Language and Translations

Show your survey in the language of your respondent

Open a survey and go to Settings → Language.

These settings apply to this specific survey only. To translate every survey at once, use the account language settings link at the bottom of the survey's Language tab. Account-wide translations are used by any survey that doesn't have its own language settings turned on.

If your customers speak multiple languages, you can show each of them your survey in their own language.

A customer browsing your store in French sees the French version of your survey. A customer browsing in Spanish sees the Spanish version. If a customer's language has no translation, they see your default copy.

You control every translation, so you don't have to rely on Google Translate getting it right. Translations are stored in Zigpoll, not in Shopify, so there is nothing to set up in Shopify's translation apps.

How Zigpoll picks the language

Where the survey shows	Language used
On your site (pop-up, embed, exit intent)	The language the page declares (its <html lang> attribute). Shopify themes set it to the storefront language the shopper chose, including per-market languages and translated URLs like /fr/. If the page doesn't declare one, Zigpoll uses the visitor's browser language.
Shopify checkout, Thank You, Order Status and customer account pages	The language the customer is checking out in, as reported by Shopify.
Survey links (survey.zigpoll.com/...)	The visitor's browser language.
Email and SMS invitations	See How Zigpoll knows the customer's language below.

Zigpoll doesn't use the visitor's IP address or a VPN location to pick the language.

There is no language picker or switch button inside the survey itself. Respondents don't choose a language: Zigpoll picks it from the rules above, and you can force one with ?lang= (next section). To offer a choice, link to the survey once per language, each link with its own ?lang=.

Force a language with ?lang=

To force a language regardless of the browser, add ?lang= and a language code to the survey link. This also works on the address of the page the survey shows on. For example:

• https://survey.zigpoll.com/SURVEY_ID?lang=fr

• https://survey.zigpoll.com/SURVEY_ID?lang=pt-BR

The code must match a language you've added to the survey. Otherwise the default copy is shown.

Changing the default language

Your default copy is what everyone sees when their language has no translation. The questions and answer options use whatever you wrote them in. The survey buttons and messages start in English. To change them:

1. Open the survey and go to Settings → Language, then the Buttons & Hints tab.

2. Edit the Default column directly, or use Translate Default CTAs to translate every default button, hint and message into another language at once. Reset Default CTAs puts them back.

3. Click Save Changes.

Launcher text is edited on Settings → Design → On-Site, not here.

Where to find auto-translations

Auto translating your survey

When you add a language, one click of Auto translate translates everything in that language card:

• Questions tab: your questions and answer options.

• Buttons & Hints tab: buttons and actions, words and phrases, error and alert messages, launcher content, the reward banner, and your email and SMS invitation copy.

You can edit any translation by hand afterwards.

Click Save Changes, or your translations won't be saved and you'll have to redo them.

Previewing your translations

The preview panel on the Language tab shows the language card you're editing, live, including unsaved changes. Switch between three views to check each channel before you save: survey, email, and SMS.

Translating action button URLs

On questions with action buttons, each language card has its own Button URL. Use it when, for example, your French customers should land on your French site. Leave it blank to use the button's default link. Auto translate never changes URLs, so set them yourself for each language.

Right-to-left languages

Surveys in right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu, and others) display right-to-left automatically. The layout, rating scales, matrix grids, and inputs are all mirrored. To force a direction yourself, use the Text Direction design setting.

Region-specific languages

You can add both a base language and region-specific variants, for example fr (French) and fr-CA (French, Canada). The language picker lists variants under their base language, including zh-TW (Chinese, Traditional, Taiwan), pt-BR (Portuguese, Brazil), es-MX (Spanish, Mexico) and en-GB (English, United Kingdom).

A visitor with a fr-CA locale sees:

1. Your fr-CA translations, where you've provided them.

2. Your fr translations for anything you haven't translated into fr-CA.

3. Your default copy for anything left.

Visitors from any other French-speaking region get fr. This works everywhere the survey appears, including Shopify checkout and Thank You / Order Status pages.

Translating your Email and SMS invitations

Each language card also has an Email Copy and an SMS Message section. Fill these in, and Zigpoll sends the matching language whenever it knows the customer's language. A French customer receives your French email or text. Everyone else receives your default copy.

You can translate:

• Email: subject, header, body, button, and footer

• SMS: the message text (max 125 characters)

Any field you leave blank uses your default copy, so you can translate only the subject line if that's all you need. The email body opens in an editor window. It supports the same template variables as your default email, so variables like {{ first_name }} work in every language.

Your default email and SMS copy is still edited on the survey's Email and SMS tabs. The language cards only hold the translations.

How Zigpoll knows the customer's language

The language is detected automatically depending on how the survey is delivered:

Delivery method	Language source
Shopify checkout / Thank You / Order Status / customer account surveys	The buyer's Shopify locale
Shopify order events (paid, fulfilled, delivered)	The order's customer locale from Shopify
Abandoned checkout emails	The checkout's customer locale from Shopify
Shopify Flow actions	The customer's locale from Shopify
Shopify customer segment campaigns	Each customer's locale from Shopify
CSV campaigns (email and SMS)	An optional locale (or lang / language) column — e.g. fr or fr-CA
Stripe events	The checkout locale or the customer's preferred language
Nudge reminders	The language of the original send
Manually pasted recipient lists	Not available — default copy is sent

Region-specific languages work the same way they do for surveys. A fr-CA customer gets your fr-CA translations where provided, then fr, then your default copy.

When a message is sent in a customer's language, the survey link carries that language too. A customer who clicks through from a Japanese email or text sees the survey in Japanese, whatever their browser settings. This applies to Zigpoll survey links. Custom links are left untouched.

How translated answers are reported

Answers are always recorded under your original (default-language) option, whichever language the customer saw. A customer who picks Très satisfait on the French survey is counted under Very satisfied. Results, charts and exports combine every language into one set of options. Question logic matches the original options too, so you only build it once.

Write-Ins are kept exactly as the customer typed them, in their own language.

Seeing old or unexpected question text for some customers? Translations are separate copies of your questions. If you change a question or its options after translating, update or re-run Auto translate for each language, or customers in that language keep seeing the old wording.