Preparing Effective Presentations for International Audiences

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If you need to give a talk about your product or service to an international audience, your slides or visual aids will likely need to be translated. Here are some ways to make sure your presentation shines in translation.

A quick reminder: in this article, I will use “translation” to refer to rendering your written content in your audience’s language. Of course, the interactive delivery of your content will need to be interpreted, and that is a separate, if related, process. Following best practices for translation will also help your interpreter team!

Use “live” text

It is a good idea to include any verbal information that needs to be translated, such as bullet points, chart labels and call-outs, or image text, as “live,” editable text and not a “flat” image. That will allow your translation team to match the typeface and formatting of the original and ensure consistency for repeated phrases using computer-assisted translation tools. If there is any content that you would like to leave untranslated, let your team know.

Leave some empty space

Depending on the language you are translating into, the resulting text may expand—be longer than the original. If you packed your slide tightly, content may move around and become hard to read. Leaving some blank space will keep the translated slides legible by eliminating the need to put the text back into position or decrease the font size.

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Format intelligently

You will want to avoid spacing the elements on your slide manually. For example, avoid using carriage returns or the space bar to place various headers or paragraphs. As mentioned above, text length will likely change in translation, and the text you so carefully aligned will look sloppy as a result. Instead, use structural elements like tables, headers, and appropriate slide layouts.

Go for clarity over catchiness

Acronyms and puns may be a great mnemonic device in English, helping your audience grasp and retain a concept quickly. One well-known example from the business world is the concept of SMART goals (one possible expansion is “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound”). As catchy as these devices may sound in English, it is unlikely that your translation will have the same initial letters, rhymes, or puns, or they will have to be introduced somewhat artificially. If you know some elements of your presentation rely on wordplay, it is best to use neutral, informative phrasing in the international version.

Ultimately, it is your content and delivery that will ensure an informative, engaging presentation. Following the best practices above can help reflect that in the translated version, as well.

Non-Profits and Machine Translation: (How) Should You Use It?

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If you work for a non-profit that serves speakers of languages other than English, you may find yourself using automatic translation to bridge the language barrier. It makes sense—machine translation is fast, free, and supposedly “as good as human.”

This post is not meant to dissuade you from ever using automatic translation. Instead, I would like to encourage you to use it appropriately and consider what alternatives may be a better fit in some scenarios.

How to Make It Work

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Machine translation may be fine for casual, low-stakes communication that will not be publicized. Some examples may be friendly conversations and small talk, emails, directions, getting the gist of a website for your or your client’s reference. If you go that route, here are some things to consider.

Remember that Google Translator is not the only machine translation provider out there. While this service might have improved over the last decade, the output will vary depending on the language. For some language pairs, you may want to use a different provider, for example DeepL. Make a point of reading the provider’s confidentiality policy. Will it store your content on its servers as training data? If so, this option will not work for sensitive and confidential information. (Disclaimer: I do not represent or endorse any particular automatic translation provider.)

Ideally, have someone check if the resulting translation makes sense, especially if this is something your clients will refer to. Today’s automatic translation providers have shifted to neural machine translation, which may do better on fluency than prior iterations but worse on accuracy. This means that the translation may read smoothly but say something different from what you originally meant.

Write or speak in a straightforward manner that will be easy for machine translation to parse. Avoid metaphors, buzzwords, references to institutions and legal frameworks particular to your community, arcane language, and anything that may result in ambiguity and confusion. As of the time of writing this article, DeepL translated “The governor dropped the ball” into Russian as “The governor threw the ball” (Google translated the phrase literally, not picking up on the figurative meaning).

Automatic translation was not designed to be a language-learning tool. If you do use it to help your clients figure out how to say something in English, it is best to enter complete phrases rather than individual words. You will want to use this option with caution as the resulting translations could be misleading or inappropriate.

Consider Better Alternatives

Most importantly, remember that machine translation is not your only option! Here are some other ways of serving your clients.

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Written Materials

Instead of using an automated translation plug-in for your entire website, which was not written with machine translation in mind, prepare a one-page summary of your organization’s services and contact information and have it translated by a qualified professional. That way, you can be sure that the information you are giving to your clients reflects what you had in mind when you put together the English text.

Check if the information you are trying to share with your client may already be available in the language of their preference. Many state and federal agencies and major institutions like hospitals will have language access plans, which require translating important documents into the top languages of their customers.

Conversations

Similarly, for face-to-face communication, many organizations and institutions are required to provide an interpreter free of charge. For example, if you are accompanying your client to a medical appointment, it may be worth asking the front desk employee when making an appointment what options are available. If no local interpreter is available for the client’s language, consider using video or phone interpreting.

Learning English

Put together and share with your clients a list of resources for learning English. This may include podcasts, apps, or dictionaries, for example Duolingo or Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab. A monolingual English dictionary for learners, like the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, as well as a bilingual dictionary showing words in context, like Reverso, may also help your clients build their vocabulary and decipher new words. Finally, see what in-person resources may be available in your community. Public libraries or local places of worship often offer free or affordable ESL classes.

Machine translation is a powerful and ever-improving tool for bridging the language gap. However, this technology has its limitations and may not be appropriate for every task. Consider it alongside other solutions to decide which approach will best meet your client’s needs, protect confidentiality, ensure accuracy, and honor regulatory requirements.

Tips for Getting Your Non-US College Transcript Translated

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If your previous degree, diploma, or transcript is in a language other than English and you are applying to a US university, you will need to provide a translation of your academic credentials. Here are some things to consider as you prepare your translation.

Do I Need A Certified translation?

Your school’s admissions office will typically list the requirements for the transcript translations. One of the more confusing requirements may be that for a certified translation. Remember that in most US states, notaries public cannot certify the accuracy of a translation. Sometimes I get requests for translations “certified by the American Translators Association (ATA).” ATA is a professional association that does not produce or certify individual translations. It does, however, certify translators who have passed a graded exam in a specific language pair. Such a translator is called ATA-certified.

A statement by the translator, confirming the accuracy of the attached translation, will usually suffice for the purposes of certification in the US. As an added layer, the translator may get their signature certified by a notary public in their county. Again, most states’ notaries public cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translation, so they would only notarize the translator’s signature. Ultimately, the educational institution can tell you what translations it accepts.

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What About Degree Equivalence?

Differences in educational systems mean that a transcript from your home country may look different from an American one. Should the translation explain that your 5-year degree is really closed to a master’s degree than a bachelor’s? Should it calculate your grade point average (GPA) if no such information was listed in the original?

Once again, this is something you will need to follow your school’s guidance on. Some universities may require a foreign credential evaluation. Sometimes they recommend some agencies that provide this type of service. In that case, you’ll want to reach out to a credit evaluation agency, which will convert your transcript to something an American institution is familiar with, with your credit hours and GPA listed.

However, this may not be necessary in every case. If all your school requires is a translation, you don’t need to spend extra money on credential evaluation. The translation will reflect the information listed in your document, regardless of whether it typically appears on American transcripts. In all likelihood, you are not the first applicant from your country, so the US university will know that your transcript will look different. If you school does want to see an explanation of the grading scale or your GPA, you may want to go the credential evaluation route.

Can I Get the Transcripts Sent Directly in a Sealed Envelope?

Some US universities request official transcripts to be send directly by the issuing school, which is commonly done in the US. However, universities overseas may not provide that service or are even aware of it. This is something you may need to bring up to the American school.

One option is to include a cover letter with your transcript, explaining that degrees and transcripts in your home country are physical documents granted to the graduate and cannot be sent directly by the issuing institution. Another possibility is to get a credential evaluation and have that evaluation sent by the issuing agency directly to the US university. I have found, both in my experience as a college applicant with international credentials and as a translator of educational documents, that American colleges tend to be flexible with international applicants and reasonable in accommodating foreign academic documents.

How Should You Refer to the Russian Language on Your Website?

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Having a website in several languages may be a good idea for many reasons from regulatory compliance to increased customer loyalty to higher sales. If Russian is one the languages on your website, here are some tips on how to make sure the language name is displayed correctly.

In English, we can just plug the name of the language into many different structures, for example “speak English,” “the English language,” or “written in English.” When localizing our website, we may be tempted to have the name of the other language(s) translated and then use the translation on buttons, dropdown lists, and sometimes even in the middle of a sentence! However, if you tried to do that with Russian, you might run into trouble. Compare the following forms.

If you speak Russian	Если вы говорите по-русски [Esli vy govorite po-russki]
User language: Russian	Язык пользователя: русский [Vyberite yazyk: russkiy]
We have information in Russian	У нас есть информация на русском языке [U nas est’ informatsiya na russkom yazyke]

You’ll notice that the word “Russian” is the same in all the English examples, but the translation of that word depends on the rest of the sentence. Here is how you can have the name of the language display properly.

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Dos

• Send your translation team a screenshot or, better still, a link to your website so they know where each string appears.
• For the dropdown list of languages, use the word “русский” (russkiy, Russian). That is the name of the language, which should not be capitalized unless it is the first word in the sentence or unless all other language names are capitalized, too. Do not use “по-русски” (po-russky), the adverb used in “speak Russian.”
• If the word “Russian” appears in a sentence somewhere else on your website, have the entire sentence translated as a whole rather than insert the translation for “Russian” into a pre-translated sentence (see my post on concatenation).

Don’ts

• Avoid using flags to identify languages. Russian is used in several countries and regions other than Russia, such as Kazakhstan, Belarus, or Moldova.
• Do not use a language variable in the middle of a sentence. As we saw above, the form of the word “Russian” will depend on how it’s used, so populating all instances with the same translation will result in grammatical errors.

Chickpeas or Garbanzos: Is Your Translated Content Consistent?

Imagine that halfway through the menu, one of the ingredients changed its name from “chickpeas” to “garbanzo beans”? Or a product was called “gadget” in your website and “device” in your online store? That might easily confuse your audience and muddle your brand message. Yet this is precisely what might happen in translation. Here are some things authors and content managers can do to preserve their organization’s voice in translation.

Decide on Preferred Terms

Consistency in key words you use in your communications will help you create a recognizable brand message and be precise in your communications.

• Create a list of English key words and, if possible, their definitions.
• Have a qualified translation provider, whether they are in-house or a contractor, document approved translations for these key words and save this list so you can reuse it on any translations in the future.

If you want to talk about driving, have your translation team pick whether they are going to use conducir, manejar, or perhaps even guiar in Spanish.

Decide on Your Tone

It’s good to have a document with some general guidance for your content creators, including translators. This type of document is sometimes called a style guide. Some things you could include are:

• Should any company or product names or slogans be translated? If so, is there an existing translation you want to use?
• Will you be more formal or more familiar in addressing your audience?
• Should any references to your local phone numbers (like 911 for the emergency services) be replaced? With what?
• Should names in hypothetical examples be replaced? If you have a Siobhan as a hypothetical customer, should that name be adapted in translated versions?

Recycle Your Translated Content

Once you have decided on your style and key words and have produced a few translated materials, don’t let all that hard work go to waste! You’ll want any future teams working on your translations to refer back to what was done before them and keep a consistent style in all of your materials. Any of the following things can help your team maintain your voice in translation:

• Glossary of key words, ideally in both languages
• Any style guides
• Any existing target-language (translated) materials

Following these principles will help your translated materials do justice to your carefully crafted English message. Even if you have different people or teams working on your translations, sharing some guidance and existing translations with each of them goes a long way in keeping a high standard for your translated content.