Which languages are available
What this covers
What appears in the language list and why, what to expect from a newly added language, and how to ask for one that is missing. No special permission needed.
The list is what is ready
The languages you can pick are the ones Tabledoo has actually translated. Nothing to install, nothing to download — a language appears in the list when it is ready and can be chosen immediately.
Tabledoo currently supports:
| Language | Shown as |
|---|---|
| English | English |
| Spanish | Español |
| French | Français |
| German | Deutsch |
| Italian | Italiano |
| Portuguese | Português |
| Dutch | Nederlands |
| Greek | Ελληνικά |
| Russian | Русский |
| Arabic | العربية |
| Chinese | 中文 |
| Japanese | 日本語 |
Each is shown in its own language, so a Greek speaker looks for Ελληνικά rather than "Greek".
Your list may be shorter. What you see reflects the languages with translations in place right now, so if one above is missing it is not yet ready.
What to expect from a new language
A language becomes selectable once it is genuinely useful, not once it is perfect. So a recently added one may be partly translated.
Where a particular phrase has not been translated yet, English is shown for that phrase. You get a mostly-translated interface with occasional English, rather than blanks or error codes.
That is the right trade — a language nobody can use until it is 100% complete helps nobody — but it is worth knowing so a stray English button is not mistaken for a fault. Coverage improves over time without you doing anything.
English is always available
It is the base language everything is translated from, and the fallback for anything missing. It can never disappear from the list.
A new language may take a day to appear
The list is remembered for up to 24 hours to keep the app fast. So a language that has just become available may not show in your settings immediately.
If you have been told a language is ready and cannot see it, wait a day and look again before reporting anything.
Asking for a language
If the language you need is not there, ask (link Reporting a problem). Requests genuinely inform what gets translated next, and a restaurant that needs a language is a much stronger signal than a guess.
Worth including when you ask:
- The language, and the country or region
- Whether you need it for your staff, for your guests, or both — those are different jobs and the guest-facing side is usually more urgent
- Roughly how many people it would serve
In the meantime
Two things work regardless of whether your language is in the list:
- Your own content is always in your language. Guest names, notes, table names, special requests and your intro text are stored exactly as you type them and are never translated. So you can run in English while everything you have written is in your own language.
- Your menu can be translated independently of the app's languages, into the languages your guests read (link Languages your guests see).
For a restaurant whose priority is guests rather than staff, that second point often covers most of the need already.
Good to know
Nothing is lost by choosing a language and changing your mind. Switching back and forth changes only what is displayed.
A language being withdrawn does not strand anybody. Anyone using it falls back to the restaurant's language, or English (link Setting the app language).
The list is the same for everybody at your restaurant, and the same for every restaurant on Tabledoo — it is not a plan feature and nothing here depends on your subscription.