You’ve built a great eLearning course. It’s clear, well designed and gets results. Now you want to roll it out to learners in other countries. The temptation is to translate the text, swap in new voiceovers and call it done. But if you’ve ever taken a course that was clearly designed for a completely different audience, you’ll know that translation alone doesn’t always cut it.
That’s where localisation comes in. Localisation is about adapting the entire learning experience so it feels natural, relevant and engaging for people in a specific region or culture. It goes well beyond language. It touches everything from the examples you use to the images on screen, the tone of your writing and even the way you structure assessments.
In this post, we’ll look at what localisation really involves, why it matters and how to approach it without losing your mind (or your budget).
Why localisation matters
Imagine you’re a learner in Germany, sitting down to complete a mandatory compliance online course. The text has been translated into German, which is a good start. But the scenarios are all set in American offices, the legal references cite US regulations, the currency is in dollars, the dates are in the wrong format and the characters in the videos are speaking with American accents and body language. Technically, you can understand everything. But it doesn’t feel like it was made for you.
That disconnect has real consequences. Research consistently shows that culturally adapted content leads to higher engagement, better retention and stronger learning outcomes. When learners feel that a course has been instructionally designed with them in mind, they’re more likely to pay attention, complete it and actually apply what they’ve learned.
There’s a practical side too. In regulated industries like healthcare, finance and food safety, compliance training often needs to reflect local laws and standards. A course that references the wrong legislation isn’t just irrelevant; it could expose your organisation to legal risk.
How localisation differs from translation
Translating eLearning content deals with language. It converts your text, audio scripts and on-screen copy from one language to another, aiming to preserve the original meaning as faithfully as possible.
Localisation deals with experience. It takes your translated content and adapts it so that it feels native to the target audience. This includes adjusting cultural references, imagery, examples, formatting conventions and sometimes even the instructional approach itself.
Think of it this way: translation changes what learners read and hear. Localisation changes what they see, feel and relate to.
What does localisation actually cover?
Localisation can involve a wide range of adaptations depending on how different the target audience is from the original. Here are the main areas to consider.
Cultural references and examples
This is often the most impactful area of localisation. The scenarios, case studies and examples in your course need to resonate with your audience’s everyday reality. A course on workplace communication that uses examples about American football or Thanksgiving won’t land with learners in Ireland. Similarly, a sales training course built around European business etiquette may not reflect the norms in the Middle East or Latin America.
The fix isn’t always complicated. Sometimes it’s as simple as swapping out a few names, locations and cultural touchpoints. Other times, particularly for soft skills or leadership content, you may need to rethink entire scenarios to reflect local workplace dynamics.
Visual content and imagery
Images carry a surprising amount of cultural weight. The people shown in your course, the settings they’re in, the way they’re dressed and even the hand gestures they’re using can all create a sense of connection or distance for your learners.
When localising, review your visual content with fresh eyes and ask some key questions. Do the people in your images reflect the diversity of your target audience? Are the office environments, street scenes or workplace settings recognisable to learners in that region? Are there any gestures, symbols or visual elements that might carry different meanings in the target culture?
A thumbs-up, for example, is a positive gesture in many Western countries but can be considered rude in parts of the Middle East and West Africa. These details might seem minor, but they can undermine the credibility of your course.
Formatting and conventions
Every region has its own conventions for dates, times, currency, units of measurement and number formatting. These small details are easy to overlook but immediately noticeable to learners when they’re wrong. Here are some common areas that need attention:
- Date formats: DD/MM/YYYY in most of Europe vs MM/DD/YYYY in the US vs YYYY/MM/DD in parts of Asia.
- Currency: Don’t just convert amounts. Use the local currency and make sure the values make sense in context. A “$50 gift card” example doesn’t translate neatly into every economy.
- Units of measurement: Metric vs imperial. Most of the world uses metric, but if your original content was built for an American audience, you’ll likely need to convert.
- Number formatting: Some countries use commas as decimal separators and full stops as thousands separators, which is the opposite of English-language conventions.
- Phone number formats and address structures: If your course includes forms, contact details or data entry exercises, these all need to reflect local standards.
Tone, register and formality
The way you address your learners matters more than you might think. English is relatively informal as languages go, and eLearning content in English often uses a casual, conversational tone. That doesn’t always translate well.
Many languages have formal and informal registers, and choosing the wrong one can affect how your content is received. In German, for example, using the informal “du” instead of the formal “Sie” in a corporate training context could come across as disrespectful. Japanese has multiple levels of politeness that need careful consideration. Even within the same language, expectations around formality can vary between regions. Latin American Spanish and European Spanish, for instance, have different norms around how directly you address someone.
Your eLearning localisation partner should be able to advise on the appropriate register for each target audience. If in doubt, err on the side of formality. It’s easier to be too polite than to accidentally offend.
Legal and regulatory content
If your eLearning course covers compliance, health and safety, data protection or any other regulated area, the content needs to reflect local laws and standards. A GDPR module designed for the EU won’t be appropriate for learners in countries with different data protection frameworks. Workplace health and safety regulations vary significantly from country to country, and what constitutes best practice in one jurisdiction might not meet the legal requirements of another.
This is one area where you should always involve local subject matter experts. Getting compliance content wrong isn’t just a quality issue; it’s a liability.
Layout and design for different scripts
If you’re localising into languages that use different scripts or reading directions, your design work goes well beyond swapping text. Right-to-left (RTL) languages like Arabic and Hebrew require mirrored layouts. Navigation elements, progress bars, timelines and even the direction of illustrative animations may all need to be flipped.
Languages that use non-Latin scripts, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai or Hindi, may also need different fonts, different line spacing and adjustments to text box sizing. It’s worth testing these languages early in the process rather than discovering layout issues at the end.
Localising multimedia content
Audio and video are often the trickiest elements to localise because they’re expensive to recreate and deeply tied to the learner experience.
For voiceover narration, you have a few options. Subtitles are the most cost-effective route but can feel like a compromise if the original language audio is still playing. Dubbed voiceovers recorded by native speakers create a more immersive experience but require careful timing to match on-screen animations and transitions. AI-powered dubbing tools have improved significantly and can be a viable middle ground for some projects, though they still benefit from human review.
Video content that shows people speaking on camera is the most challenging to localise. If the speaker is visibly speaking in one language while subtitles show another, it creates a disconnect. For high-stakes content, it may be worth re-filming key video segments with local presenters. For everything else, well-timed subtitles or picture-in-picture narration can work.
Don’t forget about on-screen text in videos either. Any text overlays, lower thirds, infographics or animated text will need to be recreated in the target language, accounting for text expansion and different scripts.
A practical approach to localisation
Localisation can sound overwhelming, especially if you’re doing it for the first time. Here’s a step-by-step approach that can help keep things manageable.
- Start with a localisation audit: Before you begin, review your source content and identify every element that will need to be adapted. This includes text, images, audio, video, interactive elements, cultural references, legal content and formatting conventions. The more thorough your audit, the fewer surprises you’ll encounter later.
- Prioritise your markets: If you’re rolling out to multiple regions, you don’t have to do everything at once. Start with your highest-priority markets and use what you learn from the first localisation project to refine your process for subsequent ones.
- Involve local experts early: Native-speaking reviewers, local subject matter experts and in-country stakeholders can catch issues that even the best localisation teams might miss. Bring them into the process during content review, not just at the end for sign-off.
- Build a localisation kit: Create a package of resources to reference. This might include a style guide, glossary, brand guidelines, source files, voiceover scripts and notes on any culturally sensitive content.
- Test with real learners: Before launching, pilot your localised course with a small group of learners from the target audience. Their feedback will reveal issues that internal reviews often miss, particularly around tone, cultural relevance and usability.
When is translation enough and when do you need full localisation?
Not every course needs the full localisation treatment. The level of adaptation you need depends on the content and the audience. Here’s a rough guide to help you decide.
Translation is usually sufficient for technical or procedural training where the content is largely universal, such as how to use a specific software platform, standard operating procedures that are consistent across regions or factual, knowledge-based content with minimal cultural context.
Full localisation is worth the investment for soft skills and leadership development content, compliance and regulatory training that varies by region, onboarding programmes that reference local workplace culture, scenario-based or story-driven courses that rely on cultural relatability, and any content where learner engagement and emotional connection are critical to the learning outcomes.
Many projects fall somewhere in between. You might translate the bulk of the content and then localise specific modules or scenarios that are more culturally dependent. This hybrid approach is often the most practical and cost-effective way to serve a global audience.
Measuring the success of your localised content
Once your localised courses are live, it’s important to track how they’re performing. The key metrics to watch are largely the same ones you’d use for any eLearning programme, but you should compare them across regions to spot any disparities. Keep an eye on completion rates, assessment scores, learner satisfaction ratings and time-to-completion.
If you notice that a particular language version has significantly lower completion rates or satisfaction scores than others, that’s a strong signal that the localisation needs further refinement. Gathering qualitative feedback from learners in each region can also be invaluable for identifying specific pain points.
An eLearning localisation partner
Localising eLearning content is more work than straightforward translation, but the payoff is significant. A course that feels like it was designed specifically for your audience will always outperform one that feels like a translation of someone else’s course.
The key is to think beyond the words on screen. Consider the full learning experience: the visuals, the examples, the tone, the cultural assumptions baked into every interaction. When all of those elements feel right to your learners, you’ve done more than localise a course. You’ve created something that genuinely works for them.
Whether you’re localising a single compliance module or an entire course catalogue, taking a thoughtful, structured approach from the start will save you time, money and headaches in the long run. And your learners will thank you for it.
