Multi-lingual country dropdown menus

[EChamberlin8]

Hello,

Our website is in English, French and German, and on our forms we include a country dropdown field. Currently, we just leave the English-language country list in the French and German versions of the form.

I would like to give French and German visitors to our site a country list in their languages, rather than sticking to the English language version.

Is there is a standard best-practice for doing this? We already have a Hubspot property called Country/Region, which includes a list of all countries in English for the Label, and also in English for the Internal Name.

But if we are going to do this in French and German as well, we would need to have two extra labels for each country in French and German, pointing to the same Internal Name.

How have other people tackled this?

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @EChamberlin8,

There are two ways to go about this:

• Create country dropdowns for each language - and then use workflows to keep a main property updated. Not recommended, as this raises a few questions as to what to do in cases of conflicts.
• Use one main property in English, then rename the options directly in the form. This is painful, I'm not going to lie, as you'll open the form, then click the pencil icon next to each option to rename and translate it. From that point on, if - for example - you have just translated all individual options in a form from English to German, you would best clone this form for any additional German form that needs this dropdown. The alternative would be to translate the entire English list in a new form from scratch.

Unfortunately, there is no ideal option but the second one above is definitely the preferred one for me. No data conflicts in HubSpot, great user experience for website visitors, a little bit of one time work for HubSpot admins / users.

Best regards

[EChamberlin8 · Accepted solution]

Thank you, Karsten,

I think I have found an alternative approach, which is that Hubspot's new form editor includes the option to auto-translate the form into whichever language you pick.

This worked well when I tested it just now. In the legacy forms (most of our forms are legacy), there is an option to selec the language of the form, but this doesn't seem to work in the same way:

Do you have any idea why?

Moderator note: While this solution may not address the original poster’s specific situation, it could be helpful for other community members facing similar challenges.

[karstenkoehler]

@EChamberlin8 I was referring to legacy forms, and no, you would have to go the manual route I explained.

The auto-translate option in the new editor makes this easier, of course. Some basics in the new form editor are still missing for me (and most of my clients) to use it, so not an option in most of the cases I manage, unfortunately. If it is for you, then great 🙂

[BérangèreL]

Hi @karstenkoehler 👋 and thanks for clarifying and sharing your experience!

Your feedback on the new form editor is noted, if there’s a key feature you’d like added, let us know so we can keep the team informed.

Appreciate your insights!

Have a lovely day!
Bérangère

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @EChamberlin8,

There are two ways to go about this:

• Create country dropdowns for each language - and then use workflows to keep a main property updated. Not recommended, as this raises a few questions as to what to do in cases of conflicts.
• Use one main property in English, then rename the options directly in the form. This is painful, I'm not going to lie, as you'll open the form, then click the pencil icon next to each option to rename and translate it. From that point on, if - for example - you have just translated all individual options in a form from English to German, you would best clone this form for any additional German form that needs this dropdown. The alternative would be to translate the entire English list in a new form from scratch.

Unfortunately, there is no ideal option but the second one above is definitely the preferred one for me. No data conflicts in HubSpot, great user experience for website visitors, a little bit of one time work for HubSpot admins / users.

Best regards