How to Send WhatsApp Messages in Hindi and Regional Languages: Multilingual Templates and Chatbots
A clothing store in Surat messages its customers in English. Open rates are fine, but replies are thin, and the owner suspects that many customers read the message and then do not respond because the language does not feel natural to them.
India does not have one customer language. Even within one city, your customers may prefer Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali or a mix of two languages in the same sentence. If your WhatsApp messages only come in English, you may be making it harder for part of your audience to understand and trust you.
This guide explains how multilingual messaging works on the WhatsApp Business API, what you can and cannot do with templates, and how to set up a practical approach without doubling your workload.
Why Language Matters on WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a conversation, not a brochure. A customer who gets a payment reminder or an appointment confirmation wants to understand it at a glance. A message in the language they speak at home is clearer, feels more personal and is less likely to be ignored or mistaken for spam.
We cannot give you a universal figure for how much a local language improves response, because it depends on your audience. The honest way to find out is to test it, which we cover later in this guide.
How Template Languages Work
Every WhatsApp message template is created in one specific language. When you submit a template to Meta, you choose its language, and Meta reviews it in that language. If you want the same message in English and Hindi, you create two versions under the same template name, one per language.
WhatsApp supports many languages for templates, including English and several Indian languages such as Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali. The exact list can change, so check the language list shown in your template builder or in Meta's documentation before you plan.
When your system sends the template, it names the template and the language code, for example hi for Hindi. If the language code does not match an approved version, the send fails. Our guide to WhatsApp error codes lists template errors like this one.
Create and preview each version in the template builder, and keep the variable positions the same across languages so your data feeds in correctly.
Writing Good Templates in Hindi and Regional Languages
Machine translation is a starting point, not a finished message. A few rules help:
Write for how people actually speak. Formal, textbook Hindi can sound stiff in a shop message. Many businesses use everyday Hindi with common English words such as order, delivery and payment, since customers use them anyway.
Choose a script and stay with it. You can write Hindi in Devanagari ("आपका ऑर्डर कन्फर्म हो गया है") or in Roman letters ("Aapka order confirm ho gaya hai"). Roman Hindi is easy for many customers to read on a phone, but a template submitted as a Hindi-language template is reviewed as Hindi, so test how your Roman-script version is handled before you rely on it.
Keep variables simple. A name, an order number and a date are easy. In some languages a variable can change the grammar of the sentence around it, so read the final message with sample data before you submit.
Have a native speaker check it. A staff member or a trusted customer can catch a wrong word, an awkward phrase or an unintended meaning in two minutes.
Meta's review rules are the same in every language. See our guide to template approval best practices for what helps a template pass.
Which Language Should You Send To Whom?
Sending the wrong language is worse than sending only English, so you need to know each customer's preference. There are three practical ways to learn it.
Ask directly. At the billing counter or on a signup form, add a simple question: "Which language do you prefer for messages?" and record the answer.
Ask in the first chat. An automatic welcome message can offer buttons such as English, हिन्दी and ગુજરાતી. The customer's tap tells you their preference. Set this up with auto-messaging.
Use their own writing. If a customer writes to you in Marathi, reply in Marathi. You do not have to guess.
Once you know, save it as a tag or field on the contact, for example language: hindi. With contact management you can then send a campaign to each language group with the matching template. Our guide to segmentation with tags shows how.
Running Campaigns in More Than One Language
A multilingual campaign is really several small campaigns. The steps are:
1. Create one template per language under a clear naming pattern, such as festival_offer_en and festival_offer_hi.
**2. Segment your contacts by language.**
3. Send each segment its own template through broadcast messaging.
4. Compare results. Look at delivery, reads and replies for each language, rather than treating the campaign as one block.
Only message people who have agreed to hear from you, in whatever language. Our guide to opt-in and data privacy explains the basics.
Replying to Customers in Their Language
Templates are only for starting conversations outside the 24-hour window. Once a customer replies, you can talk freely, and that is where language matters most. Read how the window works in our 24-hour messaging window guide.
For your team, a few habits help:
Assign chats by language. In the team inbox, route Gujarati chats to the staff member who speaks it.
Keep quick replies in each language. Greeting, price enquiry, address and thank-you messages can be saved once and reused.
Use AI suggestions with care. Drafts can speed up replies, but a person who reads the language should check before sending.
Building a Multilingual Chatbot
A chatbot can serve customers in more than one language, but it needs the right design. A sensible approach:
Let the customer pick a language at the start , or detect it from their first message.
Give the bot your information in each language you support , or at least in a language it can reason over, such as your FAQs, hours and delivery areas. Read how a chatbot is trained on your own data and what the AI chatbot can do.
Test with real messages. Ask staff to write questions the way customers do, including mixed Hindi and English, and see how the bot answers.
Hand over to a person when unsure. A wrong answer in a customer's own language is more damaging than a slow one. See our guide on chatbot to human handoff.
A Simple Way to Test It
Take a list of 400 opted-in customers, as an example. Split them into two equal groups. Send one group your usual English template and the other the Hindi version of the same message, with the same offer and the same timing. After two days, compare replies and clicks. If one language clearly does better with that audience, extend it. If there is no difference, you have saved yourself the effort of translating everything.
Common Mistakes
Mixing two languages in one template without checking review rules and readability.
Translating word for word. Keep the meaning and tone, not the sentence structure.
Assuming a city means a language. A neighbourhood can be mixed. Ask each customer.
Forgetting the opt-out line. Marketing messages in any language should make it easy to stop receiving them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a separate WhatsApp number for each language? No. One number can send templates in many languages. Create a version of each template per language.
Can I type Hindi replies from a computer? Yes. Use a keyboard input tool or your operating system's language settings, or save common replies in advance.
Will Meta approve templates in regional languages? Yes, if they follow the same rules as English templates. The review checks the content, not just the language.
Does a translated template count as a new template? It is a separate version that needs its own approval.
Final Thoughts
Speaking to customers in their own language is one of the simplest ways to make WhatsApp feel personal. Start small: pick your two most-used templates, add a version in your biggest second language, record each customer's preference and compare results. If you want to try this on a live account, you can see our plans on the pricing page.