Guide · Chatbots
One chatbot flow in English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese
In short
Build one flow and give every message a version in each language, instead of three separate bots that drift apart. Work out the customer’s language once, remember it for next time, accept typed words in every language, and pass the language on when a person takes over.
Reviewed 9 November 2026. Terms used: RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), Omnichannel support.
How to build one flow in three languages
Written for English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese, the mix many Malaysian businesses serve. The same steps work for any set.
Choose the languages from your chats, not your hopes
Look at a month of conversations and note the language each one was in. Support the ones customers actually use. A language you can’t answer in after the hand-over is a promise the bot can’t keep.
Write the flow once, then translate every message
Build the whole flow in your default language first. Then give every message, menu option and question a version in each other language, written or checked by someone who speaks it. Machine translation reads as machine translation, especially in menus.
Keep the meaning, not the words: a Bahasa Malaysia menu label may need different words to stay short.
One menu option, three languages English: Track my order
Bahasa Malaysia: Jejak pesanan saya
Chinese: 查询我的订单
Ask once, or make a good first guess
Either ask at the start (“English · Bahasa Malaysia · 中文”), or start from what you already know: the language of the browser, or the country code of the phone number, and let the customer change it.
Never ask twice. If the customer has chosen before, start in that language.
Remember the choice on the customer’s record
Save the language with the contact, so the next chat starts in it and agents can see it before they reply.
Understand typed words in every language
Customers mix languages, especially in Malaysia. The words that mean “talk to a person” should work in all of them: agent, staff, ejen, orang, 人工, 客服. The same goes for “back” and “menu”.
Hand over to someone who speaks it
Give agents a skill for each language they answer in, and have the hand-over ask for it. A Chinese chat that lands with an agent who doesn’t read Chinese is a second hand-over waiting to happen.
Test every language, and keep them in step
Run every path in every language on a phone before it goes live. When you change the flow later, change all three versions at once, and check for any text left in the default language.
How it works in Axonave
One flow, three languages, and the language remembered.
Every Axonave flow can carry English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese side by side: the builder’s language bar switches the text you’re editing, and publishing warns about any text you haven’t translated. A Language step asks once, offering first the browser’s language or what a WhatsApp number’s country code suggests (+60 Malay, +86 Chinese), and the choice is saved on the contact. Axonave doesn’t translate for you: you write each language, and the bot’s own words come ready in all three.
- Hand over by skill, so a Chinese chat reaches a Chinese speaker
- The AI finds the right article from a question in any of the three
- Surveys and the AI sales step work in all three too
Teras Home’s main menu in the flow builder, in our demo workspace: English is the default, with Malay and Chinese (Simplified) in the language bar above the canvas.
Common questions
Does Axonave translate the flow automatically?
No. You write each language, or paste in a translation someone has checked. The builder shows the default language beside the one you’re editing and warns about anything missing when you publish.
What does the customer see if one message isn’t translated?
The default language’s version of that message, so the flow never stops. Fix it when the publish warning tells you.
Can the AI answer in Bahasa Malaysia from an English article?
Axonave’s search finds the right article from a question in English, Malay or Chinese, so a Malay question can match an English article. For answers customers trust, publish the article in each language they write in.
See it working with your own customers.
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