WordPress is the leading CMS (content management system) for website building. In addition to being free, open-source software, WordPress offers many features and options.
However, despite its popularity, WordPress isn’t always the most accessible tool.
You’ll need to install additional plugins to add new languages or create a multilingual site.
Here are some of the best WordPress Multilingual Plugins to get started.
1. Weglot
Weglot is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to translate your entire website into multiple languages within seconds.
With Weglot, you don’t have to hire expensive agencies to handle your translations; you can do it yourself.
All you need to do is install the plugin on your site, enter basic information about how many translated versions you want, select the languages you’d like to support and start translating.
The plugin automatically detects your visitors‘ current language and translates everything accordingly. You can also link each translated version or show the original text.
If you want to add a link to the translated version, copy the original post’s URL containing the source text and paste it inside the “Link to Translated Version” field.
You can also use Weglot to manage your translations collaboratively. Enable “Collaboration Mode,” set a password for the admin area, and invite people to join the project.
They’ll see a list of posts with translations available and can edit them directly. Once a change is submitted, it will be automatically pushed out to all the other collaborators.
To keep things organized, you can assign tags to different post versions and filter the list based on those tags.
This way, you can easily find a specific post version without browsing hundreds of posts.
In addition to managing your translations, Weglot offers several valuable features that allow you to optimize your website for international audiences.
For example, you can hide specific categories from the navigation menu or include a special footer section with additional information, such as copyright notices or contact forms.
If you’re looking for a simple and easy solution to translate your entire website, try Weglot today.
2. Lingotek
Lingotek is also among the best WordPress multilingual plugins. With Lingotek, you can automatically translate your website into different languages without third-party translation tools.
The plugin connects to Microsoft Translation’s API, enabling you to add translations to your site easily.
You can access a large pool of translators ready to work on your project by uploading files containing text to be translated.
You can pay per word or monthly, depending on how much you want to spend. If you choose the subscription option, you can set a price cap to limit your monthly spending.
Once you’ve uploaded your files, Lingotek connects directly to the Lingotek community to find qualified translators to complete your job.
Once your job is completed, you’ll receive an email notification about the language your job was successfully transferred into.
Lingotek provides full integration with the WordPress admin area to ensure everything goes smoothly, allowing you to view and update your jobs and monitor progress quickly.
3. WPML
WordPress Multilingual Plugin (WPML) is another powerful tool that makes managing multiple translations for your site easy.
With WPML, you can translate your entire site into over 40 languages and make sure that every piece of text is translated correctly.
Also, WPML gives you complete control over how your translations are managed, including where they live, what they look like, and whether they’re automatically updated.
WPML offers three ways to set up your multilingual site. You can use one language per site to keep things simple. Or you could put each language on a separate domain name or sub-domain.
This way, you can easily switch between languages without changing URLs. Further, you can use WPML to translate content directly within your theme files.
For example, depending on the language used, you might want to display a specific phrase in your header or footer. You can do this with just a few lines of code.
4. TranslatePress
This tool is also among the best WordPress multilingual plugins. It works for translators, allowing them to translate any text within your website.
You must select the language you want to translate to, and the plugin will automatically translate everything.
What’s great about this tool is that you can translate your entire page’s content from the form fields, shortcodes, elements, and other components.
You can choose the format you like—from HTML to Markdown—and ensure you don’t miss any information. In addition, you can use images, videos, and files in the translation process.
With TranslatePress, you can add a glossary of terms and define what each word means. If you need help with something specific, you can contact the developers directly via email.
Further, you don’t have to touch a single file to make your site translatable.
All you have to do is install the plugin and add some text to your posts or pages. Then, you’ll see the option to translate those words.
To start translating, select the language you’d like to target. From there, you can choose whether to show the translated version of the post or hide it.
5. Polylang
Polylang is one of the most powerful multilingual WordPress plugins out there.
You can use it to quickly build a multilingual website without hiring a developer. Also, it lets you quickly add languages to your WordPress site.
You can choose from over 30 different languages supported by WordPress.
It supports English and Spanish but doesn’t support other European languages like French, German, Portuguese, and Italian.
The plugin features a clean UI, an easy installation, and an intuitive interface.
It also allows you to add multiple languages to your site. Moreover, you can organize your menus, footers, headers, sidebars, widgets, and much more.
The plugin includes a built-in translation system automatically translating your text into different languages. You don’t even have to do anything special to make it work.
To help you set up your multilingual website, Polylang includes a massive list of ready-to-use templates.
These are fully customizable to change colors, fonts, logos, and more. It even gives you a list of premium themes that can be used with Polylang.
6. Loco Translate
Loco Translate has powerful features that make it fit to be among the best WordPress multilingual plugins.
You can turn your WordPress site into multiple languages with just a few lines of code with Loco Translate.
Also, you don’t need to hire a professional translator or any programming language; you only need a little knowledge of HTML and CSS.
You can easily add multilingual support if your WordPress theme or plugin supports translations.
No additional steps are required since Loco Translate works directly within the WordPress Dashboard.
To start translating, log into your account and choose the language you want to translate. Then, select the theme or plugin you want to translate.
Finally, click on the button “Translate.” After that, you’ll receive a notification once the translation process is finished.
7. MultilingualPress
MultilingualPress is another WordPress multilingual plugin that takes a different turn.
Rather than installing multiple copies of WordPress on a server, it runs on the built-in WordPress multisite network for each language.
This allows the plugin to easily manage content for each language without worrying about duplicating content across servers.
The plugin has an intuitive interface to help you translate your site into several languages.
You can choose whether to use automatic translation tools, human translators, or both.
If you want to go manual, you can select specific words or phrases that are translated automatically.
You can set up each language on its subdomain or a separate directory. Each language can also be hosted on its custom domain name.
You can also use either permalinks or no-index tags to prevent search engines from indexing pages in specific languages.
8. Multisite Language Switcher
Like the name, it’s evident that the Multisite Language Switcher allows you to switch between languages in an instance.
In addition, it provides many features, such as connecting translated posts and pages, categories and tags, widgets, blocks, and shortcodes.
The best part is that you don’t need to do much work – just set up the plugin once and let it run in the background.
All you have to do is add some text to your post/page and hit “Save.” Now, whenever someone visits your site, he’ll see the translation of your post/page in his language.
You can also change the default language visitors and admins use, choose the type of translations you want to provide and control how many languages you’d like to offer.
There are two ways to use the plugin: manually translate individual posts and pages or automatically detect the current language and display the correct version.
9. WPGlobus
Among the best WordPress multilingual plugins is WPGlobus. WPGlobus is a WordPress translation management plugin that allows you to manage the translations of your entire site.
You can set up different languages for each post, page, category, tag, menu item, widget, and taxonomy.
It includes a built-in language selector, allowing you to switch between languages without logging out of your account.
The plugin uses WPML for automatic translation but does not require it. If you want to use another translation solution like Poedit, you can do so via the settings panel.
You can display translated versions of your posts automatically on the front end or show the English version while letting visitors see the original text.
Further, this plugin works well with the All-in-one SEO pack, making it easy to integrate into your existing setup.
10. BuddyPress Multilingual
If you want to translate your website into multiple languages, look no further than BuddyPress Multilingual.
This handy plugin allows you to translate pages into different languages while maintaining the same theme.
You don’t have to change anything about your site; everything stays the same.
The plugin works with both single-site and multisite installations. Whether you use WPML or WooCommerce for your shopping cart doesn’t matter – BuddyPress Multilingual supports both.
The plugin uses the popular WordPress framework WPML to offer translations for BuddyPress pages.
This lets you easily switch between different languages while maintaining the same URL structure.
In addition, it works with the BuddyPress Flow module. So whether you want to translate your entire Buddypress site or just a specific part, BuddyPress Multilingual is ready to go.
11. GTranslate
GTranslate is a cloud translation interface that allows you to translate your site into over 40 languages without hiring translators. You upload your text files, and it does the rest.
Once you’ve translated everything, you can export your translations to your server or use them directly within WordPress.
The best part about GTranslate is that you don’t need to know how to code.
GTranslate uses machine learning technology to detect what language each piece of text belongs to automatically and translates it accordingly. This way, you don’t have to translate every word manually.
12. Google Website Translator
Google Website Translator is also one of the best WordPress multilingual plugins. The plugin allows you to use either a widget or a shortcode.
You can even translate just a specific part of your website, like one of your blog posts or a sidebar.
The main advantage of this plugin over others is that all its settings are saved into a single database record, making it one of the fastest translators out there.
13. Advanced Google Translate
Advanced Google Translate is a powerful WordPress translation plugin allowing you to translate your entire website into over 50 languages easily.
Using the plugin is highly straightforward – install it, activate it, and start translating. You don’t need to know how to code; everything is done via drag & drop menus.
The plugin works perfectly with all WordPress themes and plugins and is easy to configure. Select one of the supported languages and enter the URL of your website.
Then, drag and drop the text you want to be translated onto the appropriate area of the screen. When you’re ready, hit “Translate.”
14. Transposh WordPress Translation
Transposh is the last mention on our list of the best WordPress multilingual plugins that translate your site into multiple languages.
It does this by combining automated machine translations with manual translations. With Transposh, you can hire professional translation services to translate your site.
These professionals can provide high-quality translations because they work directly within the context of your site.
This makes it easier for them to understand what you’re trying to communicate.
They can also help you avoid common mistakes like mistranslating words that sound similar.
In addition, Transposh provides a variety of tools to make sure that your translations are accurate.
For example, you can check spelling errors, generate automatic glossaries, and suggest corrections.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for an affordable solution to add more than one language to your WordPress website, this list of the best WordPress multilingual plugins will do the trick.
They’ll allow you to translate your content in real time while keeping your site’s performance at its peak.
