At the same time, the multilingual nature of our community can present communication challenges for those of us who don’t speak the same language as families.
As a school district we have an important responsibility to communicate with families in the language they best understand. To support you in doing so, this article is the first in a series of four that will highlight different resources that are available to facilitate your communication with multilingual families.
DeepL: Our Preferred Machine Translation App
Do you have a classroom newsletter to send home but your students’ families speak languages you don’t speak? Or perhaps your department or school wants to send a quick reminder about an event to all families in the languages they best understand. For these types of school- or classroom-level written communications, DeepL.com is a great tool.
Why Use DeepL?
- DeepL provides a more accurate translation than other machine translation tools, helping to ensure that parents get the right information. With its high rate of accuracy, it’s our preferred translation app in 9-R.
- It allows you the ability to immediately and independently create a translated document in one of 26 different languages.
- It’s a great option for many school- or classroom-level communications that keep your students’ families “in the know”.
What Are Some Down Sides?
- It’s a machine. It can’t monitor whether the translation makes sense. It’s always a good idea to ask another person who speaks that language to proofread.
- Since it is a machine translation and we cannot guarantee the accuracy, it is NOT appropriate for sensitive, serious, or official communications. Speak with your building leader or administrative assistant about other options for translating those documents.
- If the machine translates words like “Zoom” or passwords, problems, confusion, or frustration can ensue. Use context clues to skim the translated text to ensure those types of words remain in English in the translation.
How Do I Use DeepL?
Go to DeepL.com. Write or copy & paste your text into the box, choose your languages and viola! the translation will appear. This quick start video tutorial is just over 3 minutes long and might be helpful. Please include a caveat about machine translation and create an opportunity for parents to clarify. For example: This translation was created by DeepL.com. If you have any questions or need any clarification about the information, please call our office at __(fill in)____ and we will call you back with an interpreter.