Why global language rankings mislead
It is tempting to start from a list of the most spoken languages in the world. Those rankings describe the planet, not your audience. A cooking channel, a B2B accounting tool and a tutoring service will have completely different best second languages, and none of them is predicted by global speaker counts. Your own data is smaller but far more relevant, and you already have it.
This article stays on choosing languages. For how those choices fit into a wider plan with content tiers and budgets, see video localization strategy.
Signals already in your analytics
Look for five kinds of evidence, ideally over the last six to twelve months:
- Audience geography: views and watch time by country in your video platform, and sessions by country in web analytics for pages that embed video.
- Traffic sources by region: search terms and referring sites in other languages suggest people are already looking for your topic in that language.
- Subtitle and caption usage: some platforms report how often viewers switch on subtitles or auto-translated captions, a strong hint that they want another language. Check what your platform actually exposes, since these reports vary and change.
- Comments and messages: requests for a translation, or comments written in another language, are direct demand.
- Support and sales data: tickets, demo requests and sign-ups from a country, especially where your team struggles to answer in English.
Weight signals that take effort above passive ones. A viewer who writes to ask for a Portuguese version tells you more than a thousand impressions from Brazil.
Countries are not languages
Analytics usually report countries; you translate into languages. The conversion needs care:
- One country, several languages: India, Switzerland, Belgium and Canada all need a decision about which language your audience prefers for your kind of content. Many Indian viewers of technical content watch in English, while others prefer Hindi.
- One language, many countries: Spanish across Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Spain, or Arabic across North Africa and the Gulf. Adding those countries together can turn several modest markets into one large language opportunity.
- Regional variants: Spanish and Portuguese differ by region in vocabulary and accent. Decide whether one version can serve every region or whether the largest one deserves its own.
- English as a second language: many viewers in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands watch English content comfortably, so traffic from there may not mean demand for Swedish or Dutch versions.
Translating video for regional audiences covers variants in more depth.
Market fit beyond audience size
An audience that cannot become customers, learners or employees is a weaker case, however big it looks. Before committing, ask whether you can serve the market: can people buy, sign up or enroll there, is the product available, do you ship there, can someone answer comments and support requests in that language, and does any regulation apply to your content? A smaller language where you have a sales team and paying customers often beats a larger one where you have no presence at all.
A simple scoring sheet
Score each candidate language from 1 to 5 on each row, then rank by total. Keep the sheet; it answers the question of why a language was or was not chosen when someone asks six months later.
- Existing audience
- Views, watch time and sessions from countries where this is the main language.
- Active demand
- Comments, requests, search terms and subtitle usage in or for this language.
- Ability to serve
- Sales, support, product availability and legal readiness in that market.
- Review capacity
- Whether you have, or can hire, a fluent reviewer for this language.
- Content fit
- How much of your library works in this market without heavy cultural adaptation.
Suppose a channel teaching spreadsheet skills sees steady views from Mexico, Colombia and Spain, regular comments asking for Spanish, a sizable Brazilian audience that rarely comments, and growing traffic from Germany where viewers seem comfortable in English. Scoring might put Spanish first (audience across three countries, explicit requests, a Spanish-speaking support contractor), Portuguese second, and German last despite the traffic, because demand for a German version is unproven. The first phase translates the top 15 tutorials into Spanish only, then revisits the sheet.
What each additional language really costs
Each language multiplies three costs. Processing is the smallest: with mydubly, a 10-minute video with an AI voice track costs 500 credits (50¢) per language, and subtitles and transcripts alone cost 10 credits (1¢). Review is larger, because a fluent person has to check every translated video, or at least the important ones. Maintenance is the hidden one: every time a source video changes, each language version needs updating, along with titles, descriptions and help material.
That is why adding languages one at a time, with a review after each, is safer than launching five at once. The video translation cost guide breaks down the processing side.
Mistakes to avoid when choosing languages
- Translating into a language because it is large worldwide, without evidence that your audience speaks it.
- Ignoring how well your audience in a given country already follows English.
- Treating every Spanish-speaking or Arabic-speaking country as identical without checking which variant suits them.
- Choosing a language with nobody available to review, so errors reach viewers unchecked.
- Reading a spike from one viral video as lasting demand.
Which languages mydubly can produce
mydubly translates into 21 languages: English, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese. Spanish offers Latin America and Spain voice accents and Portuguese offers Brazil and Portugal voice accents, while the written translation uses one model per language. Chinese output is Simplified Chinese, Arabic is Modern Standard Arabic and Norwegian is Bokmål, which matters if your audience reads Traditional Chinese or expects a spoken dialect. Each language has its own page, for example Spanish or Hindi, and the spoken source language is detected automatically, so you only choose the target.
Where to go next
Build the scoring sheet from your own analytics, pick the top language, and translate a handful of your strongest videos into it. Measure for a few months before adding the next one. When you have chosen your first language, run the pilot through the video translator.
Frequently asked questions
Should I translate into English first if my videos are in another language?
Often, because English reaches many viewers who watch it as a second language. Still check your analytics: if your audience is concentrated in one region, a neighboring language may serve it better. Pages such as Hindi to English cover that direction.
How much data do I need before choosing a language?
Enough to see a steady pattern rather than a spike, typically several months of country and traffic data plus some direct requests. With little data, translate one or two strong videos into the most likely language as a test.
Can one Spanish version serve both Latin America and Spain?
Often yes for informational content, especially if the script avoids regional slang. Pick the voice accent closest to your largest audience, and produce a second version only if viewers in the other region respond poorly.
What if my audience is spread thinly across many countries?
Group countries by language before deciding, since several small markets that share a language can add up. If no language stands out, subtitles in a few languages are a cheaper way to test demand than voice tracks.
Should I drop a language that underperforms?
Give it a fair period with properly translated titles and descriptions first, because poor discoverability is a common cause. If it still underperforms, stop adding new videos in that language but keep the existing ones published.