You send a course for Arabic translation. A language reviewer checks it and confirms the Arabic is correct. Then someone opens the course, and it still looks wrong. In Arabic eLearning localization, this happens often.
Most of the time, the Arabic text is not the problem. The screen around it is.
How I tested it
I built a short safety induction course in Articulate Storyline for a made-up company. Then I made the Arabic version the way many Arabic versions are made: replace the English text with Arabic, and change nothing else. Before building it, I wrote down every fault I expected to see. Then I published the course and checked each screen in a browser.
21 of the faults appeared. 12 did not appear at all. The 12 are as useful as the 21.
What did not break: the text
Most of the 12 faults that did not appear were text faults, the kind people usually mean when they say “the Arabic is broken”:
All of them appeared in the right order, with the punctuation in the right place. Storyline follows the Unicode rules for text direction, so mixed Arabic and English text works without extra effort.
One text fault did appear: number ranges. “25–30 minutes” displayed as “30–25”. Browsers do the same thing, because it follows the same direction rules. It can be fixed without changing the words, but someone has to know to look for it.
This test was in Storyline only. Rise and other tools build the page in a different way, and I have not run the same list there yet.
What did break: everything around the text
When you replace English with Arabic, the text moves to the right side of each box. Everything else stays where the English version put it. That one pattern caused most of the 21 faults.
Layout. On the title screen, the heading and the body text moved right. A decorative line and the Start button stayed on the left. The screen now has an empty space down the middle.
Diagrams. A diagram of protective equipment had six labels, each with a line to the picture. The labels moved right and the lines did not. Each line now stops between 26 and 107 pixels before its label, so the learner has to guess which label belongs to which part.
Sequences. Three numbered steps ran from left to right. An Arabic reader starts on the right, so they meet step 3 first and read the process backwards. The tabs on another screen had the same problem: the last tab was the first one an Arabic reader saw.
Navigation and progress. The Next button stayed at the bottom right, with an arrow pointing right. The progress bar filled from left to right, so a learner who was 62% through the course looked as if they were at 38%. The menu stayed on the left. In Arabic, all three should be reversed.
Typography. The Arabic was set at the same size and line spacing as the English, so it looked small and crowded. One text box was set to justify. That is normal in English, but Arabic cannot be justified by stretching the spaces between words, so the result was worse than leaving it aligned right.
Dates. The certificate showed 04/08/2026. Is that 4 August or 8 April? In a course for learners in several countries, it is safer to write the month as a word.
The player. The player buttons still said MENU and NEXT, in English, above a course that was fully in Arabic.
Why nobody reports it
A language reviewer reads the words, and the words are correct. None of the faults above are language faults, so they are not part of the review. Usually they are not part of the translation order either. Rebuilding a screen for a language that reads the other way is a separate job, and in many projects nobody owns it.
The Storyline setting most Arabic courses miss
In Storyline, switching the player to Arabic takes three settings, not one:
1. Player > Text Labels: choose Arabic. This changes the words only.
2. Player > Other > Text is read from: Right to left. This changes the order of the navigation buttons and the direction of the arrows.
3. Player > Features > Sidebar: Right. This moves the menu.
I tested the first setting on its own. The buttons said السابق and التالي, but Next was still on the right with its arrow pointing right, and the menu was still on the left. Arabic words, English layout. It is one of the most common half-finished Arabic courses, and you can see it even if you do not read Arabic.
How to check your own Arabic course
You do not need to read Arabic for any of these. Open the Arabic version next to the English one and look at a few screens:
If two or more of these appear, the text was replaced and the screens were not rebuilt. This does not tell you how much work the fix needs. It tells you which kind of work it is.
A free check on a course you have already published
Send a link to an Arabic course you have already published. You get a short screen recording of what is wrong, and a written list of findings. One course per company, findings only, and a limited number each month.
