Multilingual kiosk ordering: screen, menu and voice

A kiosk can serve guests in another language in three ways: a language button that switches the screen's buttons and prompts, translated item and modifier names, and voice ordering in the guest's own language. The language button is the easy part. Translating your menu is most of the work, and you have to keep doing it each time the menu changes.

This guide covers the touch and voice kiosk at the counter: which languages to offer, what each kind of translation involves and how to test it. For a full voice kiosk test plan, see our voice kiosk guide.

Which languages do guests near you speak?

The Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey table C16001 counts about 321.7 million U.S. residents aged 5 and over. About 247.7 million speak only English at home, which leaves about 74.1 million, or 23%, who speak another language at home. The table also splits each language group by whether people say they speak English "very well".

Language spoken at home	People aged 5 and over	Of those, speak English less than "very well"
Spanish	44.9 million	18.4 million
Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese)	3.7 million	1.9 million
French, Haitian or Cajun	2.3 million	0.7 million
Tagalog (including Filipino)	1.9 million	0.6 million
Vietnamese	1.6 million	0.9 million
Korean	1.2 million	0.6 million

National figures tell you little about your block. Look up your own county or city:

1. Open data.census.gov and search for table C16001 (or S1601 for percentages).
2. Choose Geography and pick your county or city.
3. Pick the 5-year estimates for a small area. The Census Bureau's guide to 1-year and 5-year data says 1-year estimates cover only areas of 65,000 people or more, and 5-year estimates cover all areas and are the most reliable.
4. Note the two or three largest groups and how many of them speak English less than "very well". Those are your candidate kiosk languages.

Census data counts residents. Check it against the guests you see: ask your counter staff which languages guests fall back on, and which ones they already translate for.

What are the three ways a kiosk offers another language?

Layer	What changes	Who does the work	What to check
Screen language	Buttons, prompts, payment screens and error messages	The kiosk vendor ships the translation	Which languages exist, and whether the kiosk goes back to your default after each order
Menu translation	Item names, descriptions, modifier groups, combo prompts and deal names	You, or whoever builds your menu, enter a translation for each item	What shows when an item has no translation yet
Voice ordering	The guest says the order in their language and the cart fills in on screen	The vendor's speech system	Whether the kitchen ticket prints in the language your cooks read
Kitchen ticket and receipt	Usually nothing: they print in the restaurant's language	You choose the kitchen names	Cooks can read every modifier the guest chose

LS Retail, which makes the LS Central POS, documents the full process in its multi-language kiosk guide. It is a useful map of what any vendor has to handle:

• Language choice: the kiosk shows a picture for each language, and the guest's pick replaces the POS language for that order. The default language is selected again before each new order.
• What you translate: menu names, item descriptions, modifier prompts and choices, units of measure, deals and the payment buttons.
• Gaps: an item with no translation shows in English.
• Upkeep: you repeat the translation each time you change the menu.
• Receipts: the receipt still prints in the restaurant's language.

What do the big POS kiosks document?

Toast's device language article says Toast devices can switch between English, Spanish, French and Simplified Chinese screens. It also says menu names and items are not translated, and it describes the setting per device, chosen by staff. Toast's kiosk setup and ordering guides do not describe a language button for guests, so ask Toast what its kiosk offers today.

Toast does let you put a Spanish name in each item's Kitchen Name field so it prints that way on kitchen tickets. That helps if your cooks read Spanish, whatever language the guest ordered in.

Square's kiosk setup and menu guides do not mention guest languages either. Bite's quick-service page lists multilingual support without naming languages. With any vendor, ask for the list in writing and a demo in your top language.

Voice kiosks take a different route. Maple's voice ordering kiosk, in early access with a small number of restaurants, takes orders in many languages, builds the cart on screen as the guest speaks and writes the order into the POS. Every screen has a staff-help button.

How should you translate the menu?

Fill in a sheet like this for every item, then have a staff member who speaks the language read it back. The example row is made up.

English kiosk name	Spanish kiosk name	Modifier prompt	Allergy or "no" options	Checked by
Build Your Own Bowl	Arma tu bowl	Elige tu proteína (elige 1)	Sin cebolla, sin cilantro	Name and date

1. Keep dish names guests already know, such as carne asada or pho, as they are.
2. Translate every required prompt, including "pick 1" and "up to 4". A guest who cannot read the rule cannot finish the order.
3. Give allergy and removal options the most care. Have them checked by two people.
4. Keep sizes and prices identical across languages.
5. Add the translation on the same day you add a new item, or it will show in English.

Our kiosk menu design guide covers naming and modifier rules in English first. Fix those before you translate, or you will translate the problems too.

How do you test a translated kiosk?

1. Switch to each language and place a full order, through payment and receipt.
2. Read every screen. Look for English left over in prompts, errors and payment steps.
3. Add a new test item with no translation and see what the guest sees.
4. Finish an order in Spanish and check that the next guest starts in your default language.
5. Check that long translated names fit on their buttons without being cut off.
6. Send an order with two removals and an allergy note. Hand the ticket to a cook and ask them to read it back.
7. On a voice kiosk, have a staff member order in each language during a busy hour, and count words the cart got wrong.
8. Ask five regulars who speak the language to order, and write down where each one stopped.

A translated kiosk still needs a person nearby. Keep a staffed register open, and see our kiosk accessibility guide for guests who cannot use the screen at all.

Published by Maple, which sells an early-access voice ordering kiosk. This AI-assisted guide combines 2024 Census Bureau language data, POS and kiosk vendors' help and product pages and Maple's published kiosk scope with an original layer table, translation sheet and test list. The example row is made up. It does not report a test of any kiosk's translations.