Setting your Contacts’ Language Preferences

Using a Flow

Use the Update the Contact action to update your contacts’ language preferences from within a flow. Contacts will then receive messages in their preferred languages if the flow they’re interacting with has been translated.

In the example below, we’re asking our contacts which language they prefer – English or Spanish. Once the action evaluates their responses for language preference, contacts will pass through one of two Update the Contact actions we’ve added for each language. They’ll then receive the final message in their preferred language (if translated!).

Once we’ve updated the contact’s language preference, you can send a translated message. In the example flow above, you can see the English translation, but we’ve also got a translation:

Review our article on translating multi-language flows to see how to translate your messages.

From the Contacts Tab

To set a contact’s language preference via the Contacts tab:

1. Navigate to the Contacts tab, then click the contact whose language you want to update.
2. Click on the ☰ menu icon and select the “Edit” option.
3. The Edit Contact dialogue will appear. Click the “Language” menu to select a language from the primary and secondary languages you’ve added to your account, then click “Ok.”

Please note:

1. The default language contact field, representing preferred language, is visible through the following pathway: navigate to contacts tab > click contact > click ☰ menu > select edit. A contact’s language preference can be referenced using the @contact.language variable, returning its ISO 639-3 standardized nomenclature (Spanish becomes ‘spa’).
2. You’ll need to translate your flows into each of the secondary languages you’ve added to your account page.

Using a Contact Import

You can add a column titled “Language” containing the ISO 639-3 language code (e.g. ‘spa’ for Spanish) to a contact import to set your contact’s preferred languages. Note that all additional languages must first be added to your account via your account page.

See our guide on importing and exporting contacts.