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Multilanguage

There are two different language settings: the language of your website content, and the language of the Lay Theme admin interface.

Website Language

Use a multilingual plugin when your public website should exist in more than one language. Lay Theme works with Polylang and qTranslate-XT.

If you need different images or videos per language, use Polylang. Otherwise, qTranslate-XT can be simpler because you can switch languages while editing a text. With Polylang, you usually duplicate each page or project for each language.

Create a backup before installing qTranslate-XT. It changes how texts are stored, and you can be left with language delimiters in your content if you disable it later.

Polylang is updated more often, has a pro version and offers support on its website. qTranslate-XT works well with Lay Theme, but it is more of an open source project.

With Polylang, disable multilingual support for media if images disappear from the Media Library. Go to the Polylang settings and uncheck Activate languages and translations for media.

For Polylang, visit the official Getting Started Guide.

qTranslate-XT

Install qTranslate-XT as a WordPress plugin.

The download is on GitHub. On the qTranslate-XT GitHub page, click the green Code button and choose Download ZIP. Then go to Plugins → Add Plugin → Upload Plugin in WordPress and upload the ZIP file.

GitHub Code dropdown with Download ZIP highlighted

On GitHub, open Code and choose Download ZIP

Choose the languages you want to use in Settings → Languages → Languages.

When you add or edit a text in the Gridder, qTranslate-XT adds language buttons to the text editor. Write the German text, switch to English and write the English text in the same window.

qTranslate-XT language buttons in the Add Text editor

Use the language buttons in the text editor to switch between translations

Add the Language Switcher to your menu in Appearance → Menus. This gives visitors a way to switch languages on the website.

qTranslate-XT Language Switcher in Appearance Menus

Add qTranslate-XT's Language Switcher to a WordPress menu

Sometimes a text that has not been translated will not appear on the website for the untranslated language. This seems to be a qTranslate-XT behavior.

Admin Panel Language

The WordPress admin panel, Gridder, Lay Options and other Lay Theme settings can also be translated. This does not translate your public website content. It only changes the language of the editing interface in wp-admin.

Lay Theme currently includes admin translations for:

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Dutch
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Chinese (Traditional)

To change the admin language for your own user, go to Users → Profile, choose a language in the Language dropdown and click Update Profile.

If your profile is set to Site Default, WordPress uses the language from Settings → General → Site Language. Lay Theme follows that WordPress admin language and falls back to English if no matching translation file exists.