Resources and Notes on Multilingual WordPress Blog

Posted in Resources

If you want to have multilingual WordPress site, the WPML plugin at WPML.org is a great help to get you part way there.  After purchase of plugin it is actually named “sitepress-multilingual-cms”. You get a WPML menu in your WordPress Dashboard after installation.

Here are some video tutorials on how to install and use it…

Linked here and  here is good article on using WPML.

The video show some technical code to integrate WPML with your wordpress site.  It involves calling load_theme_textdomain in functions.php and adding do_action( ‘icl_language_selector’ ) to theme.

If you don’t want to both with these code integration, buy a theme that is “WPML ready” or “WPML compatible”.

Or at least get a theme that took internationalization into account.  For example, all strings and sentences should be wrapped with _e() or __() wordpress functions.  Just check the 404.php.   If not, get a theme with them in it.  WordPress article and this article talks about WordPress i18n (i18n stands for internationalization and is shorter to type).

Now it is time to actually translate you content.  While Google Translate can speed up the process, its robotic translation is not always perfect.  If you need a real person to do translation, try icanlocalize.com  or hire an WPML expert contractor.  You might also want to install the “Translation Management” plugin (video about it here) which allows you to determine which users can translate which contents.

If you want to display certain content depending on the language, you can detect the language with ICL_LANGUAGE_CODE in the theme file.

The tool poEdit help you edit translations in PO files, and convert PO files to MO files.  It also give you translation suggestions which helps your translators immensely.

Other WPML Add-Ons

There are various add-ons for WPML as listed here.

Besides the “Sitepress Multilingual CMS” plugin, you will also want to download and install the “WPML String Translation” add-on plugin.  After install of that, the option “Translate by WPML” becomes available and is the recommended setting.

Depending on your needs, there is also the “WPML Media” plugin, the “Gravity Forms Multilingual” plugin, and the “WooCommerce Multilingual” plugin.  The Gravity Forms Multilingual requires the WPML Translation Management plugin and then you will see the forms ready to be translated in the Translation Dashboard.

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