There are over 6000 languages spoken worldwide, and while the media portrays English as a popular language, native English speakers account for less than 5% of the global population. For someone who is not a native speaker of a language, answering questions that require a strong command of the language to understand can be difficult.

So, it’s not the survey questions themselves that are difficult to answer; it’s the language barrier that prevents the participant from answering the survey question.

Also, 75% of the world’s population does not speak English at all; if you have a global audience but limit your survey respondents to English speakers only, you will miss out on so many participants.

What Is a Multilingual Survey?

Setting up multilingual surveys allows participants to respond in the language of their choice. For example, you could create a survey in English, Arabic, and Spanish, and respondents could answer in any of the languages.

With English not as widely spoken as most people believe, sticking to English-only surveys reduces your chances of capturing insights from a global audience. So if you’re selling a global product, your market research should include the languages spoken by your target audience.

So, it’s always advisable to reach out to a native speaker of the language to ensure the content fits what you want to communicate to your readers. You could also use multilingual software that translates the content of your survey such as Google Translate.

However, using Google Translate to translate the languages has its challenges. Some words in another language may be interpreted literally or without context, making it difficult for the reader to understand.

Benefits of Multilingual Surveys

Larger Survey Pool

When you survey in more than one language, you improve your chances of collecting data from more people. Because you’re allowing respondents to respond in their preferred language, there’s a better chance they’ll understand the question and be more willing to answer it.

Better Data Quality

Respondents are more likely to understand the question and provide accurate responses when they take surveys in their preferred language. As a result, you’ll be gathering insightful responses to open-ended questions from all of your audience, not just those who speak English.

Lower Survey Drop-off Rates

Respondents abandon surveys for many reasons and one of them is taking a survey in a non-native language or they don’t understand at all. Most survey participants will abandon the survey right away because, even if it’s their second language, answering complex questions may be overwhelming to them.

Helps You Build a Relationship With Respondents

When you give survey participants the option to choose the language they are most comfortable with, and their native language is one of the options, you show respect for them and a willingness to accommodate their needs. Respondents are more likely to participate in future studies if they know they can answer questions in the language they prefer.

Faster Survey Results and Analysis

When respondents understand the questions, it is easier for them to complete surveys quickly, which means you will have access to your results sooner. Also, a larger audience is taking the survey, so you’ll be able to reach the required number of responses quickly.

You’ll also be able to analyze the results and draw conclusions from the study more quickly because you’re getting feedback pretty fast.

Reduced Research Costs

One of the most expensive aspects of conducting market research is sourcing respondents. You must either find your respondents on your own or pay a survey platform to do it for you.

Sourcing them yourself takes time if you don’t have a large contact base of ready-to-go participants. You may also need to promote the study to reach more people and incentive the study to encourage them to take participate.

Multilingual surveys help you reach more people, so you may not have to spend money promoting the survey. It also increases the chances of finding volunteers that are not looking for incentives to participate in the survey.

How to Create Your Online Multi-Language Survey

If you want to expand your organization to reach a global audience, you must have an effective way of communicating with them. Allow them to access your website and provide feedback in the language they understand, then translate it to yours so you can understand them.

Customer feedback helps you understand how well your products and services are performing and where you can improve. However, if there is a language barrier, they will be unable to tell you what they want you to improve and will be dissatisfied with your products.

Here are the steps to create an effective multi-lingual survey:

Define Your Target Audience

Before creating an online survey, you have to figure out the people participating in the study. So, you should have a customer profile that fits the demographic and qualities you’re looking for such as age, income, location, and more.

After you’ve created your customer profile, tailor the questions to their interests; respondents are more likely to participate in surveys that are interesting to them.

When creating the customer profile, collecting their location will help you determine where your audience is and what language they speak. The next step is to discover the most popular languages among your customers so that you can create a multi-lingual survey that includes the languages they speak.

For example, 40% of your customers are from the United States, 30% are from France, 25% are from Egypt, and 5% are from the Philippines. Your multilingual surveys will be available in English, French, Arabic, and Filipino.

Creating your survey in multiple languages encourages customers to continue using your products because it’s easier for them to provide feedback. It also shows that you care about their opinions and are making proactive efforts to acquire them as customers, which helps you develop a good relationship with them.

Ensure Flawless Translation

After determining your target audience and the languages in which you want your respondents to respond, you should ensure that the words used mean what you intend them to mean. Context is often lost when using language translation apps like Google Translate especially if you’re using a figure of speech or making a reference that only native speakers would understand.

When you’re using an ineffective method for translation, you’re making it difficult to understand for the customers, which makes you look tacky as a brand. You’re bound to lose participants because they’re having a difficult time understanding your questions and wouldn’t be able to accurately answer your survey.

You also risk collecting inaccurate data because even if your customers don’t completely understand the questions, they may still want to take the survey if you’re offering incentives they want, providing you with inaccurate responses.

Account for Cultural Differences and Localization

After you’ve decided which language and method to use to translate your survey, the next step is to localize the translations. Translating surveys is not an easy task; context and nuance play a significant role in translation.

The same questions can have very different contextual meanings for people from different parts of the world. So ensuring flawless translation isn’t enough; your words must accurately convey what you want to say.

Work with a team of people, that understand the language and can give you contextual translations of your surveys, so you get the responses you need. Localizing your surveys also keeps you from offending your participants.

Replicating your survey question exactly as it is in your original language could be very intrusive or offensive when translated into another language. Participants are more likely to abandon your survey or report you if they find the survey intrusive or offensive, resulting in fewer responses and a longer time to gather responses.

Multilingual Survey Best Practices

Best Practice #1: Start With 1 Language

Start with one language, regardless of how many languages you want respondents to take your survey in. Starting with a single language allows you to fully configure your survey questions and highlight the objectives of the study.

You should also complete all your quality assurance tests in the first language before you move to translation. It’s harder to set up logic, survey designs, and more when you’re working in multiple languages at the same time.

So, first design the survey and its goal, before proceeding to translate it into multiple languages.

Best Practice #2: Use the Translation File

After you’ve developed your survey in the first language, you’ll need to import the translation file. If you’re using translation software, you can simply select the languages you want and let the software do the rest.

You can also allow the software to choose the language the survey is displayed to the participant based on their IP address. Participants don’t have to manually select a language; instead, they are shown the survey in the most spoken language in their region.

Best Practice #3: Use the Same Response Order

When reviewing the collected data, make sure the responses are in the same order across all languages. This allows you to draw accurate conclusions from the data collected.

Every question is accompanied by a specific response. As a result, if you do not use the same order across all languages, you may match incorrect responses to questions in different languages, leading to inaccurate data analysis.

If you are concerned about bias, you can randomize the questions across all languages, so that the order of the responses is random but consistent across all languages. Even though the responses are random, if the response order is 5, 3, 7, and 8, it will be the same across all languages.

Best Practice #5: Test Test Test

Testing should take place at every significant step of the way, not just after you’ve finished setting up your survey. It allows you to determine what is missing from your survey and how to improve it before it is distributed to participants.

Test surveys in all languages to ensure that nothing is missing or lost in translation. You can do this by conducting a soft launch internally with your team and have them tell you where the problems are with your survey or if there are none and you can proceed.

Since you’re testing in multiple languages, don’t hold your breath; it will most likely take longer than testing a single-language survey.

Best Practice #6: Analyze per Language

Reviewing your responses per language helps you know the language most of your respondents used and all the languages used by the participants.

If you’re trying to decide whether or not to expand to a specific region, the languages your audience uses can be a good indicator of whether or not you have your target audience there. It could also indicate that your marketing strategy in that region is ineffective and will help you readjust your strategy to fit that segment of your target audience.

Best Practice #7: Download the Reports in a Different Language

When you’re finished with the survey, make sure you have the reports in all of the languages you used; most survey websites will display the report in the default language. Having your report in multiple languages allows you to refer to the data gathered by language and aids you in future marketing decisions.

Conclusion

There are close to 700 languages spoken worldwide. So, if you intend to reach a global audience with your market research, you must develop the surveys in a language that your audience understands and can provide insightful responses.

Multilingual surveys are also cost and time-effective by allowing you to reach your target audience faster and access a larger survey pool.