Translate a simulation into another language
You can offer one simulation to learners in several languages without rebuilding it. Cesura translates the text learners read — the simulation's name, its activity steps, the opening message, the criterion titles, the embedded forms and quizzes — and leaves your prompts untouched. The persona profile, the scenario story and the evaluation instructions you tuned are never sent to a translation model and never rewritten.
The AI character still speaks the new language: a translation switches the language the simulation runs in, so a persona written in Hebrew will conduct the conversation in French from the same Hebrew prompt.
💡 Nothing you translate reaches a learner on its own. Every translation starts as a private draft, and only an explicit Make live for learners puts it in front of anyone.
Where to find it
Open the simulation in the editor and go to the Translations tab. Three conditions:
- Your account belongs to an organization. Translation is an organization feature. On a personal account the tab and its controls are still there, greyed out, with the line “Template translation is available on organization plans.” — so you can see what you would get rather than wonder where it went.
- The simulation must be saved. The Translations tab appears only once the simulation has been saved — the translation is keyed to the saved activity steps and criteria.
- You need edit rights on the simulation. Anyone who may edit it may translate it. The tab is hidden when you are only viewing.
Which languages you can translate into
| Language | Notes |
|---|---|
| English, Hebrew, French, Arabic, German | Full languages — learners can run in them and use the whole app in them. |
| Spanish, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese | Run-only. Learners can run a simulation in these languages and the screens around the run follow, but the authoring app itself is not available in them. |
The simulation's own language is never offered — there is nothing to translate. Once a language has a translation it disappears from the picker too; use Translate again on its card instead.
The three steps
- Translate — with AI, or by hand.
- Review the text — read it, correct anything you want to change.
- Make live for learners — the only step that changes what learners see.
Adding a language
On a simulation with no translations yet, the two options are on the page. Once you have at least one, click Add language. Pick the language, then choose how to start:
- Translate with AI (click Translate) — takes a few minutes and costs credits (see below). You can leave the page; it keeps running.
- Write it yourself (click Add manually) — creates an empty translation and opens it, so you can type every line by hand. No AI, no credits.
What it costs
On many organization plans, AI translation is free: each run is metered against your organization's Translation pool for reporting, but the pool is never charged. Some plans price it instead, at 0.05 credits per language per run — an administrator can see which mode your Translation pool is in on the Pricing tab of Usage & Budgets. Writing a translation by hand is free either way, and so is re-using a translation a form or quiz already has.
Free does not mean unlimited: translation runs still count against your organization's fair-use allowance, at 0.05 units each — the smallest weight of anything on the platform, so it takes a great many of them to matter.
Re-translating after you edit the simulation sends only the strings that changed, and each language is charged as its own translation.
The language list
Each language gets one card showing its state and the one thing it is waiting on. The label on the card tells you where it stands:
| Label | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Translating… | A translation run is in progress. | Nothing — you can leave the page. |
| Empty | Nothing has been written yet. | Write the translation — open it and type. |
| Draft | Translated, but learners still see the original. | Read it, then Make live for learners. |
| Live | Learners who start from now on see this translation. | Nothing. Read the translation if you want to check it. |
| N awaiting review | Re-translated text is waiting for your decision. Learners keep reading the current translation meanwhile. | Review new text, then publish or discard it. |
| Out of date / N of M strings changed | On a live translation: you edited the simulation after this was translated. The live translation keeps serving. | Update translation — when the card shows a count, only the changed strings are sent. |
Each card also has a More actions menu with the other actions that apply to it: Review, Translate again, Take out of service (live translations only) and Delete translation. When one of them is unavailable it stays visible and says why, rather than disappearing.
Reviewing and correcting the text
Open a language to see the original and the translation side by side, grouped into tabs: Overview, Characters, Messages, Content, Assessment and Forms, quizzes & debrief.
- Every translated line is an editable field. Fix anything you don't like and click Save changes (the button shows how many changes you have). Corrected lines are marked Edited.
- Show only what needs attention filters the list down to lines that are new or whose source changed, so you don't reread text you have already approved.
- Unsaved corrections are kept if you switch tabs or pages in Cesura. If you refresh or close the browser tab with unsaved changes, your browser asks first.
⚠️ Translating again replaces your hand-made corrections, and they cannot be recovered. Cesura asks you to confirm first and tells you how many lines are affected.
Making a translation live
Click Make live for learners and confirm. From that moment, learners who start the simulation see the translated version.
Making a translation live doesn't change runs already under way: a run that started before it went live stays in the original text. A finished run can no longer change language, so reports on already-graded work don't change afterwards.
Take out of service reverses it: learners go back to the original text, including in runs already under way. It's not destructive and you can make the translation live again at any time.
What is translated, and what never is
| Translated | Never translated |
|---|---|
|
|
The right-hand column is what makes your simulation behave the way it does. It is copied across untouched, which is why translating is cheap and safe to repeat.
Forms and quizzes
Forms and quizzes embedded in the simulation are translated along with it. Two things are worth knowing:
- An existing translation is re-used. If the form already has a translation in that language, Cesura uses it instead of paying to redo it.
- Making the translation live offers a checkbox: "Also write these translations into the forms, quizzes and debrief". The forms here are already translated either way — ticking the box copies those translations into the form and quiz documents themselves, which other simulations may also use, and into this simulation's own debrief. The box is ticked by default. Taking the translation out of service does not undo that, and you can untick the box and apply it later.
If a form couldn't be translated, Cesura lists it and says why — for example it belongs to another organization, it no longer exists, or its questions changed since the translation was made.
A translation where only the forms are translated cannot be made live: switching the simulation's language while its own text stayed in the original would leave learners with a half-translated activity.
After you edit the simulation
Editing the original text marks every translation Out of date, with a count of how many strings changed. Nothing breaks — the live translation keeps serving learners until you act.
- Click Update translation. When the card shows how many strings changed, only those strings are sent, so it's cheaper than a full re-translation, and the language stays live while it runs. If the card just says Out of date without a count, the whole text is translated again and Cesura asks you to take the translation out of service first; learners see the original until you make it live again.
- The new text arrives as awaiting review, shown beside the text learners are reading now.
- Choose Publish these to make it what learners read, or Discard them to keep the current wording.
With several languages, two buttons appear above the list when there is bulk work to do: Update all languages re-translates every out-of-date language in one press, and Publish all awaiting review takes the decision once for all of them. Both name exactly which languages they will act on before you confirm — and publishing in bulk skips the per-language read, so use a language's own Review when you want to read the new text first.
When a translation has gaps
A live translation that is not serving fully translated text announces itself — you never have to notice missing text in the product:
- A warning chip on the activity card in the space names the language and what is missing, and links to the simulation. Space staff see it; learners never do.
- A pill on the language card in the Translations tab says how many strings are still untranslated.
- Making an incomplete translation live asks for an acknowledgement that names the gap first.
- Never-translated lines fill themselves. Cesura starts a partial translation over exactly the missing lines and publishes the result. Text that drifted after review is not touched automatically — its new text arrives as awaiting review, so nothing a person approved is rewritten without a person.
What learners see
- On the simulation's landing card, a Simulation language selector offers the simulation's own language plus every language with a live translation — nothing else. The picker is hidden when there is only one option.
- The choice moves both the conversation and the screens around it, and it is remembered.
- Without a choice, the run follows the language the learner is already reading the app in, falling back to the simulation's own language.
- Report text, the feedback chat and the exported PDF all follow the run's language.
Deleting a translation
Delete translation removes the translation and every hand-made correction in it, permanently. If it was ever live, sessions that used it lose it too. Cesura asks you to confirm, and spells out whether the translation is live now, was live once, or was never live.
If you only want learners back on the original text, use Take out of service instead — that can be undone.
Related
- General settings: name, language, image & access — where the simulation's own language is set
- Credits & billing: how credits work, costs & limits
- The simulation editor, explained
- How sharing works: spaces, activities & access levels