Whether for employee engagement, performance management, leadership development or wellbeing, surveys and questionnaires give valuable insight into individuals or companies, and provide actionable data for research or decision making.
In today’s multinational world, it is important to collect this data consistently across the globe in order to promote learning from overseas counterparts, diagnose discrepancies between markets and report results on a global scale, rather than on a territory by territory basis.
However, with English often adopted as the lingua franca, how can you ensure that the same questions posed in other countries or to non-natives are culturally valid and meaningful to all, and that they have been considered and responded to honestly? Once the data is collected, to what extent could you know that each respondent has understood the nuances of the English items, when English may be their second, third or even fourth language?
Questionnaire Translation Processes
Translating surveys or questionnaires through a specialist survey translation company like Comms Multilingual is the simplest way to ensure that respondents fully understand the nature of the questions being asked of them, and to guarantee higher quality results.
There are several options for translating surveys and questionnaires, depending on your needs and the nature of the questionnaire being translated. Click a tab to read more about each option.
Translation and Proofreading
For many purposes, especially where you have an in-country resource to check a translated survey before launch, translation of the survey by a native speaker and proofreading by a second may be sufficient. At Comms Multilingual, this survey translation process usually includes:
- Analysis of the original text’s format by a project manager
- Survey translation by a native-speaker linguist
- Proofreading of the survey translation by a second native-speaker linguist
- Internal quality assurance checks before delivery back to you.
Once you receive the survey or questionnaire translation back, you will then be able to pre-test the items before finalising and distributing them.
Forward & Back Translation and Proofreading
Forward and back translation of a questionnaire allows you to check the meaning of each translated item in English before the survey is launched.
- Analysis of the original text’s format by a project manager
- Survey translation by a native-speaker linguist
- Proofreading of the survey translation by a second native-speaker linguist
- Back translation of the questionnaire by a native-speaker linguist
- Proofreading of the survey back translation by a second native-speaker linguist
- Detailed quality assurance checks by an in-house QA checker
- Finalisation of the translation based on any queries you may have on the back translation.
Having four pairs of eyes (a translator and proofreader for both forward and back translation) looking over the text will help ensure that it flows as fluently as possible and that any misunderstandings have been ironed out.
Once you receive the survey or questionnaire translation back, you will then be able to pre-test the items before finalising and distributing them.
Dual Forward Translation and Reconciliation
In this process, two independent translations are produced by different translators, with a third linguist picking the best elements from both translations to produce a final proofread and “reconciled” version.
- Analysis of the original text’s format by a project manager
- Survey translation by a native-speaker linguist
- Second survey translation by a different native-speaker linguist
- Reconciliation of the two survey translations by a third native-speaker linguist (reconciler)
This may then (optionally) be followed by elements of the back translation process:
- Back translation of the questionnaire by a native-speaker linguist
- Proofreading of the survey back translation by a second native-speaker linguist
- Detailed quality assurance checks by an in-house QA checker
- Finalisation of the translation based on any queries you may have on the back translation.
Once you receive the survey or questionnaire translation back, you will then be able to pre-test the items before finalising and distributing them.
Tips for Translating Surveys
One size does not fit all when it comes to worldwide demographic data. Asking a respondent’s ethnic group may be illegal or require the use of specific categories in some countries.
Elsewhere, levels of education may also need tailoring according to the nature of the school system in a given country.
No matter what the process chosen, it is important to allow sufficient time for the proper translation of the items: machine translation, while excellent for spot checking or verification, should be avoided, as should the splitting of a survey between multiple translators to “speed things up”.
Translating Open-Ended Responses
Many surveys utilise open-ended questions at some point or another to seek commentary from the respondent. The translation of the responses back into English does not therefore need to be a fully polished version, as it is just important to understand the meaning of the comments.
In such a case, we recommend that the comments are simply translated without proofreading. This will save you both time and money.
With many surveys filled in by hand, we are often asked to transcribe the comments into an Excel spreadsheet before translating. This then provides you with an accessible electronic version of the comments, as well as a digitised starting point for the translation.
Tips for Designing Open-Ended Questions
People’s handwriting can vary a lot and it is sometimes very difficult to make out what any handwritten comments actually say. This makes transcription difficult and means that some valid comments may not be able to be used.
If the translated questionnaire is destined for printing and completion by hand, it is a good idea to put a note at the top of the box where people will be handwriting comments to say: “Please write clearly”.