the globe for more than two decades. With its highly efficient and advanced technologies, it provides a wide range of language services from Middle Eastern Arabic translation services to Turkish along with many African and Swahili translation services.