When it comes to multilingual apps, there are two main concepts to keep in mind:
- Multilingual microcopy (also referred to as localization/translations)
- Multilingual content
Your app can do one or both of these, depending on the experience you're trying to build. Let's dive in!
1. Multilingual microcopy
Requires you to be subscribed to our Business plan
Microcopy is all the little texts that are "built into" the app, and not part of your Title's names, descriptions, tags etc. This includes button labels like "Continue", "Log in", "Cancel" etc.
Per default, Audiorista apps only use one localization, which is your primary app language. If you install the Languages plugin, you can enable support for more localization. Audiorista's apps come with 20+ supported localizations, with the possibility to add more in coordination with your account manager.
Once your app has multiple localizations enabled, the language the user sees will be determined based on their device settings. Example:
- Your app is available in English (primary), German, and French
- Users with their phone set to English will see the button label "Continue"
- Users with their phone set to German will see the button label "Weiter"
- Users with their phone set to Danish will see the button label "Continue", as the app falls back to English if the phone's language is not an available localization
The default transations of microcopy can be overridden to suit your needs; please coordinate with your account manager.
2. Multilingual content
You can upload content in any language you like. When editing a Title, you can also add the content's language to the metadata to facilitate creating dynamic Collections filtered by language. When writing the description and choosing tags for a Title, the natural thing is to match the content's language, but this is ultimately up to you.
Please note that Audiorista does not support localizing Title fields like name, description and tags. If you would like to make the same content available in multiple languages we recommend creating one Title per language.
Taking it one step further with Preferences
If you would like to allow users to choose a language when being onboarded onto the app and then create a different experience depending on their choice, this is possible with our Preferences feature. This would allow you to create an experience such as this:
- Your admins create three menus in the Audiorista Dashboard containing English, German and French content respectively
- User logs into the app for the first time
- User is asked to choose between English, German and French content
- User chooses English
- The app displays the English Menu, which the user can browse
- User goes to Settings and switches to German
- The app now displays the German Menu, which the user can browse
Two things to note here:
- The Preferences feature can be used in the same way to shape different experiences, ex. Default vs Kids mode
- The language of the microcopy is still determined by the device language, regardless of the chosen preferences
If you would like to start using the Preferences feature, please let your account manager know the name and options of the preferences you would like and they will set it up for you.