Install WordPress In Your Own Language

Install WordPress In Your Own Language shows you how to set up WordPress in your own language if the language exist and much more.

Last Updated: July 3, 2020

Latest News: Updated the documentation.

The following instructions shows you how to set up WordPress in your own language. In this tutorial the language of choice is Spanish. Once you have set up your language, whenever you install a plugin or theme that is translated into your language the correct files will be download into your site automatically.

Note: You no longer have to define the language in wp-config.php file as illustrated below. This was made possible thanks to WordPress version 4.0 and above.

• define( ‘WPLANG’, ” );

If your language is not working correctly in your site for a plugin or theme, then there is something else happening in your site that is preventing this. You can read the troubleshooting section below to help you further. If the troubleshooting does not help, you will have to troubleshoot further the issue in your site.

Install WordPress In Your Own Language

Note: The following instructions can be used to set up any language available in WordPress.

Step 1 ) First you need to download the WordPress version for your language. Click on the following URL list of languages WordPress supports to find your translated version. In this tutorial the Spanish WordPress file was downloaded and set up. Nowadays when you select the default language in your site, the admin panel will change to that language.

Step 2 ) When you install WordPress in your language “For these instruction, Spanish is the language used”, log into your site as admin. Go to Settings -> General translated into Spanish is  “Ajustes -> Generales” and make sure the Spanish language version, “Español” is selected.

Note: There are many different Spanish languages available in WordPress. Make sure you select the correct Spanish version or your country.

Admin General Settings

• Site Language “Idioma del sitio” = This is set to Español “Spanish”.

Troubleshooting A Plugin Language File

Step 3 ) When you install a plugin or theme as mentioned earlier the correct language will be set up by WordPress. Lets look at a particular plugin Simple Membership.

There are two areas that a the plugin language file might be added. One is in the plugin language folder if it exist.
The other area is located in the following path /wp-content/languages/plugins/. These files are the ones translated in wordpress.org.

For example the plugin has been translated into Spanish via wordpress.org then you will fine the following two files added to the the following path /wp-content/languages/plugins/.

Po and Mo Files

• simple-membership-es_ES.po
• simple-membership-es_ES.mo

However if someone else has also submitted the translation files to the developers and the developers added those language files to the plugins language directory, then the po and mo files will appear in the following directory /wp-content/plugins/simple-membership/languages/. This directory will take precedence over the files added by wordpress.org located in the path mentioned above. If that is the case, simply delete the Spanish po and mo files from the plugins language directory folder located in /wp-content/plugins/simple-membership/languages/.

Links Of Interest:

• Create a WordPress plugin or theme translation using poedit
• How To Translate WordPress Into Another Language
• Edit Simple Membership Default English Strings

If you have any questions please let me know.

I will be updating this tutorial from time to time so make sure you come back for the latest.

Enjoy.

WordPress Setup Tutorial List:

• How To Install And Setup WordPress