Language Translation | Setup - Zoho Forms

Setting up Language Translation

Table of Contents
  1. Translating a form into supported languages
    1. Supported Languages by Zoho Forms
  2. Translating a form manually
    1. Important Requirements for Custom Languages
  3. Managing Translated Languages
The Language Translation option in Zoho Forms helps you reach a wide range of respondents for your form by overcoming language barriers globally. Using this option, you can share your form in multiple languages, allowing respondents across the globe to understand the questions in their native language and respond appropriately. You can configure Form Rules to trigger actions based on the form language and acknowledge your respondents for their entries in the desired language.

By default, your form language will be the one used to build your form. Learn more about changing your form builder language.

Translating a form into supported languages 

Translate a form into supported languages
To translate your form into a different language,
  1. After building your form, navigate to the Settings > Translation & Messages > Translation from the left menu.
  2. Click Start Translating.

    Start Translating

  3. In the Form Language dropdown, you can choose to change the default form language.
    NotesNote: The Form Language dropdown reflects the default language you set in your form's display settings. This language becomes uneditable once you create translations, as it serves as the source for them. Th change the default language, you must update the Form Language setting under General > Display before you begin adding any translations.
  4. In the Translate To dropdown, select the language you wish to translate your form from the list of languagesIf you do not find the language of your choice in the list, you can manually translate the form into any other language using the Custom Language option.

    Translate to

     
  5. Click Translate.
  6. In the Translation Settings pop-up, you can view the translation applied to your form and modify the translated content as required under the following sections:

    Form Content
    Under this section, you can change the translated versions of the Form Name, Form Description, Form Tab Title Save, Review, and Submit buttons. 

    Field Content
    Under this section, you can modify the translated content for the field labels, field elements, field instructions, choices of choice-based fields, navigation buttons of a multi-page form, Subform field labels, etc.

    Notes
    Note: If you have customized the field labels, or applied text formatting to the content in the  Description and  Terms and Conditions  fields while building your form, the customization will not be carried over to the translated version. You will have to re-apply the same to the translated content. 

Acknowledgment Content
Under this section, you can change the translated content of the Thank You pages and Splash Messages configured under Acknowledgement and Redirects settings and Form Rules.   

Custom Messages
Under this section, you can change the translated versions of the error messages, validation messages, and other general messages that appear in your live form.

Translation Settings

To translate your form into more languages, repeat the above steps. Once you translate the form, you can view a list of all the languages that your form is translated into under Translated Language(s).

Translation Settings

Translation settings allows you to do the following customizations to your translated form:

Show translated languages in the live form

You can display the translated languages directly in the live form (shared publicly or privately) for your respondents to choose from to enhance the form's accessibility and user experience. To do this, enable the Show translated languages in the form.

Show translated languages in live form

This option can be enabled by the form owner as well as by a form collaborator.

When the respondents accesses the live form, they can click the translate icon that lets them select their preferred language from the list of the languages that you have configured to translate your form into. The entire form then automatically swaps to the chosen language.

This helps:
  1. You expand your audience to include respondents from diverse linguistic backgrounds.
  2. Respondents choose the language they're most comfortable with, making the form easier to understand and complete.
Notes
Note:
  1. If you have modified the content of your form after saving the configuration for a language translation, you will have to re-translate the modified content for the changes to reflect in the live translated form.
  2. To customize alerts and error messages, use the custom messages  option under Settings > Translation & Messages and translate the error messages to the desired language.  
Info If you have configured  Language Translation for your form, the merged field responses in the merged documents will be in the same language as entered by the respondents. To merge translated form responses for the following fields while creating merged documents using Zoho Writer templates, enable the Send picklist values in form's translated language option for:
-Choice-based fields 
-Dropdown in Matrix Choice field
-Title in Name field
-Country list in Address field 
Notes

Note

  • The Language Translation option is available only in our paid plans.

  • You can configure only up to 10 language translations.

  • For Trial plan, you can translate 3 forms per organization. For Basic, Standard, Professional, Premium, Express, and Zoho One plan you can translate up to 250 forms per organization.

  • To change the form language selected in the Translate From dropdown while configuring a language translation, you must first delete all the language translations that are already configured.

Supported Languages by Zoho Forms

The supported languages to which you can translate your form are listed below: 

EU DCUS DCIN DCAU, CN and JP DCsAll DCs
GermanGermanHindiHindiEnglish
HindiHindiGermanGermanGerman
PortugueseLaoRussianRussianSpanish
FilipinoPortuguesePortugueseSwedishRussian
LithuanianFilipinoBengaliPortugueseCroatian
CroatianLithuanianFrenchEnglishUkrainian
LatvianCroatianHungarianItalianChinese
HungarianLatvianMalayalamFrenchItalian
ChineseHungarianSwedishHungarianPortuguese
ArmenianChineseKannadaTamilFrench
UkrainianYiddishOriyaChineseKorean
IndonesianArmenianMaratiSpanishJapanese
UruduUkrainianEnglishCzechRomanian
MacedonianMalagasyItalianArabicArabic
MalayalamIndonesianTamilJapanesePersian
MaratiUruduChinesePolishUrdu
MalayMacedonianSpanishRomanianArmenian
GreekMalayalamGujaratiDutchHebrew
EnglishAfrikaansCzech
Polish
ItalianMalayArabic
Finnish
SpanishGreekTelugu
Georgian
EstonianMaltesePunjabi
Swedish
ArabicEnglishAssamese
Greek
AssameseEsperantoJapanese
Catalan
JapaneseIcelandicPolish
Danish
PersianItalianRomanian
Hungarian
RomanianSpanishDutch
Czech
DutchEstonian

Dutch
RussianBasque

Hindi
BelarusianArabic

Tamil
FinnishAssamese


BulgarianVietnamese


BengaliJapanese


FrenchAzerbaijani


GeorgianPersian


SlovakRomanian


SlovenianDutch


CatalanNorwegian


SerbianBelarusian


SwedishFinnish


KannadaBulgarian


OriyaBengali


KoreanFrench


TamilSinhala


GujaratiGeorgian


CzechSlovak


TeluguSlovenian


PunjabiIrish


TagalogCatalan


PolskiAlbanian


DanishSerbian


HebrewSundanese



Khmer



Swedish



Kannada



Oriya



Swahili



Korean



Galician



Tamil



Gujarati



Czech



Telugu



Punjabi



Thai



Tagalog



Polish



Danish



Hebrew



Turkish

Translating a form manually 

While translating your form, if you do not find the language of your choice from the list of supported languages in the Translate To dropdown, you can manually translate the form into any other language using the Custom Language  option.
To do so, 
  1. Navigate to Settings Language Translation from the left menu.
  2. Click Start Translating.
  3. In the Form Language dropdown, you can choose to change the default form language.
  4. In the Translate To dropdown, select the Custom Language option.
  5. Enter the Language Code  of the language to which you wish to translate your form. An empty translation interface will open for you to enter the translated values manually.  
    Info
    If you enter a supported language code in the Custom Language code, the translation interface will show the translated content.
    Custom Language option
    Notes
    Note: Adding a custom language requires manual entry for all translated content. The language code for a custom language cannot be edited once the translation is completed, so ensure you enter a valid code, as it will be used for integration and accessibility.
  6. Click Translate.
  7. In the Translation Settings pop-up, you can enter the translation manually under the following sections:
    Form Content
    Field Content
    Acknowledgment Content
    Custom Messages

To translate your form into more languages manually, repeat the above steps.
You can view a list of all the languages that your form is translated into under Translated Language(s).
Idea
  1. You can change the text direction of the translated content from LTR to RTL or vice versa.
  2. For the languages that you will translate your form into from now on, the default text direction will be set as LTR with the exception of Arabic and Hebrew, which will be RTL. You can change the text direction for the translated content at any point of time under Translated Language(s).
  3. If no text direction is selected for a translated language, the default text direction (under General Settings) will be used.

Info If you have modified the content on your form after saving the configuration for a language translation, remember to translate the modified content again.

Important Requirements for Custom Languages

Before creating a custom language, please note the following requirements:
  1. All form, field, and acknowledgment content must be entered manually; no automatic translation is provided for custom translation. 
  2. Once saved, the language code cannot be edited. So ensure to enter a valid language code as it will be used for integrations and accessibility compliance.
  3. Please ensure your custom code does not match or overlap with existing system-provided language codes. To view the list of supported language codes, click here.
  4. Language codes must be 10 characters and should only contain letters, numbers and special characters such as hyphens ( - ), and underscores ( _ ).

Managing Translated Languages

Once a language is added, it appears in the Translated Languages list. Each language card has the following options:

Text Direction

Sets the reading direction for the translated form.
Text Direction
  1. Click the Text Direction icon next to the language.
  2. Select either:
  1. Left to Right — for languages like English, French, Portuguese
  2. Right to Left — for languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu

Editing Translated Content

To review or update the translated values:
  1. Click the Edit (pencil) icon next to the language.
  2. The translation interface will open with all translated content.
  3. Make the necessary changes and save.

Edit Language Name

  1. In the Translated Languages list, click the more options icon (⋮) next to the language.
  2. Select Edit Language Name.
  3. In the Edit Language Name dialog, enter a preferred name in the Language Name
     field.
    Edit Language Name dialog

  4. Click Save.
Notes
Note: Renaming allows you to change the language's display name in the live form. The language code remains unchanged.

Delete Translation

  1. Click the more options icon (⋮) next to the language.
  2. Select Delete Translation.
  3. Confirm the deletion in the dialog that appears.

Read more about :
  1. How can I redirect a translated form to another form automatically?
  2. When a translated form is submitted, how to trigger email alerts in the same translated language?