eLearning Translation Services for Technical Training

What our elearning translation services actually deliver

Most agencies treat a course as a Word export. They translate the text dump, hand it back, and leave your instructional design team to paste 4,000 segments into slides, re-time animations, and rebuild quiz feedback. Our elearning translation services eliminate that handoff entirely. You send us the authoring source; we return a published, tested course in each target language, packaged for your LMS and ready to assign to learners.

The distinction matters because a technical course is software as much as it is text. A Storyline module contains slide text, but also button labels, trigger conditions, variable names displayed to learners, closed captions, alt text on screenshots, and feedback branches that only appear when someone answers incorrectly. Miss any of those and Spanish-speaking machine operators get an English error message at the exact moment they need guidance. Our project managers extract every translatable layer, and our reviewers check each one in context after reintegration.

We handle the full range of technical training content: new hire safety orientation, equipment operation courses, compliance refreshers, and software onboarding. The written source for these courses often comes from documents we know well. Many projects start from material covered in our guide to translating training materials, or from procedures documented in standard operating procedures. When a client wants the underlying SOPs translated alongside the course built from them, we align both against one termbase so the screen and the binder never disagree.

Storyline, Captivate, and Rise: why the source file is non-negotiable

Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, and Articulate Rise each store text differently, and each offers a proper localization path that only works from the source project. Storyline exports a translation file (Word or XLIFF) that maps every text object back to its slide, layer, and state. Captivate does the same through its export workflow. Rise 360 exports XLIFF directly. We translate those exchange files in our CAT environment, which means your translation memory applies, repeated slides across modules are charged once, and terminology checks run automatically.

If all you have is the published SCORM zip, we can still help, but we will tell you the honest trade-off up front: rebuilding a course from published output costs more than translating from source, because someone has to reconstruct the project first. In fifteen years of localization work we have rebuilt plenty of orphaned courses whose original developer left the company. It is always cheaper to find the .story file.

Course interfaces built with custom players or embedded HTML5 interactions overlap with app localization. For those components we apply the same resource-file discipline described on our software localization services page: string extraction, character-limit awareness, and in-context QA on the running build.

Our delivery process, step by step

Every course follows the same sequence, run under our ISO 17100-compliant process with an independent reviewer who never sees the translator's work until it is finished.

1. Source audit. We open your project, count words by module, list embedded videos, quizzes, and variables, and flag anything that will not export cleanly.
2. Glossary and pronunciation guide. Key terms are extracted, translated, and sent to your subject-matter experts for approval before full translation begins.
3. Translation and independent review. Specialized translators work in the XLIFF; a second linguist reviews every segment against the source.
4. Reintegration and layout pass. Text is reimported, and a localization engineer resizes buttons, re-times animations, and adjusts synchronized captions.
5. Audio production. Voiceover is recorded or subtitles are burned in, depending on the option you chose.
6. LMS testing. The republished SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, or xAPI package is uploaded to a sandbox, completed end to end, and verified for score reporting.
7. Delivery. You receive the translated source project, the packaged zip per language, and a QA report.

Steps four through six are what separate an elearning localization vendor from a text translation vendor. A quiz that no longer reports completion to your LMS is not a translation problem. It is a packaging problem, and it is ours to catch, not yours.

Voiceover or subtitles: the budget decision that shapes everything

Narrated courses force an early choice. Re-recording voiceover in each target language sounds ideal, and for flagship onboarding content it usually is. It is also the single largest cost line in most projects. Studio narration is priced per finished minute, and a 30-minute module in four languages means two hours of recorded audio, plus casting, direction, and synchronization.

Subtitling the existing English narration typically costs 60-70% less than full voice replacement. For content learners watch once, such as a release-notes walkthrough or an annual refresher, subtitles are often the rational choice. For hands-on operator training viewed on the shop floor, where learners watch the screen demonstration rather than read, voiceover earns its cost. We price both options in every quote so you can decide per module rather than per program, and our technical subtitling services team handles the caption files, timing, and reading-speed compliance when you choose the subtitle route.

When you do choose voiceover, casting matters. We present two or three voice samples per language, and every narrator receives a pronunciation sheet validated against the project glossary. Technical terms, product names, and acronyms are the words narrators get wrong most often, and a re-record session to fix "SKU" pronounced three different ways costs more than the prevention did.

Quizzes, branching, and conditional logic

Assessments are where reintegration errors hide. A multiple-choice question has visible text, but also per-answer feedback, a "try again" state, a scoring variable, and sometimes branching that routes a failing learner back to a specific slide. We translate all of it and then test all of it. Our LMS pass includes deliberately failing each quiz to confirm that remediation paths display translated content and that the passing score threshold still triggers the completion call.

Drag-and-drop and hotspot interactions add a layout dimension. German labels run roughly a third longer than English, and a drop target sized for "Start" will clip "Starten" or worse. Our engineers resize interaction elements per language rather than forcing one layout to fit all, which is also why we ask for the source project instead of promising a miracle on a locked package.

Scenario-based courses with variables ("Well done, %LearnerName%, you selected the correct valve") get special attention. Word order changes between languages, so we restructure sentences around the variable rather than translating fragments, which is the classic cause of garbled praise screens in localized courses.

SCORM, xAPI, and the LMS test that most vendors skip

A translated course that will not launch is worthless, and packaging is where launch failures start. After reintegration we republish from the authoring tool to your required standard: SCORM 1.2 for older LMS platforms, SCORM 2004 where sequencing matters, or xAPI when you track granular statements. We then upload each language package to a sandbox LMS, run it as a learner, and verify four things: launch, navigation, bookmark resume, and score reporting.

If your LMS has quirks, and most do, we would rather find them before delivery. Clients on Cornerstone, SAP SuccessFactors, Moodle, and Docebo have all seen different behaviors from identical packages. When you give us sandbox access to your actual platform, we test there too and include screenshots in the QA report. This step adds a day to the schedule and removes weeks of post-delivery ticket traffic.

Timelines and pricing by module

eLearning projects are quoted per module because that is how the work actually flows. A typical 20-30 minute technical module contains 2,500-4,000 words of on-screen and narrated text. Indicative schedules for one module into one language:

Scope	Typical turnaround	Main cost drivers
Text-only module, subtitles for video	5-7 business days	Word count, subtitle minutes
Module with full voiceover	8-12 business days	Finished audio minutes, casting
Module with voiceover, complex branching, custom interactions	10-15 business days	Engineering hours, LMS test cycles

Three profiles touch every project, and the quote names each one. A specialized translator with instructional or industry background handles the language. A localization engineer owns exports, reintegration, republishing, and LMS testing. A voice director manages casting and studio sessions when audio is in scope. Coordination runs from our Texas office, and as members of ATA and GALA we staff each language pair with vetted, certified specialists rather than whoever is available that week. You will not discover after delivery that your welding course was translated by a generalist who thinks a bead is jewelry.

Multi-language projects run in parallel, so four languages rarely take four times as long. Multi-module curricula gain speed as the translation memory fills: module one sets the pace, module ten flies. Quotes itemize translation, engineering, audio, and testing separately, so you can see exactly what the voiceover decision costs and what dropping it saves. For a broader view of everything we produce beyond training content, the full list of our services shows how course projects connect to documentation and terminology work.

Where technical courses need translation most

Regulated industries drive most of our course volume, because training in the learner's language is often a legal obligation rather than a preference. Mining is the clearest case: MSHA Part 46 and Part 48 require new miner and annual refresher training that miners can actually understand, and inspectors ask how Spanish-speaking crews received it. We localize surface and underground training programs for mining operators with the regulatory citations left verbatim and verified against the official text.

Food manufacturing is close behind. HACCP training, allergen handling, and sanitation courses fail their purpose if a sanitation crew cannot follow them, and FSMA audits increasingly probe training comprehension. Our work for food processing plants usually pairs course localization with translated wall postings and checklists so the LMS and the production floor use identical wording. Since a large share of the US industrial workforce trains in Spanish, most programs start with Spanish technical translation and add languages as sites come online.

One project stays with us as a cautionary tale. A Nevada mine sent us a 14-module contractor safety curriculum that a previous vendor had translated as raw text. The Spanish was fine; the courses were broken. Quiz feedback showed English, two modules would not report completion, and the narration drifted three seconds behind the animations by slide ten. We rebuilt the packages from source, resynchronized audio, and retested every module in their LMS. The site passed its next MSHA training audit, and the lesson was blunt: the translation was never the risk. The engineering was.

Where course content overlaps procedures, we link the two. A course teaching a changeover procedure should match the controlling document word for word, which is why many clients bundle SOP translation with the curriculum and let one glossary govern both.