Multilingual content

A multilingual digital guide is a powerful tool that helps you reach a wide audience and engage with visitors from all over the world. To support global engagement and accessibility, Bloomberg Connects is integrated with Google Translate so the app's controls and your guide's content are automatically available in 50+ languages.

If your organization can provide human translations through in-house or third-party translation services, you can replace the Google Translate content with your own content.

New organizations are automatically enabled for Google Translate. If your organization needs to opt out of the Google Translate integration, reach out to your relationship manager.

Language selection in the app

The Connects app detects your device language and shows that language automatically. If the device is set to a language that Connects does not yet support, the app defaults to English.

To change the language that you see across all guides, select a language at the top of the Explore screen.

When you're viewing a guide in any language other than that guide's default language, a disclaimer appears to let you know that:

• Some content in the guide may be provided by Google Translate.
• Any content not yet available in the selected language will appear in the guide's default language.

This disclaimer tells visitors what to expect from the content.

Translation logic

Most of the content in your guide can be automatically translated by Google Translate. You can add your own translations to replace Google's.

Language and locale matching

The Bloomberg Connects app tries to match the language and locale of a visitor's device using the following logic:

1. Show content that matches the visitor's device language and locale (for example, Spanish (Spain)).
2. If the visitor's device locale is not available, show content in the same language using another supported locale (for example, Spanish (Latin America)).
3. If the visitor's device language is not available, show the guide's default language (for example, English).

Guide content

Automated translations available

• Exhibitions
• Items
• Images (including alt text)
• Creators
• Audio (text only, not the audio file)
• Videos (text only, not the video file or the subtitles or captions file)
• Organization description
• Home screen section names
• Dates

Automated translations not available

• Media files (for example, MP3 or MP4 files)*
• Video caption/subtitles*
• Related content relationship types
• Map location pin names
• Map images with embedded labels
• Organization formal and friendly names
• Addresses

* Manually add translated versions of your media files and captions and subtitles. Consider creating AI audio in other languages to expand your access to key audiences. For more on adding multilingual audio content, see the Add audio in multiple languages section below.

App controls

Automated translations available

• Navigation controls (for example, Home)
• Standard field names (for example, Description)
• App-level headers (for example, Related, Items in This Exhibition)

Automated translations not available

• None

Exclude text from Google Translate

You can exclude words or phrases from Google Translate even if most of your content is automatically translated. This can help if you want to keep certain words in the original language, like your organization's name or the title of an artwork.

Exclusions do not carry across different pieces of content. For example, if your organization's name appears in three different Item descriptions, you'll need to exclude it each time.

Steps

1. Highlight the text you don't want translated (for example, your organization's name). Then click the Exclude from Google Translate icon.

   

   The text that will not be translated is outlined in gray in the CMS. You can add additional styling to the text if needed.

2. Click Save.

The selected text is excluded from Google Translate. In the app, the selected text appears in the original language. Where possible, review the translated output to make sure that the intended meaning is retained.

To undo, highlight the selection and click the icon again.

Add human translated content in the CMS

Google Translate is a valuable tool for providing multilingual content quickly and for many languages, but it's not always perfect. Automated translations can lack the nuance and sensitivity of a human translation. You can replace any Google Translate translation with your own custom, human translation to make sure you stay in control of your stories.

Your guide can include a mix of Google Translate and human translations. For example, you might pay a human translator to translate a major exhibition into a few languages that are important to your community. You can add these custom translations to that exhibition's content, and let Google Translate handle the rest of your guide and the rest of the languages.

The following topic explains how to provide your own translations.

Part 1: Translating content

Steps

1. From the languages drop-down menu at the top of any content form, select Add Translation.

   

2. Select the language for which you want to add translated content (for example, Spanish (Latin America)). Then click Add.

   

3. In the blue editable fields that appear, enter the translated files, content, or metadata. If you leave a field blank, it won't appear in the app (even if you have content in another language).

   Note: Some fields (like Display Period) do not support translation and are inactive. You can translate linked objects, like media files and related content, only in their own forms.

   

4. Click Save.

Part 2: Expose custom translations in the app

Steps

1. On the About page, under Languages, click Edit.

   

2. In the Edit Languages window that appears, select the languages in which you have provided translated content, then click Save.

Add audio in multiple languages

Audio can play an important role in your guide. When you offer audio in more than one language, your story reaches more visitors. However, limited resources can make it hard to offer the same audio in every language that you support.

Connects doesn't translate audio files automatically. Instead, you can add a separate audio file for each supported language. For each language, you can upload a recording or create AI audio.

For example, imagine that your guide's default language is English (US). Your audience includes visitors who speak Spanish (Latin America) and visitors who speak French. A staff member who speaks Spanish recorded Spanish versions of your audio files. No one on your staff speaks French, so you use AI audio for the French versions.

This is how you can provide audio content in English, Spanish, and French using the resources available.

Steps

1. Add the English audio.
   1. Upload your English audio file.
   2. Enter the title and other details in English.
   3. In the Transcript field, paste your transcript. You can also generate a transcript using AI.
   4. Save.
2. Add the Spanish audio.
   1. Open the audio that you added in Step 1. From the languages drop-down menu at the top of the form, select Spanish (Latin America).
   2. Select Upload Audio File and choose your Spanish audio file.
   3. Enter the title and other details in Spanish.
   4. In the Transcript field, paste your Spanish transcript, or generate a transcript using AI.
   5. Save.
3. Add the French audio.
   1. In a new browser tab, open Google Translate or another translation service. Translate your English transcript into French. This is your French script.
   2. In the CMS, open the audio that you added in Step 1. From the languages drop-down menu at the top of the form, select French.
   3. Click Create AI Audio, then use your French script to create audio using AI.
   4. In the Transcript field, paste your French script, or generate a transcript using AI.
   5. Save.

Preview translations in the app

You can use the Connects app’s internal mode to preview translated content, just like you can preview any other content changes in your guide. For more, see Preview draft content in the app.

You can preview:

• Custom translations saved as draft content
• Google Translate translations of draft content