Glossary A–ZLetter M
Multilingual content
Multilingual content means that screen content is offered in more than one language so that people who do not speak the local language can also understand the messages.
The languages can alternate, appear side by side or change according to place and time.
In practice there are three approaches. With alternation, the screen shows the same content in several languages one after another, for example every few seconds. With side-by-side display, two languages appear on one creative at the same time, which takes up space. With assignment, each location or time of day receives the appropriate language, so an airport terminal differs from a rural branch. Waiting areas in public offices, hospitals, hotels and trade fairs often use multilingual content.
Operators should bear in mind that translations vary in length; German text is often longer than English and then breaks the template. Languages with a different script need fonts containing all their characters, and languages such as Arabic or Hebrew run from right to left. Machine translations should be checked by someone who knows the language. When languages alternate, each version must stay up long enough to be read.