Picture a sales rep in Lagos, a farmer in Kano and a call-centre agent in Durban all sitting the same course. Same videos, same quizzes, same English voiceover. They'll all click through it. But will they all learn from it?
Often, not as much as they could. Not because they don't speak English, but because there's a real difference between understanding a language and thinking in it. When training lands in someone's home language, it stops being a test of their English and starts being about the skill you actually want them to learn.
We work on a lot of multilingual learning at DKC, from subtitles and voiceovers to fully localised courses in languages like Swahili, Yoruba, Hausa, isiZulu, French and Arabic. Here's what we've learnt about why it matters, and how to do it well.
Understanding isn't the same as learning
Most people across the continent are multilingual. Someone might use English at work, a home language with family and a third language at the market. They can follow a course in English just fine. But following and absorbing are two different things.
When a learner has to translate in their head as they go, part of their attention is spent on the language instead of the content. That's extra effort before they even get to the actual lesson. Take that effort away and you free up room for the thing you're paying for: people remembering what they learnt and using it.
If learners have to translate the course in their heads, you've added a lesson you didn't mean to teach.
People finish what feels made for them
Completion rates are the quiet killer of online learning. A course can be beautifully made and still lose half its learners by module three. Language is a big part of that.
When someone opens a course and hears their own language, with examples from their own world, it sends a signal: this was made for you. That feeling of being considered keeps people going. It's the same reason a local radio ad usually beats a dubbed international one.
Translation is only the first step
This is where a lot of localisation projects go wrong. Word-for-word translation gets you a course in the right language, but not necessarily one that makes sense to the people taking it. Good localisation also looks at:
- Examples and scenarios. A customer-service scenario set in a London coffee shop won't land the same way in Nairobi. Swap in situations your learners actually face.
- Names, money and places. Use local names, local currency and familiar places. It's a small change that makes a big difference.
- Tone. How formal should the voice be? What's friendly in one language can feel rude or overly casual in another.
- On-screen text and graphics. Some languages run much longer than English, and Arabic reads right to left. Layouts need to flex.
- Audio, not just subtitles. For mobile-first audiences, or learners who are more comfortable listening than reading, a native voiceover often works far better than subtitles alone.
Plan for languages from day one
The cheapest localisation is the one you planned for at the start. If you build a course in English first and only think about other languages later, you'll usually end up re-editing videos, rebuilding screens and re-recording audio.
A few habits that save a lot of time and money down the line:
- Write scripts that travel. Keep sentences short and clear, and avoid idioms and wordplay that won't translate.
- Keep text off the video where you can. Text baked into footage is expensive to change. Text added as a separate layer can be swapped per language.
- Leave room in the design. Allow for text that grows by a third or more.
- Lock the English first. Every change after translation starts has to be made in every language. Finalise the source before you translate.
- Test with real learners. Native-speaker reviewers will catch the things a translator alone might miss.
Which languages should you start with?
You don't have to do everything at once. Start with where most of your learners are, and where the gap between English and their home language is biggest. A sensible approach for many organisations is:
- Localise the most important courses first, usually onboarding, safety and core product training.
- Pick the two or three languages that cover the largest share of your audience.
- Measure completion and quiz results against the English version, then expand from there.
Quick test: ask a handful of learners which language they'd choose if they could pick any. Their answer is usually your best starting point.
The bottom line
Training in your learners' own language isn't about ticking a box. It's about removing friction between people and the skills they need. When learning feels like it was made for them, more people finish it, more of it sticks and more of it shows up in how they work.
If you're planning a course for audiences across Africa, or want to bring an existing one into new languages, we'd love to help. Localisation is one of our favourite things to work on.
