Course languages
Machine-translate a published course, preview the result, and publish it as another language learners can pick.
Use this page when the people taking a course don't all work in the language it was written in. Instead of building the course again for each language, you add languages to the same course.
One language stays the original. Each additional language is a machine translation of it, with the narration spoken again in that language, which you preview and publish on its own. Learners pick the language they want and keep their own progress in it.
Course languages is in the course's panel on Modules and courses, under Courses. It appears once the course is published, for organization admins and members.
Set the original language first
Before anything can be translated, the course needs to declare which language it is written in. Choose it under Original language and confirm.
You can change it only while no translation work exists for the course. Once you generate a first language, the original is locked: everything derives from it.
Generate a language
Pick a language under Translate to and choose Generate. The list holds the languages Vidext has voices for; the course's original language is not offered.
Three rules decide what can be generated:
- Only live modules are translated, the ones learners can open right now. A hidden module (not built yet, or withdrawn) is left out until a publish makes it live. If a live module has no version ready to translate, the refusal tells you to build it again and publish an update.
- The course holds at most eight live modules. Larger courses are not supported yet.
- Every live module has a ready voice in the target language. Narration is spoken again in the new language, not subtitled, so each module needs a voice that speaks it — see Voices and narration.
Generation runs in the background and reports progress per module (Generating 3 of 6 modules). You can leave the page. If it fails, Retry starts a new attempt; nothing partial reaches learners.
Preview and publish
A finished run reads Ready to publish, not live. Preview opens every translated module so you can play it the way a learner would; learners can't see it yet. If the result is not right, pick the same language under Translate to and choose Generate again for a fresh translation.
When it reads correctly, choose Publish course language. The language reads Live and learners can select it.
Older editing drafts
A language may still carry an editing draft from earlier editing. While it does, the language reads Ready · discard editing draft to publish: use Prepare preview to see the draft, or Discard editing draft to publish the machine translation instead. Generating again never deletes the draft, so a machine run can't silently replace it.
Keep a language current
Publishing a language does not freeze the original. When the course changes afterwards — Publish update gives a module a newer version, a module goes live or is withdrawn, or the course's names or order change — the language reads Live · source course has changed, and Update translation regenerates it. A module that stays hidden never makes a language stale.
The live language keeps serving throughout. An update that fails reads Live version remains available · latest update failed; one that finishes reads Live · update ready to publish until you publish it. Preview live version shows what learners have now.
Unpublish a language
Unpublish removes a language from the learners' choices. Their progress in it is kept, and you can publish it again later.
What learners see
On a course with at least one published language, the course panel offers a Content language selector with the original and every published language. Progress is tracked per language: a learner who switches keeps a separate position in each one.
No tutor on a translated version
The in-module tutor answers from the original version, so it is hidden for a learner viewing a translation rather than answer about content they are not reading. Everything else in the player works normally. See The AI tutor.
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