How to read feedback in a language you don't speak

Can you triage feedback you cannot read?

Yes, if you separate triage from understanding. Triage asks three questions: is this a bug, an idea or praise, is it urgent, and who needs to see it. A machine translation is usually good enough to answer those questions for most messages. What it is not good enough for is quoting a customer's exact words in a decision, or writing a reply that carries weight.

Treat translation as a sorting tool first. Trust it for the rough meaning, check it when a decision depends on a detail, and never let it be the only record of what the customer said.

How do machine translations help with triage?

Machine translation lets you scan a large inbox quickly. Paste or copy each message into a translation tool, read the English result, and set the type and status. For a bug, the translation often reveals the page, the step and the failure, which is what you need to route it.

Start with the message, not the sender. A short bug report such as "the save button does nothing on mobile" translates reliably. A long, emotional message with idioms or sarcasm needs more care, and you should read the original if the tone matters.

For a fast first pass, keep a short list of the phrases that matter most in each language your customers write in. A bug usually mentions a page, a button, an error or a payment. Watch for those words in the original, even before you translate.

Why keep the original text next to the translation?

The original is the record. A translation loses nuance, drops regional wording and sometimes changes meaning. If a customer later disputes what they said, or if a colleague who reads that language wants to check, the original is what you need.

In practice, keep the original in the feedback message and paste the translation into an internal note. The note is private to your team, so it is a safe place for a working translation. Mark it as machine-generated so nobody mistakes it for the customer's own words.

Do not replace the message with its translation in the spreadsheet. Add a translated column next to the original instead. That way the export stays faithful, and you can filter on the translated text when you need to.

Which language should you reply in?

Reply in the language the customer wrote in. It is the fastest way to show you listened, and it avoids a second round of misunderstanding. Your reply does not need to be perfect, but it does need to be clear and correct on the facts.

Use a translation tool to draft the reply, then read it back in English to check that it says what you intend. For anything that involves money, data or a promise about a fix date, ask a native speaker to review the final text before you send it. A friendly, precise reply in a plain register is better than a long one with errors.

The widget's own text is available in English and Portuguese, and it uses the browser language by default. The hosted feedback page takes a language parameter, so you can offer the form in the language your customers use.

What should you check before trusting a translation?

Check the translation whenever it drives a decision. Four checks cover most cases:

1. The page or product name is correct in the translation.
2. Numbers, dates and error codes match the original exactly.
3. Negations survive, since "does not save" must not become "saves".
4. Sarcasm and idioms are read in context, not word for word.

When the check fails, re-read the original and add a note saying what you found. Over time, those notes show which language pairs or message types the tool handles less well.

A worked example with three messages

For example, suppose three Portuguese messages arrive on the same afternoon. The first reads "Não consigo exportar o relatório, aparece erro na tela." The translation says "I cannot export the report, an error appears on the screen." That is a bug, probably urgent, with a clear failure. The second reads "Seria ótimo ter modo escuro." It translates to "It would be great to have a dark mode," an idea. The third reads "Obrigado, o novo filtro salvou meu dia." That is praise, and it may be worth asking for permission to quote.

Each message is triaged in under a minute. The bug gets an internal note with the translation, a severity guess and a reply in Portuguese that asks for the browser and the step where the error appears. The idea gets a status of new and a note. The praise gets saved for later use.

Handling mixed languages in Escuta Produto

Escuta Produto does not translate messages, so the translation step happens in your own tools. Keep the original message in the inbox, add the translation as an internal note, and use the type filter to focus on bugs first. The product has no tags, so use the status and the note to track what you have checked.

If you connect an AI assistant through the inbox MCP server, it can read and filter feedback for you and help draft translations. Check your own privacy obligations before sending customer messages to any third-party model. The group feedback with an LLM guide covers the privacy questions in more depth.

The triage guide gives the broader workflow for sorting incoming messages. The widget docs explain the data-locale option, which sets the form language for your customers, and the hosted page docs explain the language parameter on the public form.