Configuring Language Settings
Language Settings controls which languages your portal offers. Adding a language here makes it selectable for users, available in the Translation Studio, and eligible to be set as your organization's default. This page covers the language lifecycle: adding languages, activating and deactivating them, and how a user ends up seeing one.
For translating your portal's text once a language is active, see Using the Translation Studio.
Where Language Settings Lives
Language Settings is the second tab of the Translation Studio, at Setup > Manage > Translation Studio > Language Settings.
Access requirements. Administrators have access by default. Other internal users can be granted access with the Enable Translation Studio Access delegation on their Security Role (Setup > Security > Security Roles). The delegation applies to internal users only; partner and customer users cannot be granted it.
Desktop only. The Translation Studio, including this tab, is built for desktop screens. On a small screen it shows a message asking you to use a larger display.
How Languages Work on Your Portal
Three ideas govern everything on this page:
- English is always active. English is the master language. It is included in your active languages automatically, it cannot be deactivated, and it does not appear as something you add. Every untranslated value falls back to its English master value.
- Your organization's default language is the one new users receive, and the one users fall back to if their own preference is unavailable. It is set separately, in Organization Settings → General tab → Locale Settings → Default Language.
- Active versus inactive. Only active languages appear in user language menus and in the Translation Studio. Deactivating a language does not delete its translations, but it does move users off it. See the warning below.
The portal language menu that lets users switch languages appears only when two or more languages are active. On a portal with English alone, there is nothing to switch between, and the menu stays hidden.
Which Languages You Can Add
Ten languages can be added, in addition to English. The current list and its language codes are documented in Using the Translation Studio.
Language codes matter when you work with translations in bulk or through the API, and the tab shows each one in a Code column. Note that some codes are region-specific, such as pt-BR and es-MX. Each language is listed with its English name followed by its native name, for example: "French - Français".
Adding a Language
- Go to Setup > Manage > Translation Studio and open the Language Settings tab.
- From the Select a language to add list, choose the language you want.
- Click Add Language.
The language is saved immediately, with no separate save step, and a confirmation message appears. Newly added languages are always active; there is no option to add one in an inactive state. Once added, a language becomes selectable by users and available to translate in the Translation Studio.
Languages already on your portal do not appear in the list, so you cannot add the same language twice.
Activating and Deactivating a Language
Each row on the Language Settings tab has an Active switch. Toggling it saves right away, with no separate save step.
Important: deactivating a language reassigns users. When you deactivate a language, every user whose language preference is set to it is moved to your organization's default language. This happens automatically and is not reversible by re-activating the language: those users stay on the default until they change their own preference again. Check who is using a language before you turn it off.
Two rules constrain what you can deactivate:
- Your organization's default language cannot be deactivated. Attempting it returns the message "Organization's default language cannot be deactivated." To retire the default language, first set a different default in Organization Settings, then deactivate the old one.
- English cannot be deactivated, because it is the master language every fallback depends on.
Deactivating a language keeps its translations. Re-activating it later restores them, and it becomes selectable again without any re-translation work.
Removing a Language
Languages cannot be removed from the Language Settings tab. Deactivating a language is the supported way to withdraw it: it disappears from user language menus, while its translations remain available in Translation Studio for reference.
Setting the Default Language
Your organization's default language is not set on this tab. It is in Organization Settings:
- Go to Setup > Manage > Organization Settings.
- Open the General tab.
- Click Edit on Locale Settings.
- Set Default Language.
- Save.
Only active languages can be chosen. For the other fields on this screen, see Organization Settings: General Tab.
The default language determines the language for new users, the language users are moved to when their own language is deactivated, and the fallback for anyone without a personal preference.
A related setting, Language Flags, is on the Application tab of Organization Settings, in the Branding section. It appears only when your portal has more than one active language. When it is enabled, the portal language menu shows country flag icons; when it is disabled, the menu shows a globe icon instead.
How a User Gets Their Language
A signed-in user's language comes from the Language field on their user record, which can only be set to an active language. Users can change it themselves in their personal settings, and administrators can change it on the user record.
When a user picks a language from the portal language menu, that choice is saved to their user record permanently. It is not a temporary, session-only switch, so a user who changes language in the menu has changed their profile preference.
Guests who are not signed in are handled differently: their choice is stored in a browser cookie rather than on a user record, so it lasts for that browser only.
Content That Carries Its Own Language
Most localization happens by translating your portal's labels and text in the Translation Studio. Separately, a few record types carry a language of their own, so you can publish parallel content per language:
- Article Types and articles. An Article Type has a Language, and so does each article within it. Article Types can also show a language filter to readers. Note that once an Article Type has published articles in a given language, its own Language cannot be changed away from the languages those articles use.
- Courses. A course has a Language, and a new chapter inherits its course's language.
Other modules localize through translated labels rather than through per-record language settings.
Troubleshooting
A language is missing from a user's language menu. Confirm the language is active on the Language Settings tab. Also confirm at least two languages are active, since the menu is hidden on a single-language portal.
A language is missing from the Translation Studio. The Studio only lists active languages. Activate it on the Language Settings tab and reload.
Users unexpectedly switched to a different language. Check whether their language was recently deactivated. Deactivating a language moves everyone using it to the organization's default.
The default language cannot be deactivated. This is expected. Set a different default in Organization Settings first.
For translation problems rather than language availability, see Translation Studio Troubleshooting.
See More
Using the Translation Studio >>