Languages in Presence
Presence involves three different languages, and they are deliberately allowed to disagree. That sounds like a complication until you meet the situation it exists for: a UK agency setting up a Polish client, whose staff work in English and whose client wants everything in Polish.
- Your interface language is what Silktide's own screens are in - buttons, menus, headings, labels. It belongs to you rather than to the account, and you can change it whenever you like in My settings.
- A workspace's report language is what everything Silktide writes for that comes out in. Set per workspace, in Settings \u2192 Workspace.
- A region's language is what language the questions are actually asked in when Silktide measures. Set per region, in Settings \u2192 Regions.
Nobody has to think about this most of the time. A workspace's report language starts out matching the workspace's first region, and if you work in the same language as your customers, all three agree and stay agreed.
Which language will something be in?
| What you are looking at | Language |
|---|---|
| Screens, buttons, menus, column headings | Your interface language |
| AI report bodies | The workspace's report language |
| News stories | The workspace's report language |
| Suggested tasks and draft goals | The workspace's report language |
| Answers Silktide Agent gives you in chat | Your interface language |
| The questions put to AI assistants and search engines | The region's language |
| What assistants said back | Whatever the assistant replied in |
The split that matters is between the product and what the product writes. Silktide's chrome is translated for you, personally, and follows you around. A report is a finished document with an author and a language, much like a file in a shared drive: it belongs to the workspace it was written for, not to whoever opens it.
Why a report does not change language when you do
Changing your interface language relabels Silktide. It does not rewrite anything Silktide has already written, and it cannot: an AI report is generated once, in one language, and then it is a fixed document. There is no translation step.
So if you switch your interface to French, a report written in German stays in German. Silktide tells you when that is the case, so a report in an unexpected language reads as a setting rather than a fault.
Changing the workspace's report language works the same way in the other direction: it decides what gets written next. Reports, news stories and tasks that already exist keep the language they were written in.
To get a report in a different language:
- Open Settings \u2192 Workspace and set Report language.
- Re-run the report.
You will then have both, each in its own language, which is usually what people wanted anyway.
Working across languages
A few arrangements that are normal, not edge cases:
- An agency serving several countries. One workspace per client, each with its own report language. Your own interface stays in your language; each client reads their reports in theirs.
- A large organization in many countries. Each country's workspace reports in that country's language, while the group's analysts read the same screens in English.
- Targeting a workspace you do not speak. Regions measure in the local language, so you find out what assistants say there; the report language decides whether the write-up comes back in that language or yours.
The report language is a locale such as en-GB or en-US, not a bare language, because the language alone does not settle everything the writing needs. It sets spelling ("organisation" or "organization"), date order, and currency conventions. British and American readers both read English, and both notice when the other one wrote it.
Related
- Workspace screen - where a workspace's report language is set
- Regions screen - where questions are asked from, and in what language
- My settings - your own interface language
- Silktide Agent - which language chat replies in
- Strategy - the reports this affects