About multilingual surveys

A multilingual survey is one survey with one set of responses, shown in the language of each participant. You build it in a base language, add the other languages and translate the texts: questions, answer options, screens and emails. All responses land in the same table, whatever the language, so your analysis stays simple.

Adding a language and translating it are two separate jobs. Adding a language creates an empty copy of every text of the survey. Until someone translates those copies, participants in that language see the base language instead.

Step 1: Add the languages

1. In the editor, click the gear icon in the left toolbar and then General.

2. Under Survey languages, type the name of a language and pick it. Each language appears as a chip. Some languages come in variants, for example German, German (easy) and German (informal).

3. Check the Base language: the language you write in, and the fallback for every text without a translation.

Add all languages before you start translating, and before you activate the survey. If a language you need is missing from the list, ask the administrator of your survey site.

Step 2: Write the survey in the base language

Finish the questionnaire in the base language before you translate. Translating while the wording still changes means translating the same sentence twice.

Step 3: Translate with Quick translation

1. In the editor, click Translations, the 文A icon in the left toolbar (1), and then Quick translations. Quick translation opens in a new browser tab (2).

2. Under Translate to, pick the language (3).

3. Work through the tabs (4), from Survey title and description to Detailed admin notification subject. Each tab shows the base language on the left and a text field for the translation on the right (6).

4. Click Save (7) before you switch tabs or leave the page. Quick translation does not save by itself.

Auto Translate (5) fills the translation fields with a machine translation. Treat it as a first draft and correct it: it does not know that "Fair" is a point on your scale.

Note: Each email tab holds the subject and, below it, the full message. Email messages are the texts translators miss most often.

Other ways to translate

In the editor: for a quick fix, pick the language in the language list above the survey and edit the texts in place.

With translation files (Corporate plan only): Translations > Translation files exports all texts of a language to an Excel file for your translator and imports the translated file. See Translate your survey with translation files.

Step 4: Translate what Quick translation does not cover

Some texts are translated in their own panel. The privacy policy is an example: Settings > Privacy policy has its own Language list for the message, the error message and the checkbox label. If you cannot find a text in Quick translation, open the panel it belongs to and switch its language.

Step 5: Let participants choose their language

• Language switcher: once the survey has more than one language, participants pick theirs on the welcome screen and in the menu at the top right. To hide it, see Hide the language switcher.
• Link with a language: add lang to the survey link, for example &lang=de, to open the survey in that language.
• Language of each participant: every entry in the participant list has a Language field. Invitations and the survey open in that language.

Step 6: Check each language before you activate

Texts without a translation appear in the base language, without any warning. Preview the survey in each language from start to end and look for:

• Texts in the base language, often at the end of long surveys and on the end screen.
• Texts that grew: German and Finnish often run 20 to 30 percent longer than English and can break the layout of an array.
• Email messages.

Good to know

• Translators do not need full access. Quick translation is a survey permission of its own, so a translator can translate without changing your questions. See Survey permissions.
• Every response stores the language the participant started in, so you can filter your results by language.
• Date format, decimal mark and survey alias are set for each language in the presentation settings.
• Keep placeholders such as {FIRSTNAME} unchanged in every language.
• Question codes are the same in all languages, so your exports stay comparable.

Next steps

• Translate your survey with translation files
• General settings
• Survey permissions

FAQ

Why does the Translations icon not react?

The survey has only one language. Hovering the icon shows "Translations: Currently there are no additional languages configured for this survey." Add a language in Settings > General.

I translated the survey, but participants still see the base language. Why?

They see the base language wherever a translation is missing, or where Quick translation was left without Save. Open Quick translation, pick the language and check the tab of the missing text.