Multilingual Audio Guides for Tourists: Free AI Methods and Benefits

I want to create an audio guide in multiple languages... What methods are available?

Audio guides have now become a standard feature at museums, art galleries, and cultural facilities.

However, isn't it often the case that only Japanese is available, or the only foreign language provided is English?

In reality, the rapidly increasing number of inbound tourists are not only native English speakers.

By providing audio guides in languages other than English, such as Korean, Chinese, Thai, Malay, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, you can ensure higher satisfaction for a wider range of inbound tourists.

In addition to increasing the number of visitors to museums, art galleries, and cultural facilities, multilingual audio guides also help correctly convey Japanese culture to more foreigners and foster a sense of affinity for Japan.

In this article, we will explain how to make audio guides for cultural facilities—including museums, art galleries, shrines, and temples—multilingual for free!

Multilingual foreign language audio guides can be produced easily and for free by anyone.

Why not use the latest AI to welcome inbound tourists?

【Free / Inbound Support】Recommended AI Tools for Multilingual Audio Guides

There is a recommended AI tool for those who want to create multilingual audio guides.

That tool is "Ondoku".

"Ondoku" is an AI text-to-speech service that can read foreign languages for free using the latest AI.

In addition to Japanese, it supports:

• English
• Chinese (Supports both Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin)
• Cantonese
• Korean
• Thai
• Malay
• Indonesian
• Vietnamese

It supports all major languages of inbound tourists visiting Japan!

Since it can read text with native pronunciation unique to the latest AI, you can provide audio that is easy for inbound tourists to understand.

Furthermore, you can read up to 5,000 characters for free, allowing you to create multilingual foreign language audio guides for free right away.

When you want to make your inbound audio guides multilingual, why not try using Ondoku?

Multilingual Audio Guides are Essential for Museums, Art Galleries, and Cultural Facilities!

Audio guides are becoming increasingly popular in cultural facilities such as museums, art galleries, shrines, and temples.

However, there are many cases where only Japanese and English are provided.

In fact, multilingual support is highly recommended for future audio guides!

Multilingual Audio Guides are Recommended for Inbound Tourists

Have you felt that "the number of inbound tourists has increased recently"?

That is only natural, as the number of inbound tourists is actually growing rapidly.

According to JNTO (Japan National Tourism Organization) statistics, the number of visitors to Japan in October 2024 was 3,312,000, surpassing the figures from 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Going forward, inbound support is essential for tourist destinations and cultural facilities such as museums, art galleries, shrines, and temples.

But do you think English alone is enough for inbound measures?

According to the same statistics, the source countries and regions of inbound tourists in October 2024 were:

1. South Korea: approx. 730,000
2. China (Mainland): approx. 580,000
3. Taiwan: approx. 480,000
4. United States: approx. 280,000
5. Hong Kong: approx. 200,000
6. Thailand: approx. 130,000

(Countries/regions with over 100,000 visitors).

As you can see, there are a very large number of inbound tourists whose native languages are Korean and Chinese.

This is where multilingual support becomes necessary.

By providing audio guides and signage in Korean, Chinese, and Thai in addition to English, you can attract more inbound tourists and help them feel a deeper connection to Japanese culture.

For Korean narration or checking pronunciation and listening! Native pronunciation, listen to 14 speakers (female and male voices)

Here, you can sample Ondoku's Korean voices. Both female and male voices are available. Use them for narration, work training, presentations, or language learning.

For checking Chinese pronunciation and listening! Native pronunciation, listen to 41 speakers (female, male, and girl voices)

Here, you can sample Ondoku's Chinese voices. You can choose from Mandarin (Mainland China), Cantonese (Hong Kong), and Mandarin (Taiwan). Voices include female, male, girl, and boy options.

For checking Thai pronunciation and listening! Native pronunciation, listen to 4 speakers (female and male voices)

Here, you can sample Ondoku's Thai voices. Both female and male voices are available. Use them for narration, work training, presentations, or language learning.

Reference: Malay, Indonesian, and Vietnamese are also recommended

• Malaysia (approx. 50,000)
• Indonesia (approx. 40,000)
• Vietnam (approx. 50,000)

These are also countries with many inbound tourists.

Creating audio guides and signage in Malay, Indonesian, and Vietnamese allows for even more hospitable guidance for inbound tourists.

For checking Malay pronunciation and listening! Native pronunciation, listen to 2 speakers (female and male voices)

Here, you can sample Ondoku's Malay voices. Both female and male voices are available. Use them for narration, work training, presentations, or language learning.

For Indonesian and Javanese learning and pronunciation check! Audio samples and how to use the free text-to-speech "Ondoku"

You can listen to audio samples of Indonesian and Javanese available on Ondoku. Checking pronunciation is essential for smooth communication with Indonesian and Javanese speakers. Ondoku is highly recommended for this! A text-to-speech service...

For checking Vietnamese pronunciation and listening! Native pronunciation, listen to 6 speakers (female and male voices)

Here, you can sample Ondoku's Vietnamese voices. Both female and male voices are available. Use them for narration, work training, presentations, or language learning.

3 Benefits of Multilingual Audio Guides

Introducing multilingual audio guides to museums, art galleries, and cultural facilities offers many advantages.

Not only can you increase visitor numbers and profitability by welcoming inbound tourists in multiple languages, but you can also prevent overtourism issues and reduce the workload of facility staff.

1. Hospitality through multilingual explanations of exhibits

Exhibit explanations at museums and art galleries are often limited to Japanese and English.

Adding Korean, Chinese, or Thai to every exhibit caption is a massive undertaking.

That’s why we recommend starting multilingual support with audio guides first.

By explaining Japanese culture to inbound tourists via audio, you can help them develop a deeper appreciation for Japan before they return to their home countries.

It is also recommended to print and post the translated text used to create the audio.

How to make a free museum audio guide! Recommendations for AI audio guidance for small museums and permanent exhibitions

Do you want to easily implement audio guides for your museum? With the AI text-to-speech 'Ondoku', you can create high-quality audio for free! Supporting Japanese and foreign languages, it's perfect for small or private museums. Learn more here!

2. Prevent trouble by conveying viewing and visiting rules

Museums and art galleries have rules such as:

• Do not step closer to exhibits than allowed
• No photography
• No flash photography
• No eating or drinking

Additionally, shrines and temples have rules for visiting to protect precious cultural properties and maintain a quiet environment.

With the increase in inbound tourists, unexpected troubles can sometimes occur at tourist spots like cultural facilities and shrines.

A major cause of these troubles is that manners and rules are not being communicated effectively.

By conveying information in multiple languages such as Korean, Chinese, and Thai—not just English—you can prevent trouble before it starts.

Rules other than simple ones like "No Photography" or "No Food/Drink" are often difficult to explain.

Contents that are hard to convey to people from different cultures, such as how to worship or visit shrines and temples, can be explained clearly and smoothly through multilingual audio guides.

Audio guides are also recommended as an overtourism countermeasure for shrines, temples, tourist spots, and public transportation.

[Definitive Edition] Solve Inbound x Overtourism issues! How to create multilingual guidance with the latest AI tools

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3. Reduce staff workload

Amid ongoing labor shortages, the workload for staff at museums, art galleries, and cultural facilities is continuously increasing.

In such a situation, handling inbound tourists can be very demanding.

It is also extremely difficult to hire staff who can provide assistance in multiple foreign languages.

By using multilingual audio guides created with the latest AI to guide visitors, the number of questions from inbound tourists will decrease, allowing staff to focus on other tasks.

As you can see, multilingual audio guides offer many benefits for both inbound tourists and the staff at museums, art galleries, shrines, temples, and cultural facilities.

To create a better tourist spot, prevent trouble, and improve the working environment, why not create a multilingual audio guide with the latest AI?

Recommended Languages for Inbound Multilingual Audio Guides

So, what languages should I use to create the audio guide?

In many countries and regions with high numbers of inbound tourists visiting Japan, languages other than English are primarily spoken.

Here, we explain the recommended languages for multilingual audio guides and signage.

Languages of countries and regions with many inbound tourists are recommended

The widely used languages in countries and regions with many inbound tourists are as follows:

• South Korea: Korean
• China (Mainland): Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified Chinese characters)
• Taiwan: Chinese (Taiwanese Mandarin, Traditional Chinese characters)
• United States: English
• Hong Kong: Cantonese (Traditional Chinese characters)
• Thailand: Thai
• Malaysia: Malay, Chinese (Hokkien/Mandarin)
• Indonesia: Indonesian
• Vietnam: Vietnamese

Based on this, when making an audio guide multilingual, it is recommended to create audio in:

• Korean
• Chinese (For signage, it is best to create both Simplified and Traditional versions)
• Cantonese
• Thai
• Malay
• Indonesian
• Vietnamese

If you don't have the resources to produce all of them, starting with just:

• Korean
• Chinese

is a good first step.

For Korean narration or checking pronunciation and listening! Native pronunciation, listen to 14 speakers (female and male voices)

Here, you can sample Ondoku's Korean voices. Both female and male voices are available. Use them for narration, work training, presentations, or language learning.

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By creating Chinese audio, you can also enable inbound tourists from places with many ethnic Chinese, such as Singapore and Malaysia, to use the audio guide.

*While Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong often understand Mandarin (standard Chinese), it is more hospitable to create Cantonese audio whenever possible.

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【Multilingual Support】Recommended AI Services for Inbound Tourist Guides

"Ondoku" is a recommended AI text-to-speech service for creating multilingual audio guides.

It is very easy to use.

Just paste the AI-translated foreign language and press the "Read" button, and you can create foreign language audio with native pronunciation in as little as 10 seconds!

Supported languages include over 80 languages and dialects.

• English
• Chinese (Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin)
• Cantonese
• Korean
• Thai
• Malay
• Indonesian
• Vietnamese

It covers all languages of inbound tourists.

Moreover, Ondoku can be used for free!

You can read and download up to 5,000 characters for free, so you can start making multilingual audio guides right now.

When you want to create multilingual audio guides for inbound visitors, why not use Ondoku?

How to Create a Multilingual Audio Guide

How do I create sentences in Korean or Chinese? Isn't it difficult?

Don't worry!

By utilizing AI tools, anyone can create sentences and audio that sound exactly like a native speaker!

Here, we explain how to create multilingual audio guides using Korean and Chinese as examples.

1. Translate the text

First, translate your Japanese text into multiple languages.

As an example, let's translate the following text:

"Thank you for using our audio guide. First, here are some precautions when using the museum. Please do not touch the exhibits. Please do not use flash when taking photos."

Translation Method 1: Use translation websites

The simplest way to translate is to use translation websites.

For Korean and Chinese, it is recommended to use Korean or Chinese services rather than American services like DeepL.

• Korean: Papago
• Chinese: Baidu Translate

These are the standard services.

When you enter the example sentences into a translation site, they look like this:

■ Example in Korean

「음성 가이드를 이용해 주셔서 감사합니다. 먼저 박물관을 이용하실 때 주의사항입니다. 전시품은 손대지 마세요. 사진을 찍을 때는 플래시를 사용하지 마세요.」

■ Example in Chinese

「感谢您使用语音指南。首先是使用博物馆时的注意事项。请勿触摸展品。拍照的时候不要用闪光灯。」

They have been translated as above.

However, if you don't have staff who speak Korean or Chinese, you won't know if the content is correct or contains errors.

In that case, try entering the translated text and translating it back into Japanese.

■ Back-translation of Korean

"Thank you for using the audio guide. First, these are precautions when using the museum. Please do not touch the exhibits. Please do not use flash when taking photos."

■ Back-translation of Chinese

"Thank you for using the audio guide. First are the precautions when using the museum. Do not touch the exhibits. Do not use flash when taking photos."

In this way, we can see there are no major mistakes.

However, depending on the content, mistranslations can occur.

If there is a mistranslation, try the following:

• Use simpler expressions: Replace vague phrases with straightforward ones like "Prohibited" or "Please stop."
• Put proper nouns in brackets: AI translation sites can often identify proper nouns if you enclose them in brackets.

Translation Method 2: Use AI services

Actually, there is a way to create native-sounding text even more easily.

That is to have an AI service like ChatGPT or Claude translate it for you.

For example, by instructing the AI to "Translate the following text into Korean/Chinese with native-level phrasing. Please also explain the meaning in Japanese," you can create sentences with more natural expressions than those from translation websites.

The images show examples of translating the sentences using the AI service "Claude".

It translated them like this:

■ Example in Korean

「오디오 가이드를 이용해 주셔서 감사합니다. 먼저 박물관 이용 시 주의사항입니다. 전시품에 손을 대지 마십시오. 사진 촬영 시 플래시를 사용하지 마십시오.」

■ Example in Chinese

「感谢您使用语音导览。首先，我们来介绍参观博物馆时的注意事项。请勿触摸展品。拍照时请勿使用闪光灯。」

The expressions became more natural, such as the Korean term for "Audio Guide" being transliterated from English, or the Chinese version adding the subject "We will introduce."

Until now, trying to create multilingual sentences with translation services often resulted in texts that felt like literal translations.

AI services can solve that problem!

Since the free plans are sufficient for translating audio guide scripts, we recommend using AI chat services to create more natural multilingual text.

*Even when translating with an AI chat service, it is recommended to perform a back-translation for confirmation.

For more details on Chinese translation, please see this article.

12 Services to check Chinese translation results via audio [2026 Edition / Free available]

Explaining how to listen to Chinese translation results to check pronunciation and tones. Comparing 5 translation services and 7 text-to-speech services, and introducing the steps to translate, copy, and play Japanese text. This differs from real-time audio input translation.

2. Generate the Speech

Once you have the translated text, the rest is easy.

Open the Ondoku top page and generate the multilingual audio for your guide.

Paste the text on the top page (here, we pasted the Korean example).

Select the language.

Select the voice.

*You can sample Ondoku voices here:

• Korean
• Chinese

Press "Read."

The reading will begin.

It completes quickly (even long scripts generate in about 10 seconds).

Once the reading is complete, the display will change, and you can preview the audio.

If everything sounds good, press the download button to save the MP3 file.

That completes the process of using Ondoku to create a multilingual audio guide.

Using the same method, you can create audio in various languages such as Cantonese, Thai, French, Spanish, and more!

Why not create a multilingual audio guide for inbound tourists with Ondoku?