I recently had the chance to work on a multi lingual WordPress site for a client in Canada, and I want to tell you about an excellent plugin which will help you to keep multiple versions of your content in different languages.
My client is based in Canada, so he needed a site which was accessible to English and French speakers, I got my first chance to use an excellent plugin I had seen in passing.
Introducing WPML
The plugin I used is WPML, this allows you to create content, and then to add a translation of that content. Then when the language is selected on the front end of your site the appropriate translation is provided. Very neat and very easy to implement.
The plugin can be downloaded from wpml.org, it also supports multiple languages as you would expect so you can see the plugin in action.
Installing The Plugin
The installation is just like any other install, add the plugin and activate it.
Once activated you need to add your language support. This involves setting the base or default language, in my example this was english, then you need to add your additional languages.
You can select multiple additional languages, and there are many to choose from.
The Language Switcher
There is a widget which can be added to your sidebar which provides a drop down to select your desired language. There are a couple of styling options to add flags to represent languages.
Adding Translated Content
Here is the function I thought was really handy. Instead of adding additional blog posts, you add a translation to an existing post. This keeps the management of your content very neat. When someone switches language, then that version of the content is displayed.
There is also a switch on your dashboard which switches the admin languages excellent if you have site contributors working in different languages.
Translation Services
The company behind WPML Icanlocalize also provides professional translation services, so if you want to provide multi language support but do not have the expertise to create the content, there is a service for this.
It’s A Big Old Plugin
I’ve only scratched the surface of WPML, there are many other features such as supporting themes, and plugins in multiple languages, if you have a requirement for multiple languages, I highly recommend this plugin.
Here’s the link again wpml.org
Plugin Price
WPML recently went premium, you will have to pay $29-$79 for this plugin
Still Need Help?
My team and I are available to help you build a WPML multi language site, get a no obligation quote from my WordPress Technical Support Page.
25 thoughts on “How To Create A Multi Lingual WordPress Site”
I have just recommended this post to a member of the Linked In WordPress Group who has asked for opinion on a Multi Lingual site plugin.
Her name is Jelske Boonstra.
Sadie-Michaela Harris
France
Merci Sadie-Michaela
Great post. You have indeed only scratched the surface of WPML, but all that you said is very true!
I have been using WPML on a variety of projects for almost 2 years now and I am looking forward to version 2.0!
Yes, there is a lot of functionality I haven’t even discussed one of the best plugins I have seen.
I am also looking for a language switcher plugins, i have my site content in Gujarati Mode and want one more language English so plz suggest me which plugins is best for me where i have only 2 language
This was a great plugin but since WordPress 3.1 they have gone commercial and want money. It now puts those of us who trusted and used this plugin in a difficult spot if we want it to work well with current and future WordPress updates! Unless we give in and pay what they require, the part that scares me is future changes and a request for more money. Where is the guarantee that the price or support will continue?
Thanks for doing this write-up – I’m curious – for those who’ve used this plugin and have worked on multi-lingual sites – is this also a good solution for having the WordPress dashboard and innards of WordPress translated? I’m looking to have non-English speaking folks use our new WordPress install, and I’d like to have an English as well as a non-English version of the wp-admin section.
Thanks!
Hi Jaki
You may be better off installing a version of WordPress in teh native language if you want the backend to be in a certain language, check out http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language
Will wpml work for a completely private wordpress site (eg search engines blocked, etc)?
I cannot see any reason why it would not, the plugin is self contained and the privacy settings only restrict robot access.
This is one of the sites that I work with, I am not pleased with the way the languages are being managed at this time. We are switching to a wordpress based new look, but as you can see there is more than just English and French to manage.
What I am wondering is does this plugin actually translate the content from English or can I manually add the translated text? And how does the end user select the language they wish to view the website in?
Thanks!
~Andrea
Thanks for that info. I have made several multi-lingual sites in joomla but didn’t know where to start in wordpress
Do you know of any WordPress Real Estate themes that WPML works with?
Hi Paul
I;ve used agentpress with WPML and it works out of the box (almost) check out http://www.hospa.nl/
Neil
How did you achieve the Search across the top like this page?
http://www.hospa.nl/nl/ondemand/rental-2
The theme is use agent press has custom types which can be translated so the drop downs appear in both languages
The plugin is amazing , but is there a free version of it?
And how about i can have in my site 6 different languages of my choice? I must write the code or there is something ready?
Yes you can have 6 or more languages if you use this plugin http://wpml.org
Thanks for this post. I have to create multilanuguage WordPress site and this post give me solution for that. Thanks again.
Thanks for that info. I have made several multi-lingual sites in joomla but didn’t know where to start in wordpress
Hi there,
I am currently on WP on a single language. Using SEO from Yoast, which is fantastic.
Now I want to add another language to the page. This means I want a theme in say english and same theme but in danish.
This means
2 site titles & tag lines
different navigation for each theme, due to language
different url for each theme and each page etc.
Can this plugin do that?
Yes you will get something like this
yourdomain.com/the-blog-post – with all teh seo goodies on that post
and another post
yourdomain.com/dk/the-blog-post – with Danish content and it’s own entries for seo the Danish or English content showed dependant upon the language selected
Thanks for your sharing of information. I plan to additional my current blogs to multi language and hope can have some international readers. I think this plugins will help me. Thanks.
Thanks for the sharing, but it is too expensive. Any Other free plugins can do it?
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