# Languages

> EmmauOS runs in English and 10 other languages. Each person picks their own, the assessment and its emails follow the taker's language, and your church can translate its own questions.

For: Everyone on the team, Members
Canonical: https://emmauos.com/docs/languages

EmmauOS speaks 11 languages: English, Español, 简体中文, हिन्दी, العربية, Français, বাংলা, Português, Русский, Bahasa Indonesia and اردو. The whole product is translated: the assessment, results, My Path, the staff workspace, emails, these docs and the blog.

## Picking a language

Open the language menu beside the color theme, in the header of every public page. In the workspace it is in your account menu. Your choice is saved to your account, so it follows you to any device you sign in on.

Someone with no account gets the language their browser asks for, and keeps the one they pick on that browser. Anything EmmauOS doesn't speak falls back to English.

## Sharing the assessment in a language

Add `?lang=` and the language's code to your assessment link to open it in that language:

| Language | Code | Language | Code |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Español | `es` | Português | `pt` |
| 简体中文 | `zh` | Русский | `ru` |
| हिन्दी | `hi` | Bahasa Indonesia | `id` |
| العربية | `ar` | اردو | `ur` |
| Français | `fr` | English | `en` |
| বাংলা | `bn` | | |

For example, `/c/your-church?lang=es` for your Spanish service's bulletin. It works on your own domain and on the embed too. The taker can still switch from the menu.

## What follows each person's language

- **The assessment and the result.** EmmauOS keeps the language someone took it in. Their result email, retake reminder and anything else sent about that result goes out in it.
- **Team emails.** The weekly digest, invitations, plan notices and walking-with emails reach each person in the language they picked. Two pastors on one team can read the same digest in two languages.
- **Ask AI.** It answers in the language you are using.
- **Docs and the blog.** Pages open in your language. Links between pages still work across languages.

Arabic and Urdu read right to left, and the whole layout mirrors for them.

## Your own questions in other languages

EmmauOS translates its own statements. Questions your church writes or rewords, and other assessments you keep (APEST, SHAPE or your own), can be translated too, on every paid plan. In **Settings → Assessment library**, choose **Translations** on an assessment.

- **Type them in.** Pick a language and fill in each line beside the words as written.
- **Send a translator a link.** **Translator link** makes a link for one language. Whoever opens it sees only those words: no sign-in, no people, no results. It works for 30 days, and you can turn it off any time.
- **Use a spreadsheet.** **Export** gives a row per line and a column per language. Fill in what you can and **Import** it back. Empty cells change nothing.

A language reaches people only once every line has a translation, so nobody gets a test that switches language halfway. Until then, people taking it in that language see your words as written. Reword a question later and that line needs translating again.

If your questions aren't written in English, set **Written in**, so people reading in that language see them as typed.

Before anything is translated, someone on your team confirms your church may translate these questions and share them with a translator. For a publisher's assessment, that means your licence allows it. EmmauOS keeps who confirmed it, and when.

## What stays as you wrote it

Your church's other words are never translated: names, ministries, teams, resources, your results wording, and what people write in their answers. If your church runs in two languages, write those words the way both congregations will read them.

Gift names written to [Planning Center](/docs/planning-center) fields stay in English, so your lists and filters there keep working whatever language your staff use. Films in these docs are narrated in English.