Translation is an essential service school districts provide; however, it can be challenging to support general needs and more intensive and individualized requirements due to high costs and limited resources. For many districts, cost and resource constraints limit translation efforts to the top languages most families speak, leaving families with less common or lower-resourced languages behind. Moreover, when school or district translation resources are dedicated to mandatory or specialized use cases, ensuring general information availability in all home languages for all families can become more challenging.
TalkingPoints can help. Our technology can lift the weight of translation off the language services team or bilingual family liaisons, saving them for translating high-priority or legal documents, and essential moments when face-to-face interpretation is necessary. TalkingPoints two-way app-to-text technology provides a tool for everyday engagement between families and school staff in 145 languages.
FAQs
Who has access to document translation?
Document translation is an optional add-on package for TalkingPoint partners. In schools or districts that have purchased the document translation package, the feature is available for teachers, staff, and administrators.
How does TalkingPoints document translation work?
Document translation is a simple, one-click option to translate document attachments as part of the message-sending experience.
Attach a PDF or .docx file by selecting the paperclip or dragging and dropping a file from your computer and clicking Translate.
Select your recipients and add any additional text you would like to send with the document.
Schedule or send the message.
What formats are supported for document translation?
PDF and .docx files.
What kind of documents can I translate?
Document translation is recommended for attaching ”backpack” type documents such as newsletters, flyers, permission slips, and invitations to your messages sent via TalkingPoints. It is not intended for use with legal documents.
Is there a limit to the number of documents I can translate?
No, there is no limit to how many documents you can send if your school or district has purchased the document translation add-on package. There is a 5 page per attachment/document limitation.
Can I preview translated documents before they are sent to families?
No, a preview is not available since the translation does not occur until after users have requested it using the 'Translate' button. Then it is directly delivered to the families. Only families will see the translated document. Our translations team has tested the TalkingPoints document translation feature for quality and it meets our standards of quality when best practice guidance is followed (see below).
Best Practice Guidance:
Send shorter messages through normal TalkingPoints messaging. Although document translation is a wonderful tool, it does not use our comprehensive translation enhancements such as our education glossaries or human translation.
Heavy formatting in newsletters and flyers can prevent translation from happening or cause quality issues because the system cannot extract words from image files. Please take this into consideration when choosing documents to translate.
Document translation is intended for daily documents that may not otherwise be translated at all. If you need to translate a formal or legal document such as speech reports, gradebooks, federal brochures, and IEP documents, please use your school or district resources to do so.
Only send documents written in English as our system translates from English to the language assigned to the contact in our system. If you are sending a document that has already been translated, please select “no thanks” when asked if you would like to translate the document.
Can I download the translated document that families received?
Yes as of the August 28, 2024 release. After the message has been sent, clicking to view the document will allow you to download the translated versions. You can download the translated document in multiple languages to a zip file or view and download a translated document for a single language. This functionality is only available through the web application.
Can I translate scanned documents?
We do not recommend sending scanned documents as they produce image files and the system is not able to extract the text from these documents to translate.
How do families receive the translated document?
SMS text families will receive a link alongside any message copy. Family contacts simply click on the message link to access the document attachment in their home language.
Family app families will receive the translated document directly in the app. They can click to open the translated document or choose to see the original document.