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.
Update Sep 2012
Feel free to read the full post, but I’ve developed a video training to show you how to use WPML
Links & Code
WPML (AFF)
ICL_LANGUAGE_CODE='en'
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.