My site must be bilingual

  • dalectables · Member ·

    I live in Quebec and my site must have the option of being read in English and French. Can this be done with WordPress?

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • rachelmcr · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    There are a few different ways you can set up a bilingual site:

    1) You can put content in both languages on each post/page on your site. When you create a new page or write a blog post, do the first half in one language, then at the bottom of the post or page do it in the other language. That way, anyone reading your site can scroll to the right language. You can also create Page Jumps so users can click a link to jump to the right language on the page.

    2) You can have one site, but create separate pages/posts for each language. This might take a little more work to keep organized, but for each post or page on your site you can create one in English and one in French. That will let you keep the content more separate, and you can still link between the posts/pages so visitors can get to the same content in the other language.

    3) You can have two completely separate sites. In this case, you can sign up for two WordPress.com sites and have one for each language. You can set up the sites so they look the same and still link between the sites if you want — that way visitors can still switch back and forth between languages easily but you can keep the content in each language separate.

    Please let me know if you have any questions about that! :)

  • dalectables · Member ·

    What I am looking for, is a “French” or “English” button so that the person will be able to visualise the language of choice – not have the two languages on the same page.

    I figured I’d have to create one page for each language for each tab but will we see, say a tab: Home and another Accueuil (French for Home) or can I have a link that makes the whole site French or English?

    As an example, please look at my husband’s site mickdesigngroup.com where you can see the option of looking at the site in English or in French.

    Thanks

  • rachelmcr · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    If you want to be able to click a link and have the entire site switch between languages, I recommend using the third option I mentioned before. In other words, you can set up two WordPress.com sites and make one in English and the other in French. Then, you can put a link on the English site that says “French” to take someone to the French site, and a link on the French site that says “English” to take someone to the English site.

    You can see an example of a site at WordPress.com that did this kind of thing here: http://lamaleva.com/

    Please let me know if I can provide any further help with that!

  • dalectables · Member ·

    Excellent! Thanks, it’s what I figured must be done but just wanted to be sure before I started working my butt off!

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