---
title: Service languages
summary: The languages a business talks to clients in. The first is the original and the fallback; names and descriptions of services are kept in each of them.
tools: [talemo_set_service_languages, talemo_get_business, talemo_list_services]
related: [services-and-prices, branch-booking-page, ../clients/contact-card]
search: [languages of service, translate price list]
---

# Service languages

Service languages are the languages the business serves clients in. Clients see the
booking page in them, and the online admin answers in them. The interface of Talemo
for the team stays in each person's own language, set in the profile.

The list is ordered. The **first language is the original and the fallback**: names
and descriptions of services are written in it, and a client sees it when there is no
text in the client's own language. A language can appear once.

## Where

**Settings → About the business → Languages**, the window **Service languages**.
Languages are added, removed, moved with the arrows or by dragging, and any language can
be made first.

## What is stored per language

- the name and the description of every service, in all branches, including
  deactivated services. Every language except the first holds a translation of the
  original.
- the labels of the chat fields and of their options, and the questions of the online
  admin's conversation script.

WhatsApp templates are prepared in the service languages, and the quick questions of
Instagram and Messenger follow them.

The names of the business, the addresses and the names of masters are not
translated.

## Translations

When the original of a text changes, its translations stay and are marked as out of
date. A person decides whether to translate them again; the assistant can do it.
**Translation to fix** in the price list lists the languages where a translation is
missing or out of date. Deleting a description deletes its translations.

## Changing the list

- **Adding** a language is allowed at any time. Texts without a translation in it
  show in the first language until someone fills them in.
- **Removing** a language deletes its translations. It cannot be undone.
- **Making a language first** turns the translations in it into originals, and the
  old originals become translations into the old first language, if it stays on the
  list. It is refused with counts while some text has no translation in the new
  first language, or while two services of a branch would get the same name in it.
  The window lists what is missing ("Not yet.") and offers **Show these services**.

Before saving, the window shows what will move or go, and what changes at Meta: how
many WhatsApp templates are sent for review on the added languages and in how many
Instagram and Messenger connections the quick questions are replaced. Nothing is sent
to Meta by the preview.

## Who can do it

Changing the languages is changing the business, a right of the whole business. Over
an MCP connection with a business key `talemo_set_service_languages` only shows the
change (`dry_run`); a person or the assistant, after the person agrees, makes it.

## Tools and refusals

- `talemo_get_business` shows `service_languages`, the ordered list; the first language is the one the texts are written in and the fallback.
- `talemo_set_service_languages` sets the list whole in `languages`. Adding a language only adds. Taking one out deletes its translations for good. Making another language the first moves every text to its translation in it, and it is refused with status 409, code `business.language_untranslated`, and `params` hold the language and the counts of what has no text in it (services, descriptions, fields, options, steps) or would get a name another service already has. Nothing changes then: translate those texts first with `talemo_update_service`, `talemo_update_conversation_field` and `talemo_set_conversation_script` (the steps of the script), and never make a translation up without the person.
- The change reaches Meta: templates in WhatsApp and quick questions in Instagram and Messenger appear in the new language. Show the person the `dry_run` first: the texts that move, the translations that go and what Meta gets.
- The person sets the list in Talemo. A business key or a program connected from outside only shows: without `dry_run` it is refused with status 401, code `auth.required`, which here means "the person does it in Talemo" and not that the connection is broken. Only a role over the whole business may set it: otherwise status 403, code `role.forbidden`.
- `talemo_list_services` with `lang` answers the names and descriptions in one language and says which language they really are in. A translation marked stale was made from an older text: it is still shown, and the person decides whether it is done again.