Assistants and languages
An Assistant answers in the language of each question, whatever language its Instructions and knowledge are written in. The Embedded Assistant's Language setting changes only the words of its panel. For content in several languages, how you divide it between Assistants decides how reliable the answers are.
The language of answers
No setting chooses it. A visitor who asks in French gets an answer in French, even from English pages; the model translates as it answers. Setting names and labels stay as your knowledge spells them, so a Spanish answer drawn from English pages gives the English labels the visitor sees in an English product.
To fix the language, say so in the Instructions, for example Always answer in the language of the visitor's question. or Always answer in French, whatever language the question uses. See Write an Assistant's Instructions.
Answers are strongest in English and in widely published languages. In languages with less published text, larger models hold up better, so compare models in Preview with questions in your visitors' languages. See Models and reasoning.
The Embedded Assistant's language
Language on the Install tab, one of English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, sets the words of the Embedded Assistant's panel: its button, its placeholder text and buttons, and the messages it shows when it can't answer. It doesn't change the language of answers. See Set the Embedded Assistant's appearance and language.
The Platform has no language setting for the Reverb Assistant.
Content in several languages
Your content | Use |
|---|---|
The same content translated into several languages | One Assistant per language, each with that language's knowledge and Instructions written for its audience. Every search stays within one language, which is the most reliable setup, and answers link to that language's pages. |
Different content in each language, such as a general manual in English and regional topics in another language | One Assistant with all of it. Keep product names, setting names and keywords the same in every language, so a search can find content across languages. |
Don't put translated copies of the same content in one Assistant: searches split between the copies, and answers become less consistent.
With one Assistant per language:
For Reverb 2.0 help, paste each language's Assistant ID into that language's target. See Connect the Reverb Assistant to Reverb 2.0 help.
For a website, put each Assistant's script tag on its language's pages, and start each import at that language's folder, such as
https://example.com/fr/, so it reads only those pages. See Import a website.Each Assistant in deployment counts toward your plan's limit on Assistants in deployment. See The plan's limit.
Language and cost
An answer costs by how much text the model reads and writes, as the model measures it. The same answer measures longer in most languages than in English, and longer still in scripts such as Japanese, so answering a non-English audience costs somewhat more per question.
Test each language
Run your question list in every language visitors use. See Test answers with a question list.
Have a fluent speaker write the questions the way visitors would ask them, rather than translating the list.
When visitors ask in one language about content in another, make most of the list do the same.
Check that each link or citation opens a page in the visitor's language.
Include trick questions in every language.
Have a native reader judge whether the answers read well.