Enable a language
To enable a language, add it under Settings → Knowledge → Markets and Languages, run Sync Translations, review a few translated articles, then switch its Active toggle on. New languages start Disabled so you can translate and review before customers see anything.
1. Open the Languages tab
Go to Settings → Knowledge and click the Markets and Languages tab. You’ll see the list of languages already configured, each with an Active / Disabled toggle and a translation coverage panel.
2. Click Add language
Pick a language code from the picker. Atender supports the standard BCP 47 codes:
en— Englishes— Spanishfr— Frenchde— Germannl— Dutchit— Italianpt— Portuguesept-BR— Portuguese (Brazil)sv— Swedishno— Norwegianda— Danishfi— Finnishja— Japanesezh— Chinese (Simplified)
Regional variants (en-GB, pt-BR) are supported when you need them. Use the base code (en, pt) when one variant is enough.
3. The language is created — disabled
A new secondary language starts in Disabled status. The Active toggle is off. Translations have not been generated yet — Atender doesn’t auto-translate on language add, you trigger it explicitly in the next step.
This is by design: translation uses AI inference and costs money. Spinning up translation for a language you’re still evaluating would waste credit.
4. Run translation
Click into the new language and click Sync Translations on the Translation Sync card. This queues translation jobs for every article, category, and subcategory that’s missing a translation; progress polls live, and depending on KB size it takes minutes (small KB, ~50 articles) to longer (hundreds of articles).
Job statuses, retry behavior, priority ordering, and Force Retranslate All are covered in Sync translations.
5. Spot-check a few translations
Before activating, open a few translated articles and read them:
- Switch the article preview to your new language.
- Does the title sound natural?
- Are protected terms (your brand name, product name) preserved untranslated?
- Any awkward phrasings worth a manual fix?
If you find recurring issues with terms that should stay untranslated, add them to the Protected Terms tab — that’s faster than editing every article. For one-off fixes, edit the translation directly.
6. Flip the Active toggle
When you’re satisfied with coverage and quality, switch the language’s Active toggle on. The language goes live on the public help center within seconds. Customers whose browser prefers this language start seeing the translated content.
You can flip the toggle off again at any time — translations are preserved, customers stop seeing the language.
What happens after activation
Nothing auto-translates from here on: article edits and new articles wait for the next Sync Translations run, so set a monthly or quarterly re-sync cadence — see Sync translations. For what counts as “fully translated” in each entity, see Translation completeness.
To take the language offline later — or delete it entirely — see Disable or remove a language. Disabling keeps translations; removing deletes them.
Common gotchas
- No “Pending” state exists. Languages are either Active or Disabled. New languages start Disabled. There’s no automatic flip when translations finish — you toggle Active yourself.
- Translation doesn’t run on save. Editing an article doesn’t queue a re-translation. Run Sync Translations to refresh translations after content changes.
- The default language can’t be removed. Change the default first if you really need to remove it — see Disable or remove a language.
- Protected terms are scoped to the current KB partition or brand. If you see a KB or brand selector in the UI, switch to the target partition before adding brand-specific terms. See Manage protected terms.