How CultureMonkey handles multiple languages

If your workforce spans regions, the language a survey arrives in decides who answers it honestly and who skips it. CultureMonkey handles this by keeping one survey and layering translations on top of it, so every employee reads the questions in the language they are most comfortable with while your results stay in a single report.

Language settings are spread across several places in CultureMonkey: the account's language list, each employee's profile, the survey itself, the invitation emails, and the Speak Up portal. This page pulls all of it together and points to the detailed guide for each part.

What multilingual means in CultureMonkey

Multilingual is an account-level capability rather than a per-survey setting you can switch on yourself. When it is active you will see a Question Language Settings block on the survey form and a Languages area in your settings where account admins manage the list of languages you can build with. If neither is there, the capability is not enabled for your account yet.

Once it is on, the structure is worth picturing before you touch anything:

• The master survey holds your questions in the language you authored them in, usually English. This is the source of truth.
• A language is added to your account once, then attached to any survey that needs it.
• Translations sit alongside the master survey: one translated string for each question, answer option, section title, survey title and description, and the completion message.

Because translations are layered onto one master survey, everyone answers the same survey. Responses flow into a single set of results whatever language each person used, so you never end up reconciling a separate Spanish survey against an English one. This is the same model behind CultureMonkey's multilingual and omni-channel surveys.

Where each person's language comes from

Nothing translates usefully until CultureMonkey knows which language each person prefers. That preference lives on the employee record, and it can get there three ways:

• The employee sets it. Every profile carries a name, email, timezone and preferred survey language, and people can change their own.
• You import it. The employee CSV has an optional question_language column. It must hold a language CultureMonkey supports, and rows with an unsupported value are rejected with a plain reason in the import error file.
• They choose it at the door. If a survey is multilingual, the survey page shows a language selector. Someone whose profile already carries a preference may find the survey open in it straight away.

If a survey shows no language option at all, it was published in a single language and that is the only version of it.

Translating the survey

On the survey form, tick Multilingual in the Question Language Settings block. That flags the survey and reveals a Translations tab in its navigation. Author your questions first, then generate translations: CultureMonkey machine-translates every question, option, section and message into each language you have added, and you can review and hand-edit any of them before the survey goes out.

Some accounts also offer Show Default Question, which displays each item in both English and the chosen language. It helps mixed-fluency teams but makes the survey noticeably longer, so leave it off if you want people to see only their own language.

Translating the emails

The survey is one thing, the invitation is another. Translating your questions does nothing to the email that carries them. Multilingual email templates are a separate capability, also off by default and enabled per account, and they add a translations layer to the invitation and reminder templates: a translated subject line and body for each language you support.

When the mailer prepares an email for a particular employee it looks up the translation matching that employee's language and sends that version instead of the original. You can switch the preview language from a dropdown, and send a test email in a specific language before you commit.

Speak Up in other languages

The Speak Up portal can run in any of the same 134 languages, set under Supported languages when you configure the portal. English is always included. Adding others puts a language switcher on the landing page and machine-translates your category names, descriptions and follow-up questions into each one, which you can then refine from the language dropdown.

The trust copy that reassures reporters on the intake page follows the same pattern: auto-translated per language, editable by hand, and falling back to your English text if a translation is missing. Reassurance copy is exactly where machine translation is worth reading before you rely on it, because tone carries most of the weight.

Reading results that arrive in several languages

Scores need no special handling: a rating is a rating whatever language the question was read in, and all responses land in one report. Free text is where several languages become visible, because the same idea appears once in each language and no single version ever looks significant.

On accounts where the feature is turned on, a Translate to English toggle appears above the word cloud. Switching it on translates the underlying text so keywords consolidate into their English equivalents, giving you one coherent cloud instead of several partial ones.

When a translation is missing

The fallback is the same everywhere in CultureMonkey, and it is deliberately dull: the person gets the original version. A survey with no translation for someone's language opens in the language it was authored in. An email with no matching translation sends the default template. A Speak Up portal with untranslated trust copy shows the English text. Nobody is blocked, and nothing is silently withheld.

Frequently asked questions

Which languages are supported?

CultureMonkey supports 134 languages, English plus 133 that surveys can be translated into. The full list, with language codes, is in Languages supported in CultureMonkey.

Do I have to translate everything?

No. Each layer is independent. You can run a translated survey with English invitation emails, or a translated Speak Up portal with single-language surveys. Each one falls back on its own.

Can I edit the machine translations?

Yes, everywhere they appear: survey strings, email templates, Speak Up categories and Speak Up trust copy can all be reviewed and hand-edited after they are generated.

Does the language someone answers in affect anonymity?

No. Language is a display preference on the employee record. It is not part of a response, and it does not change the anonymity threshold or who can see what.

Can someone switch language while taking the survey?

Yes, on a multilingual survey. The survey page carries a language selector, and picking a different language switches the questions, options and messages to it straight away. A single-language survey shows no selector.

Where to go next

• Every language, listed: Languages supported in CultureMonkey
• Start with the survey: Translate a survey into multiple languages
• Then the invitations: Translate survey email templates
• Fix the data first: Import employees from a CSV

Language settings touch surveys, emails, employee data and Speak Up, so the detail sits in four different sections of this Help Center. All of it:

• Translate a survey: Translate a CultureMonkey survey into multiple languages
• Translate the invitations: Translate CultureMonkey survey email templates
• The templates themselves: Customize your survey email templates
• Account language settings: Set up your CultureMonkey account
• A person's own preference: Your profile and notification settings
• Import a language per employee: Import employees from a CSV
• Rejected language values: Fixing employee import errors
• Speak Up languages: Enable and configure the CultureMonkey Speak Up portal
• Speak Up trust copy: Configure roles, access and trust copy
• Consolidate free text: View a word cloud of responses in CultureMonkey
• What employees are told: Common questions from survey-takers