eLearning Translation Audience
eLearning can be defined as: learning conducted via electronic media, typically on the Internet. Such a broad and inclusive definition of elearning potentially takes in a lot of content found on the internet in various formats.
eLearning content for translation is received by our company in formats including standard MS Word files, formatted PDFs, InDesign documents, Excel files, animations, and sometimes as part of elearning applications such as Articulate Storyline. Translation of Articulate Storyline files includes the additional aspect of bringing translated content back into the application environment and ensuring the elearning course functionality is preserved in the target language.
The main job of professional translators is to express the meaning originally contained in a source language, but newly in a specified target language. In doing this translators apply their knowledge of both languages, their experience as a professional linguist, and apply judgment to best fulfill the language objectives. There can often be multiple approaches to expressing meaning. Translators strive to select the best option according to their professional judgment.
Clients sometimes provide inputs to support the efforts of translator by including information about the primary audience(s) for a translation, and sometimes supplying preferred translations for certain key terms in the material. For example a client might describe their target audience’s level of education, their country or region of origin, and perhaps demographic information such as age and gender.
Preferred terminology for translations are frequently provided as a bilingual table where key words are listed in a column with the corresponding preferred target language translation listed immediately to the right. The two column bilingual reference is provided to assigned translators at the beginning of a project. Clients might in some cases request strict observance of all preferred translations. Alternatively they might request only a preference for a listed translation but allow some latitude from the translation preferences if the translator decides another word selection would be better in a particular context.
Instructions such as these at the beginning of an elearning translation project can help translators prepare translations that meet customers’ objectives and optimally support both the intent of the elearning materials and its target audience.
