The choice of which languages to target will vary for each company, but following is a good rule of thumb to use in putting together your list.
The first place I start is to look at which languages can unlock the largest populations. Spanish, for example, is spoken in over 30 countries (and large parts of the US). Just by adding Spanish, you can unlock much of Central and South America along with Iberia. Chinese and French are two other widely spoken languages. It’s also important to note that regions like Latin America the rate of English proficiency is relatively low, so lack of language support can be a blocker to many users. Following is a list of the top non-English languages by population.
| Language | Speakers | Primary Region(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 1.18 Billion | China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, APAC Diaspora |
| Hindi | 602 Million | India |
| Spanish | 548 Million | Central and South America, Iberia |
| French | 280 Million | France, large parts of Africa |
| Arabic | 274 Million | Middle East, northern Africa |
| Bengali | 272 Million | India |
| Russian | 258 Million | Russia, Eastern Europe |
| Portuguese | 257 Million | Brazil, Portugal |
| Urdu | 231 Million | Pakistan |
| Indonesian | 199 Million | Indonesia |
| German | 134 Million | Germany, Austria and Switzerland |
| Japanese | 125 Million | Japan |
Another way to rank languages is by per capita GDP for the regions where they are spoken. Japan and the Nordics score well on this basis, and indeed, they are important regions for many companies.
This maps more directly to your company and product. Here you want to rank countries and regions in terms of the total addressable market for your industry segment. For each country, identify the language(s) spoken there. This will give you a better idea of which countries to target, and from there, you can identify the languages you’ll need to support.
Lastly, if you are seeing organic growth in a particular region, it will only help to add language support. At Notion, we saw huge growth in Japan and Korea. Adding support for Japanese and Korean only accelerated our growth, and today, these are two of Notion’s most important regions.
Another thing to do with each country you target is to access the average level of fluency in widely used languages such as English, Chinese, French and Spanish. In much of Scandinavia, the level of English proficiency is quite high, so localizing to a language like Norwegian is more for boosting brand perception than necessity. In Brazil, and Latin America in general, the rate of English proficiency is low except among people who went to university in English speaking countries.
Another factor to consider is whether your product or service is consumer or business to business. Consumer facing services generally do better if the are localized for local markets, even where the level of English proficiency is high (games are a great example of this). Business facing services can often get by with supporting major international languages like Chinese, French and Spanish (caveat: if you are selling to enterprise customers, decision makers will often include language support as a prerequisite).
I generally recommend developing a target list using a combination of these lists. Spanish and Chinese unlock such large user populations that it is a no-brainer to add them (the relatively low English proficiency in Latin America is also a blocker for many users). Then add languages based on a combination of TAM and GDP to go after higher income regions. And, if you have strong organic growth in specific regions, add the languages relevant to those. Most companies will land on somewhere between 5 and 15 languages.