Opt-in confirmation email is always in English when signing up through API.

[Suzana Bueno]

Dear API gurus,

I'm syncing my mail database to my mailing list using the lists/batchsubscribe method on the API. We decided that having them receive the opt-in confirmation email would be nicer than just bringing them in, as we really like the double opt-in idea.

Problem is: even though we set their language and opt-in IP correctly through the API, they always receive their opt-in confirmation email in English. I tried changing the default language to portuguese, and still all of them would receive it in english regardless of the default language I set it in. The weirdest thing is that all those emails were translated perfectly when people signed up using the web form instead.

After they click the opt-in confirmation email, they're all subscribed in the correct language, so I'm sure my calls are done right. I tried the lists/subscribe method as well and got the same result. 

For now, I changed my English setting to have everything in Portuguese, and I am limiting my API sync to portuguese speakers only, so people will receive it in the right language until I fix this thing. Can any of you help me with this? 

Thanks!

[MailChimp Support]

Hello, Suzana! Testing what you've described, I can confirm that mc_language isn't what's used for the "auto-translate" option. Instead "auto-translate" only uses the browser language.

This means if someone uses your MailChimp signup form, it auto-translates to *their* browser language. If you make the API call in your browser, it auto-translates to *your* browser language. If you make the API call outside of a browser, the *default language* selected for your forms is used instead.

There isn't currently a way to make the opt-in confirmation email translate based on the mc_language you've set. You can, however, translate content on the Final Welcome Email based on the mc_language using merge tags, as described here: http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/is-it-possible-to-translate-content-in-multiple-languages#manually

-- Anna

[Suzana Bueno]

Anna, then why isn't it following my default language? I tried setting it up to Portuguese and that didn't work; it would default to English every single time.

Nice to know about the browser language; I'll see if my team has a way of faking it so we can achieve what we need.

[MailChimp Support]

If it's not accepting the default set on the Signup Form page of your MailChimp account, that would suggest something is seeing the browser language as English, and so it's attempting to auto-translate to English. If you'd like me to test it out directly, feel free to email he...@mailchimp.com with "ATTN: Anna" in the subject line, and I can take a closer look.
As an alternative, if most signups are triggered via the API, disabling the autotranslate option would give you more uniform results.

Glad to hear you may be able to fake the browser language you want, though! Best of luck, for sure!

-- Anna