If you want honest feedback from customers, employees, or just about anyone, you need to meet them where they are—including in their own language. Multilingual surveys aren’t just a “nice to have” anymore. They’re table stakes if your audience isn’t all English-speaking, or if you want to show you actually care.
This guide is for anyone who has to build, send, and make sense of surveys that need to work in more than one language. We’ll walk through exactly how to do this in Survey Sparrow, plus what to watch out for, what to skip, and how to avoid making your data a mess.
Why Multilingual Surveys Matter (and Where They Can Trip You Up)
Before jumping into the how-to, here’s why you should care about getting this right:
- Higher response rates: People actually answer when you speak their language.
- Better data quality: You avoid misunderstandings that come from bad translations.
- More inclusive: You’re not just paying lip service to “global reach.”
But here’s the flip side: - Translating questions doesn’t always equal “cultural fit.” Some things just don’t translate. - Managing the data can get tricky fast—especially if you want to analyze results across languages. - Survey platforms love to promise “easy translation”—but not all actually deliver.
With that out of the way, let’s get practical.
Step 1: Build Your Survey in Your Primary Language
Start by building your survey in your “base” language (usually English, but pick whatever makes sense for your team). Don’t build a Franken-survey with a mix of languages; it’ll only confuse you later.
Tips for this step: - Keep it short and clear. The more complex your questions, the harder they are to translate. - Avoid slang, idioms, or cultural references. “Hit it out of the park” doesn’t mean much in German, trust me. - Use clear answer options. If you’re using multiple choice, keep options simple and unambiguous.
Pro tip: Draft your questions in a doc first, and get them reviewed by someone who’s not you. You’ll catch confusing wording early.
Step 2: Activate Multilingual Support in Survey Sparrow
Survey Sparrow has built-in multilingual support for most of its survey types. Here’s how to activate it:
- Create or open your survey.
- Look for the “Settings” (gear icon) in the survey builder.
- Click on the “Languages” or “Multilingual” option.
- Add the languages you want to offer. Survey Sparrow supports a decent list, but double-check if your language is there—some less common ones might be missing.
- Set your base language (the one you wrote your questions in).
What works:
Survey Sparrow’s interface for adding languages is straightforward. You don’t have to duplicate your entire survey for each language.
What doesn’t:
Survey Sparrow sometimes auto-translates interface elements (like “Next” or “Submit” buttons) but not your custom questions and answers. You’ll need to handle your own translations.
Step 3: Translate Your Survey Questions and Answers
Here’s where most people get tripped up. Survey Sparrow does not auto-translate your survey content. You need to provide your own translations for every question, answer, and message.
How to do it: - For each language you added, Survey Sparrow gives a translation field for each piece of text. - Paste in your translated questions, answers, and error messages for every language. - Don’t forget intro/outro messages, confirmation screens, or custom error messages.
A few things to keep in mind: - Use a real translator, not Google Translate, especially for anything more nuanced than “What’s your favorite color?” - If you have to use machine translation, at least have a native speaker review it. - If you can’t support every language well, fewer languages done right is better than a dozen half-baked translations.
Ignore:
Any temptation to “just let people answer in English if they want.” If you’re offering a multilingual survey, commit to it.
Step 4: Customize Survey Logic and Flows for Each Language (Optional, but Useful)
If you’re using skip logic, branching, or custom flows, double-check that everything makes sense in each language. Sometimes, a question that works in English doesn’t make sense in another language, or cultural factors mean you need to tweak the flow.
- Test each language version separately.
- Make sure error messages and branching logic still work.
- If you’re using piping (inserting answers from previous questions), check that the translations work smoothly.
Pro tip: Survey Sparrow lets you preview each language version. Actually use this—don’t just trust that a translation field means everything lines up.
Step 5: Share Your Survey with Respondents
When you’re ready, publish your survey as usual. Survey Sparrow handles language selection a couple of ways:
- Automatic detection: If you embed the survey in your website, it may try to guess the user’s language based on browser settings.
- Manual selection: Respondents can usually pick their preferred language from a dropdown at the start of the survey.
- Direct links: You can send out survey links with the language pre-selected (check the URL parameters in Survey Sparrow’s settings).
What works:
Giving people a clear way to choose their language upfront reduces confusion.
What doesn’t:
Relying on browser detection alone. People’s browsers aren’t always set to the right language, especially on shared computers or in multilingual countries.
Step 6: Collect and Analyze Responses Across Languages
Here’s where the real work starts: making sense of your data.
How Survey Sparrow Handles Responses
- All responses—regardless of language—are stored in the same survey.
- You can filter responses by language, which is handy for seeing trends or issues specific to a language group.
- Exporting data (CSV/Excel) usually includes a column for “language,” so you can slice and dice in Excel, Google Sheets, or your favorite BI tool.
What Works
- Filtering by language is easy, so you can review how different groups answered.
- You don’t have to merge data from multiple surveys.
What Doesn’t
- Survey Sparrow doesn’t auto-translate open-text (free response) answers back to your base language. If you want to analyze comments across languages, you’ll need a translation step.
- If your translations weren’t consistent, you might end up with subtle differences in how questions were interpreted—which can make comparisons tricky.
Honest Advice
- For scale, consider exporting open-text responses and running them through a translation tool for analysis. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than guessing.
- If you need to report on “top themes” or do sentiment analysis, you’ll want a native speaker (or a good translation partner) to at least spot-check your findings.
Common Pitfalls and How to Dodge Them
- Poor translations: Nothing tanks your credibility faster than a bad translation. Invest in quality up front.
- Losing track of what’s changed: If you tweak your English survey, don’t forget to update the translations. Survey Sparrow doesn’t flag these for you.
- Overcomplicating logic: Keep your survey as simple as possible. The more branching and customization you have, the more translation headaches you’ll encounter.
- Ignoring cultural context: Some questions just don’t work everywhere. Sense check with someone from each audience if you can.
Keep It Simple—And Iterate
Getting multilingual surveys right isn’t rocket science, but it does take a bit of care. Don’t try to launch in every language at once. Start with your biggest audience, get the workflow down, and then expand.
Survey Sparrow’s multilingual features are solid, but you’ll get out what you put in. Good translations and a little planning go a long way toward getting data you can actually use. When in doubt, keep your questions clear, your translations tight, and your analysis honest. And don’t be afraid to ask for help—the best insights usually start with a simple, well-worded question.