Creating Multilingual WordPress Websites

Creating Multilingual
WordPress Sites
WordCamp Miami 2016
Shawn Hooper 
Chief Technology Ofﬁcer 
Actionable Books
@shawnhooper - shawnhooper.ca

Chief Technology Ofﬁcer at  
Actionable Books
Happy to be visiting here from
Ottawa, Canada.
Have used WordPress since 2009 as a
blogger, freelance developer, and in a
corporate environment.
I speak in English, French, and
according to my friends & family, I also
speak nerd.
Hi, I’m Shawn!

Let’s Learn Some Words…
 
Internationalization,
Localization,
Languages,
Locales,
Oh My!

“The method of human
communication, either spoken
or written, consisting of the use
of words in a structured and
conventional way”
- Oxford Dictionary
 
Examples:
English, French 
Spanish, Italian
Language

“In computing, a locale is a set
of parameters that defines the
user's language, region and any
special variant preferences
that the user wants to see in
their user interface. Usually a
locale identifier consists of at
least a language identifier and
a region identifier.”
- Wikipedia
Locale

Canadian English 
en-CA
US English 
en-US
Canadian French  
fr-CA
Argentina Spanish  
es-AR
Spanish Columbia  
es-CO
Locale

“Internationalization
(sometimes shortened to “I18N
, meaning "I - eighteen letters -
N") is the process of planning
and implementing products
and services so that they can
easily be adapted to speciﬁc
local languages and culture.…”
- techtarget.com
Internationalization

“Localization (also referred to
as "L10n") is the process of
adapting a product or content
to a speciﬁc locale or market.”
- GALA Global
Localization

Localization isn’t just about words, think about:
CURRENCY 
English
$1,234.56 
French
1 234,56 $
Localization

DATES 
English (US)
MM/DD/YYY (ex: 03/20/2016)
English (Canada)
DD/MM/YYYY (ex: 20/03/2016)
Localization

TIME 
English (Canada)
4:30 pm
French (Canada)
16h30
Localization

Script Direction
Localization
Left to Right Right to Left
English Arabic
Spanish Persian
French Hebrew
Greek Yiddish
Latin Western Punjabi

TEXT LENGTH
Localization

WordPress Core is
translated in 160 locales.
60 translations are 100%
complete, up-to-date with
the most current version
of WordPress.
Translations are done by
volunteers on the
“Polyglots” team.
WordPress

Although WordPress comes in many
languages, it does not natively
support providing viewers with
content in more than one language.

Multilingual Plugins

WPML
Premium Plugin from OnTheGoSystems.
https://wpml.org/
Supports:
Posts 
Pages 
Custom Post Types 
Taxonomies 
Menus 
Theme Text 
Plugin Text

Tip:
Turn off the Make Themes Work Multilingual option if you don’t need it!

qTranslate X
Free Plugin Available on WordPress.org
https://wpml.org/
Supports:
Posts 
Pages 
Taxonomies 
Menus 
General Settings 
Widgets

If you disable the plugin, you’ll see 
the content for each language is wrapped in shortcodes.
Shortcode Warning

Babble
https://github.com/Automattic/babble
Babble

Doesn’t create any additional database tables
Like WPML, each translation is a separate post
Supports:
Posts 
Pages 
Taxonomies 
Menus 
Widgets
Babble

Multisite Approach

There are two ways of doing this:
Separate Installs of WordPress for each language (yuck!)
Using WordPress Multisite with a subsite for each language (yay!)
Multisite Approach

FREN ES

There are a few plugins that can assist with switching languages
if you choose to use the multisite approach:
Multisite Language Switcher
Zanto WP Translation (For Multisites)
Language Switching

Comparison
Feature WPML qTranslateX Multisite Babble
Cost Paid Free Free Free
Content Storage Separate Posts Single Post Languages in Subsites Separate Posts
Widget Areas Needs Additional
Plugins
Yes Yes No
Media With Additional Plugin No Each subsite has it’s
own media library
No
Permalink Translation Yes With “Qtranslate Slug”
Plugin
Yes Yes
Sync Custom Fields Yes Yes No Yes
Sync Taxonomies Yes Yes No No
Translate Strings in
Themes & Plugins
WPML String
Translation Plugin
Additional Plugins
Required
Additional Plugins
Required
Additional Plugins
Required
Database Impact High Low Low Low
Translation Service
Support
ICanLocalize No No No

Theme &
Plugin Translation

.POT, .PO and .MO Files
 
Contain all the strings in your plugins and
themes for a speciﬁc language.
.POT = Template ( Original Strings )
.PO = Localized Version of the Strings
.MO = Compiled Version of the Localized Files

.POT, .PO and .MO Files
Many popular themes & plugins
come with translations already provided.
If not, you can manage your own translations
through plugins or 3rd party applications.

Loco Translate
Translation Mangement Plugin
for Themes & Plugins
Free in the WordPress Plugin Repository

PO Edit
Desktop Application for Managing POT and PO Files
Freemium
Available for Windows, OSX and Linux 
(poedit.net)

PO Edit (Statistics)

PO Edit
Pro Version ($20) will scan your source code and ﬁnd missing
translations
Provided Statistics including
Word Count.

GlotPress
Developed by the WordPress Community.
Still a work in progress.
Learn More at  
http://blog.glotpress.org/

Content Translation

Please please please….

Translation Services
Hire a Professional Translator 
They usually charge by the word

Translation Services
Built in Translation Services in WordPress:
ICanLocalize (Works with WPML)
LingoTek (Works with Polylang)

Contribute

Polyglots Team
The polyglots team is responsible for ensuring WordPress is
available in dozens of languages and many more regions. It’s a
big job, which is why we need help from native speakers of
many languages to make it possible.
https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/

translate.wordpress.org
Powered by GlotPress
Contribute translations to:
WordPress Core 
Themes 
Plugins 
Meta Projects

Thank you! Merci!
Gracias! 
Slides: www.shawnhooper.ca 
E-Mail: shawn@actionablebooks.com 
Twitter: @shawnhooper 
WordPress Slack: shooper

Creating Multilingual WordPress Websites

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