Create a Multilingual Form

A multilingual form helps one link serve people who prefer different languages. FormHug can translate your form with AI, let you review the wording, automatically match a respondent’s browser language, and still let respondents switch languages manually. This guide uses a Community Health Screening Registration form as the example. It is a good fit because the respondents may include families, older adults, new residents, or community members who should not need to rely on browser translation to understand important registration details.

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Example Form

Keep the form short so the language experience is easy to understand. The same approach works for event registrations, school forms, public-service intake forms, customer feedback surveys, applications, and appointment requests.

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Why Use Native Form Translation

Browser translation can help people read a page, but a form often needs more control:

• Field labels and options should be translated consistently.
• Consent and eligibility text may need review.
• Submit buttons, validation messages, and navigation should match the form language.
• Respondents should be able to switch languages without finding browser tools.
• The form owner should keep one share link instead of creating separate copies.

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Step 1: Create the Source Form

Create the form in the language your team uses to manage it. For many teams, this is English.

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Step 2: Open Language Settings

Open language settings from the form editor toolbar or from Settings -> Languages. The page includes two separate settings:

• Interface language controls built-in form text such as buttons, navigation, and validation messages.
• Content translation translates the form content itself, including questions, options, descriptions, and submission-related content.

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Step 3: Add Translation Languages

Turn on Content translation, click Add a language, and choose the languages you want to support. When you add a language, FormHug starts AI translation automatically. You can add several languages to the same form. FormHug currently supports 10 form languages for this workflow: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

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Step 4: Review Translation Quality

Click Review next to a language to compare the source text with the translated text. Review translations for:

• Form title and description
• Field labels
• Choice options
• Help text
• Consent or policy wording
• Any text shown after submission

You can edit individual translations manually. This is useful when a literal translation is understandable but not the phrase your audience would naturally use.

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Step 5: Share One Link

The public form link stays the same for every language. When a respondent opens the form, FormHug checks the browser language:

• If a matching translation exists, the form opens in that language.
• If no matching translation exists, the form falls back to the original form language.
• The respondent can still switch languages manually from the top of the form.

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Step 6: Check the Respondent Experience

Open the public form and switch to another language to confirm the translated experience. For a community health screening form, this means a Japanese-speaking respondent can read the title, description, required fields, QR code label, and field labels in Japanese while using the same public form link as every other respondent.

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