Incorporating the Translate Survey Feature into Your Surveys

With this feature, you can translate a survey that you already conducted in English (or other languages) into your target languages. This new feature allows you to translate surveys that are either underway (running but not complete) or have already been completed. 

It will enable researchers to build, store, and view their survey results in different languages as a means to help their analysts across geographical regions.

This Pollfish School article will teach you the aspects of this new feature, along with the steps required to activate it. 

Key Aspects of the Translate Survey Feature

As its name implies, the “Translate Survey” feature translates surveys into other languages. This is especially useful for businesses and organizations that need to share survey research across countries. 

There are several capabilities that Translate Surveys offers, along with certain characteristics that this feature does not support. The following provides an in-depth account of what the Translate feature supports and does not.

What Translate Surveys supports:

  1. Elite accounts
  2. Translations from Google Translate
    1. Supports ALL the languages of Google Translate — 109 languages in total!
    2. There is no limit in how many translations you can add per survey.
  3. Surveys that are currently running or have reached the preset amount of completes.
  4. Exports of results as a PDF, Crosstab, Excel sheet or SPSS.
  5. Results are updated in real-time.
  6. Can be used in BigQuery if integrated with this PaaS.
  7. Researchers can add their own translations manually if they prefer in on both questions and answers in editing mode.
  8. Can view each edition of the translated survey via the dropdown of translated languages within the survey’s dashboard.
  9. Can translate a question that contains a recall of a previous question’s answer(s).
  10. Can translate a question with Carry Forwarded answers.

What Translate Surveys does NOT support:

  1. Basic accounts
  2. Translations of the drafts
  3. Canceled or failed surveys

How to Incorporate & Use the Translate Surveys Feature 

Now that you know the attributes and limitations of the new Translate Survey tool, let’s get acquainted with using it. The following provides step-by-step instructions on how to incorporate the feature in your surveys and how to use them.

To Activate the Translate Surveys Feature:

  1. In the Pollfish dashboard, go to “All” and find the survey you’d like to apply the Translate Surveys feature to.
  2. Click on the general dropdown menu of your designated survey (activated by clicking on the three dots beside it).
  3. Select Translate Survey. This will open up the survey.
  4. On the right-hand side in the middle of the screen, select the language you would like to translate the survey to by typing it into the field.
    1. All languages that begin with the letters you typed in will appear as options.
  5. You can now translate the questions and multiple choice answers in a twofold way:
    1. By typing in the questions/answers in their corresponding fields manually in the selected language OR
    2. By clicking on the upper right button called Google Translate, in which Google will provide the translations.
  6. If you need to add more languages to translate the survey, click on the + in the box on the right side, adjacent to the box above with the first language you chose to translate the survey to.
  7. Click “save translation” to save the added translations to your survey.

To find the translated results and make exports:

  1. Go to the Pollfish dashboard and find the survey on which you applied the Translate Surveys feature. 
  2. Hit the three-dot button and select “See Results,” which will trigger a new tab with the results of the survey, translated in the language(s) you selected. 
  3. The top-left box will feature a dropdown with the languages you used with the new Translate Survey feature. Select the language you would like to view your survey in.
  4. Scroll to the bottom of each question to select the buttons to view the results as a bar graph or pie chart.
  5. At the top right-hand corner, click on “Export Results.” This will prompt a pop-up in which you can choose the language of the survey you need to download, along with the kind of export you need.

Other Considerations for the Translate Surveys Feature

There are a few other considerations to take note of, including expanding on some of the topics aforementioned.

First off, you can export the surveys to Big Query — only in their translated views. As a side note, after concluding the Translate Surveys process, a three-letter code will appear in the upper left corner of the translated survey in the dashboard. 

Although this feature won’t translate the drafts it can be used as an internal tool in the dashboard, one that allows you to create layers on their surveys in other languages.