Knowledge in more than one language
· 1 min read
Translation is the easy part. The hard part is keeping every language version in step with the source.
In brief
The English version of an article was updated in March. The French version was not. Nobody noticed for months. Same title, same layout, same confident instructions. One of them was wrong. That is the quiet risk with knowledge in more than one language. Translation is the easy part now. Keeping the versions in step is the hard part. Most organisations start in the right place. They want people to get help in the language they think in, and they are right to. Someone reading a fix at two in the morning in their second language is more likely to miss a step. The trouble starts when each language becomes its own little knowledge base, with its own owners, its own review dates and its own slow drift away from the original. This article argues for deciding a few things before you translate anything: which language is the source, and whether every other version points back to it; who is told when the source changes, and how quickly translations must follow; which articles are worth translating at all, often the most used few hundred rather than the whole library; and how a reader knows a translated version is current, and where they go if it is not. Machine translation makes it cheap to publish in ten languages. It does not make it cheap to be wrong in ten languages. One source, clear owners and honest dates keep translated knowledge trustworthy.
The English version of the article was updated in March. The French version was not.
Nobody noticed for months. Same title, same layout, same confident instructions. One of them was wrong.
That is the quiet risk with knowledge in more than one language. Translation is the easy part now. Keeping the versions in step is the hard part.
Most organisations start in the right place. They want people to get help in the language they think in, and they are right to. Someone reading a fix at two in the morning in their second language is more likely to miss a step.
The trouble starts when each language becomes its own little knowledge base, with its own owners, its own review dates and its own slow drift away from the original.
Decide this before you translate anything
- Which language is the source, and does every other version point back to it?
- When the source changes, who is told, and how quickly must the translations follow?
- Which articles are worth translating at all? Often it is the most used few hundred, not the whole library.
- How does a reader know a translated version is current, and where do they go if it is not?
Machine translation makes it cheap to publish in ten languages. It does not make it cheap to be wrong in ten languages.
One source. Clear owners. Honest dates.
Next step
How does your team keep translated knowledge in step? Join the conversation on ESM's Exchange: https://exchange.esm.institute
Tags: knowledge management, service management, self-service, ESM
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