Last updated on December 29th, 2022 at 07:23 pm

The Importance of Survey Translation

A survey is a method by which various entities collect data about diverse groups of people.  Surveys are a set of questions that respondents answer so that observations can be made about their preferences and behavior.  The data collectors can then analyze that information and use it accordingly.  

Surveys can be done online, by mail, over the phone, and in person.  Entities that use surveys include businesses, governments, universities, non-profits, and more.  

Language is essential to a survey’s accuracy.  If surveys are needed to reach a specific language group, a multilingual survey is needed to get results that will be helpful to the sender’s mission.  Today, we’ll delve deeper into the importance of a multilingual survey and survey translation. 

Why Spanish Survey Translations?

Spanish survey translation is essential for surveys in the United States and international markets.  North American Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language in the United States.  Millions of people speak Spanish as their first language and rely on Spanish translations for their needs.  Spanish to English and English to Spanish translation make up many of the projects we work on every day.  As a growing language group, Spanish survey translation is necessary for the collecting entity to get insightful results.  Spanish survey translation is critical online.  Spanish-speaking Internet users are an underserved group, with a considerable portion of the Internet still in English.  Survey translation online is crucial to get answers that will help the surveyor make informed decisions.

Why French Survey Translations?

French Translation Services for surveys are needs we often encounter.  French is another growing language in the United States and around the world.  French is a language often used for commerce and traffic between the United States and our neighbor, Canada.  French speakers are another underserved group on the Internet, particularly when one considers that French dialects are spoken all over the world.  Multilingual surveys help your users and employee communicate valuable information for market research. For best practice, our professional translators are native French speakers who are also subject matter experts in the client’s industry. We will localize your French surveys to Canadian French to use in Canada or to European French if your audience is from Europe. The objective of your market research will determine the audience to be sampled.

How Are Multilingual Surveys Used?

Let’s talk more about how surveys are used to better illustrate why survey translation and multilingual surveys can help your business and your employees. Survey s translation is one of the services that our clients request within our business translation services.

The United States Census Bureau conducts dozens of surveys every year, from the Small Business Pulse Survey to the Manufactured Housing Survey to the Public Libraries Survey. All survey questions are designed to obtain valuable information for each sector.

Businesses conduct surveys across markets for purposes like these: 

• Surveys on market demographics tell the business what sort of strategies they should use to sell their products and services.  If they don’t want to miss out on large sections of the population, survey translation for better market research is a must.  
• Surveys to find out where the business is falling short in areas from shipping to customer service to product performance.  If a business wants greater customer satisfaction, it will need to conduct multilingual surveys.  
• Surveys to find out how a market will respond to a new product or service.  Using a multilingual survey will tell the company whether or not entire demographics will like having personal shoppers in their boutiques, a new flavor of ice cream, adding wildlife removal to their existing pest control services, and more.  Without multilingual surveys, a lot of money and marketing effort could be wasted. 

Workplace Surveys

Multilingual workplace surveys are essential for the health of a company and its employees.  It is part of the translation for Human Resources that we execute with frequency at our translation company. Without professionally translated, localized surveys, the business can’t clearly communicate with its multilingual employees, and the data collected may be skewed.  These are a few things that workplace surveys are used for: 

• Employee satisfaction.  Translation for employee satisfaction surveys makes sure that the business knows how their employees feel about management, the company’s attitude about change, and the employee’s feelings about work distribution.
• Employee engagement.  A multilingual survey gets answers on matters like how the employees feel about the team they work with and if they would recommend the company to others. Having a survey for all the employees in their language of preference is a way to bust engagement.
• Exit surveys.  Exit surveys translated into multiple languages tell the company why the exiting employee sought another position, what that new position offers that their former position did not, and what the business can do better.
• Company culture.  Company culture surveys must go through a professional translation process so that the survey language is clearly understood in multiple languages by each employee. Localized surveys for the workplace gauge the employee’s feelings about the quality of leadership, how they are treated by coworkers and management, and the safety of the work environment.

How Survey Translation is Done

We are a professional translation company with a process for survey translation that ensures that the client’s needs are met or exceeded.  

• First, we work with the source document’s untranslated text.  The survey questions must be written carefully in the source language to make it possible to translate them into the correct dialect so that no meaning is lost. 
• We collect your need and objectives for the translated files. For instance, we need to have clear information about the target audience. If you are looking for Spanish translation services,  Latin American and Caribbean Spanish variants is different from European Spanish. A professional translation company operates with the understanding that languages often can’t be translated word for word.  Survey translation must also account for cultural differences and regional dialects.
• Once the survey has been finished in the source language, the translation phase begins by deciding if it will be done by human translation or machine translation. The objectives, budget, and evaluation of quality will be done to come to a decision. Testing and evaluation will be done to make the final decision.
• Human Translation: A professional translator will begin the translation from the source language to the target language and dialect.  We use only native speakers so that the multilingual survey is perfectly localized, and no errors make their way into the translated survey. 
• Machine Translation Services: The survey is translated by software, automated translation, and after the translation quality is refined, polished, and improved by post-editing services to ensure correctness and clarity.
• The documents are reviewed by others on the translation team for quality control, like a text editor. 
• The client is kept abreast of the developments at every stage, and we maintain a prompt turnaround time.
• The multilingual survey is closely inspected by the client and subject matter experts for accuracy and consistency.

Your Source for Professional Survey Translation

JR Language has experience producing translated surveys in multiple languages, for many sectors, and on different file types. We keep our translation process meticulous yet efficient to make obtaining a multilingual survey easy. Professionally translated survey language keeps our clients on top of market research, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction, empowering them to make informed decisions about the direction of their business.

Contact us today to find out how surveys in multiple languages can give your business an edge.