Speaking In Tongues

The Internet may be helping us to become one great big, global family, but we’re a family that still has trouble communicating (don’t they all?). As members of this family we want to be able to communicate in our own language and in terms that we can relate to. While it may be efficient for us to share the same, vanilla e-learning content, the fact is that it simply doesn’t work. If e-learning is to reach its full potential, it cannot remain the exclusive property of the English-speaking world. In this chapter, I examine the increasing importance of localisation for e-learning and look at what’s involved if this is to succeed in bringing new audiences for our content.

The fall of the Tower of Babel

According to the Old Testament and, for the sake of a good story, let’s assume that that means it’s true, there was a time when the people of the world spoke with a single tongue. Sharing a common vision, they started to build a tower – the tower of Babel – which would help them all to come closer to heaven. The project was a fantastic success, so much so that God became uncomfortable at the prospect of so much unwanted company. He took action, striking down the people and causing them to speak in a myriad of different tongues. Work on the project became impossible because no-one could understand what the other was talking about – it was like a meeting between HR and the IT department. At that moment, the localisation industry was born.

As the engineers of Babel locked themselves away in what was left of their tower, intent on finding a magic solution to the problem of multiple tongues, the problem that they faced grew harder by the day, as the peoples of the world developed differently in every imaginable way. The least of the problems facing them was language; problems that are still challenging e-learning publishers today.

As Fuel’s Steve Dineen points out: “There is much more to localising content than changing the language. Examples and metaphors need to be changed to truly localise a course. It is important to input local market knowledge, which can only be achieved by the local subject matter expert giving direct input into the course.”

Pete Fullard of Fullard Learning agrees: “The localisation of content needs to be far more than simply a translation of words. All sorts of cultural subtleties need to be taken into account. Within telephone training, for example, some countries have a far more natural or relaxed tone on the telephone, whilst others use the telephone in a more formal manner. These differences are carried through into humour, gestures, exclamations and so on, which are all crucial when considering the visual aspects of e-learning.”

When the going gets tough, the tough speak louder, like all good English tourists faced with the prospect of communication across the Channel. No doubt many e-learning executives have simply spoken a little louder when confronted with the localisation bill: “Enough of this nonsense, let them have English. If I can understand it, then so should they.”

Unfortunately, customers can switch away from your content at the click of a mouse and are about as loyal as Casanova. Algy Williams heads up the aptly-named Babel Media, a localisation specialist: “It would be true to say that, up to the last 3-5 years, non-English audiences have not been particularly demanding, but now consumers are insisting on ‘transparent localisation’, where there is no hint that the content originated anywhere else but locally. If not, they simply will not buy.” The evidence from the web is indicative. A study by Aberdeen Group, a management consultancy, found that, on average, users spend up to twice as long at a site, and are four times more likely to buy something from it, if it is presented to them in their own language.