If your subscription includes automatic translation, BetaTesting translates the written content of a test between languages while the test runs. Your survey questions reach testers in their own language, and what those testers write comes back to your team in yours. Nobody copies text into a translation tool, and nothing has to be authored twice.

This is what makes testing outside your home market practical. You can write a survey once in English, recruit in Japan, Germany and Brazil, and have every participant answer comfortably in their own words. Their answers, their issue comments and their replies to your messages all arrive translated in your results. A team running a beta across Europe can hold a conversation with a tester in Italian without anyone on either side switching languages.

The value is in feedback quality as much as reach. Testers asked to work in a second language write shorter, vaguer answers and leave out the detail that makes a bug report worth having. Letting them write in their own language gets you the specifics, and translation means your team can still read all of it in one place.

Automatic translation is part of our Enterprise plan, so it may not be available on your account. If you are not sure whether your company has it, ask your account manager.

This article is about translating the content of a test. Changing the language of the platform interface is a separate setting, available to everyone on every plan, and it is covered in Using BetaTesting in your own language.

You can set your preferred language in your user settings. For admins, that is available here: https://betatesting.com/admin/about-you and for testers here: https://betatesting.com/user-profile

Translation applies to the written content of a test:

All of this happens on its own once the feature is enabled for your company. There is no switch to turn on per test and nothing to set up in the test builder.

Translation follows the reader. A piece of text is translated into the preferred language of the person who needs to read it, and only when it was written in a different language. If a question was written in English and the reader reads English, there is nothing to translate.

Survey questions, answer options and scale labels are translated into the languages your testers read. This is prepared ahead of time, when the test launches and again as testers are accepted, so the survey is usually ready before anyone opens it.

Questions are also prepared in the languages commonly spoken in the countries you are recruiting from. That way the survey is ready in the right languages before those testers have even joined.

A message or an issue comment written by someone on your team is translated into the language of the tester it is addressed to. A broadcast sent to many testers is translated into each recipient's language.

Written answers to open text questions are translated into the languages your admins read. This direction is one way only. A tester's answer is prepared for your team, not for other testers.

Comments and messages a tester writes are likewise translated into the languages of the admins who have access to that test.

English is always included alongside whatever languages your admins have chosen. There is always an English version of tester feedback available to your team, even if nobody has changed their language setting.

Because the target languages come from what your admins have set, it is worth asking your team to choose their preferred language. An admin who leaves the default in place will simply read the English version.

A translation never replaces the original. Both are kept, and you can move between them at any time.

Wherever a piece of text can be translated, a small link appears next to it. It reads Show translation when you are looking at the original. Select it and the text switches to your language, and the link changes to Translated: Show original. Select that to go back to the words as they were written.

This shows text in English that was translated into Simplified Chinese:

The admin can click to show the original text from the tester in English:

When a translation has already been prepared, the text is shown translated as soon as the page loads and the link starts on Translated: Show original. When it has not, selecting Show translation creates it on the spot, and the link briefly reads Translating... while that happens.

In a message thread on a wide screen the link stays hidden until you move your pointer over the message. On smaller screens it is always visible.

Translation covers the content listed above and nothing else. In particular, these are left in the language they were written in:

Email notifications from BetaTesting are sent in English.

Our translations are good enough to run a test on and to read feedback with, but they are not certified human translations. Do not rely on them for legal wording, consent language, regulated claims, or anything else where an exact translation is required. Have a person review that copy before it goes in front of testers.

The original text is always preserved. Translating never edits or overwrites what a tester or an admin actually wrote, and the original remains the record of the response.

Nothing is translated between two forms of the same language. Portuguese and Portuguese (Brazil), for example, are treated as the same language, so no translation is offered between them.

Very short answers and answers that are only a number are left alone. There is nothing meaningful to translate in a rating of 7 or a one character reply.

Editing changes things. If you edit a question, a message or a comment after it has been translated, the earlier translation is discarded and the new wording is translated fresh.