How to add multiple Languages in your Surveys

How to add multiple Languages in your Surveys

Overview

This article will guide the users in using the Translation Feature and creating Multilingual Surveys in SurveySensum.
SurveySensum gives you the option to create a multilingual survey. Using a single survey, you can reach out to respondents who speak different languages — breaking the language barrier and ensuring your audience is comfortable taking the survey in their preferred language.
The translation applies not only to the survey questions but also to everything else — including buttons and custom messages.

Why do you need Multilingual Surveys?

  • each a wider, region-specific audience with surveys in their native language
  • Gather richer insights by removing language as a barrier to honest responses
  •  Consolidate all responses into a single dataset for better analysis

How to Add Multiple Languages to Your Survey

To start adding new languages to your survey you can either choose an existing survey or create a survey from the scratch. Next, choose your Survey language. The default language is English. This is also the language you'll base the other translations on.
Step 1.  Open the survey you want to translate. In the top navigation bar, click on the Build tab to enter the survey builder
Step 2.  From the left sidebar, click on Translations. This will open the Translations page where you can manage languages for your survey. By default
Info
All surveys are set to English as the default language.
Step 3.  Under Other Languages, click the + Add Language button. A pop-up will appear showing a list of 54  supported languages will appear on your screen

Step 4.  Select the language(s) you want to translate your survey into by checking the boxes next to each language. Once done, click Apply to save your selection

Notes
You can only translate into the languages available in this list. Translations for languages outside this list are not supported.


Step 5.  Once your languages are added, scroll down to the Importing Translations section and click Download Import Template. This will download an Excel (.xlsx) file to your device

Step 6.  Open the downloaded template. The file will contain:

•       Column A — unique IDs for each question element (do not modify these)

•       Column B — all survey content in your default language (English)

•       Additional columns — one for each language you selected (e.g., Hindi-hi, Bahasa Melayu-ms)

Fill in the translated text for each question, answer choice, and label in the corresponding language column — row by row, matching each question ID.
Warning
Do not change the content in the first row (headers) or the first column (IDs). Modifying these will cause import errors.

Step 7.  Once you have completed filling in all translations, save the file. Go back to SurveySensum, click Import Translations, and upload the edited Excel file.

Once the file is uploaded successfully, the translations are automatically enabled on your survey. You can check the Import History tab to view the status of uploaded files. A green tick indicates a successful import.

Alert
error message for when a you missed any translation values during import



Step 8.  To preview the translated survey, go back to the Editor. In the top-right corner of the survey builder, click on the language dropdown and select any of the added languages. The survey preview will update to display the selected language.

Things to Keep in Mind

•       Supported languages only: You can only import translations for languages that were selected from the Add Language pop-up. If your file contains a language column that was not added to the survey, the import will show an error and that language will not be applied.

•       Re-download template after edits: If you add new questions or update your survey after the initial translation, you must download a fresh Import Template and redo the translation process for the new content.

•       Unified response data: All responses across languages are merged into a single dataset. In your reports, question text and answer choices will display in the default survey language regardless of which language the respondent used.

•       You can switch languages at any time: Once translations are imported, you can switch between languages in the builder at any point to check or update the translated content.


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