Best Practices: Translating Multi-Country Surveys
aytm supplies respondents from over 50 countries and 25 languages. If you plan to field the same survey in multiple countries you will need a separate survey for each country. If you plan to field a survey in multiple languages in one country, learn more in Building a Multilingual Panel Survey.
1. Program a Master survey
Creating an English master version allow us, upon request, to merge your data from other countries into the English version post-fielding. Additionally, having an English version is an insurance policy; you always have a backup or reference point.
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2. Make Clones for each version of your survey
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3. Name Survey clones
As you create clones, be sure to rename the clone with a standard naming convention to ensure easy searchability and organization. You can rename in two ways.
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4. Select survey country and language for clones
Note: Some countries may offer more than one language; learn more about fielding a survey in multiple languages within one country using Multilingual Panel Surveys. If you do not see your desired language, please reach out to our support team, or your account manager for assistance. |
View the countries and languages we currently support.
5. Add [hide] logic to extra answer options or questions
If you have an answer set that differs by country, or question(s) that do not apply to all countries, but you want to merge the data later, be sure to retain the full answer sets (in the same order) and all questions in all versions of the survey.
Note: Do NOT rearrange answer options or question order per survey—if you would like to merge the data later, the merged version will hold all possible answer options and all possible questions; retaining the structure equals time and cost savings! |
6. Send clone links to translators
By cloning the Master English version, and changing the country/language, you retain the original survey structure, while creating an independent survey to share with a translator on your team. They will be able to translate the survey directly in the platform, but will not have the ability to change the structure of the survey.
If you need translation services, please contact your account manager for a cost quote. |
7. Working with a Translator
A few notes if working with a translator and/or translating with a draft:
Pro tip: If translating with a draft, a good rule of thumb is to highlight only the text that needs translation. If you need translation services, please contact your account manager for a cost quote. |
8. Translating with a Draft
When a study is to be fielded in a language other than English, and the person or supplier completing the translation is not an aytm user, we recommend using the aytm platform's Word draft export and draft upload features.
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9. Uploading a Survey Draft
Once the translation is complete and saved to your device, you are ready to upload your translated survey draft. Open a new survey and set the desired Target Market. Once the Target Market details are to your liking, on the Survey Editor page:
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10. Requesting and working with Merged Surveys
If your surveys have the same structure (same number and order of questions, same number of answer options; as when you cloned the Master English Version), after all surveys have completed fielding, reach out to your account manager with the survey IDs to request a merge. The merged survey Results page will provide you the ability to filter by country (look for source_survey_id in the Filters menu, and/or set up a Virtual Question (VQ) by country. |
Want to learn more about translating surveys? Check out our course in Lighthouse Academy!