Multilanguage

There are two ways to make your website multilingual. You can either use the Plugin Polylang or qTranslate-XT.

If you need to have different images or videos per language, use Polylang. Otherwise, use qTranslate-XT. Create a backup of your website before installing qTranslate-XT because it changes your texts and you will be left with language delimiters in your texts if you disable qTranslate-XT later.

Please note that while qTranslate-XT works well with Lay Theme and is our personal favorite, Polylang is updated more often and has a pro version and has support on their website https://polylang.pro/ while qTranslate-XT is more of a open source project.

The upside of q-Translate-XT is you just have a switch between language while editing your texts. With Polylang, you basically have to duplicate each page for each language.

It is the default for the Polylang plugin to enable multilingual support for media. This should be turned off if you don't see your images in your media library. You can do this by unchecking the "Activate languages and translations for media" option, in the settings area of the Polylang plugin.

For Polylang please visit their official Getting Started Guide

The following is just about qTranslate-XT.

Make your website multilingual by installing the WordPress plugin qTranslate-XT. Follow the link, download qTranslate-XT and install it as a plugin in your WordPress admin area.

In case you are unsure if you want to make your website multilingual or not, please backup your database before you use qTranslate-XT, as it will permanently change your Texts and they will be formatted differently once you disable qTranslate-XT.

Backup your database with a plugin like "WP Migrate DB" or "Updraft" or use your phpMyAdmin from your webhost control panel.

Choose the languages you want to use in "Settings" → "Languages" → "Languages" Tab.
Add the Language Switcher to your Menu in "Appearance" → "Menus".

Please note that sometimes a text that you have not translated will not appear at all on the website that shows the language the text was not translated to. Not sure why that happens, might be a problem with qTranslate-XT.

Add a language switcher to your menu