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Multilingual Websites with Web Village

Web Village lets you create multilingual sites in a few easy steps. Every language gets its own pages, its own menu and its own web addresses, and visitors switch between them with one click. And define which language will be your base language. 

Language template

How it works: one branch of pages per language

Your main language is the site as it is before you added another language. Add a new language with a language template: a page you create at the root of the site and set to that language, such as Français or Latviešu. Every page you add underneath it belongs to that language.

So the menu in site in English and Latvian looks like this:

  • English (main language): Home, About, Events, News, Contact, at addresses like /about and /events.
  • Latvian: a language root page at /lv, with its own Par mums, Pasākumi, Jaunumi and Kontakti beneath it, at addresses like /lv/par-mums and /lv/notikumi

Each language is a full set of pages, not a copy that has to stay in step. The Latvian side can have pages the English side doesn't, or skip ones that only matter in English. Each language can also have its own menu, so the navigation matches the pages that actually exist in that language.

Switching languages

A language switcher in the menu of your choice lists the site's other languages. You choose whether it shows short codes (EN, FR, LV) or each language's own name (English, Français, Latviešu).

The switcher keeps visitors on the same topic. When a page has a translation, choosing another language opens that page's translation, so someone reading the English Events page lands on the Latvian Notikumi page, not back at the home page. Where a page has no translation yet, the switcher looks up the page's parent, then its parent's parent, and opens the nearest one that is translated. A visitor on an untranslated concert page under Events lands on Notikumi. Only when nothing above the page is translated does it open that language's home page.

You link translations in the page editor: each page has a Translations setting where you pick its counterpart in each language. When you copy a page into another language's branch, Web Village links the two automatically.

Web Village translates the site's most common wording to match each page's language: things like the search box and button, "Next" and "Previous" on page lists, "Read more", the skip-to-content link, the footer headings, and the labels on its forms appear in the translated language.

Menus work the same way. There is a separate main menu for each language, so Latvian visitors see Latvian menu items that point to Latvian pages. You can also build a custom top bar or footer menu, specific for each language.

Creating pages for a new language

The fastest way to start a translated page is to copy the original into the other language's branch. The copy keeps the layout, images and blocks, so your translator only replaces the words. Web Village links the copy to the original as its translation, so the language switcher works straight away.

Then translate the text in the editor, block by block. You can translate the pages that matter most first, such as Home, About, Events and Contact, and add the rest over time. Because the switcher falls back to the closest page, a partly translated site still works for visitors.

Auto-translation is not part of the system at this time, but contact us if there is software you would like to try to use.

Adding a second language to your site

  1. Create the language root page. Add a page named for the language (for example "Français), choose the Language template and set its language code (fr).
  2. Copy your key pages into it. Copy Home, About, Events and Contact into the new branch. Each copy is linked to its original automatically.
  3. Translate the copies. Replace the text in each block.
  4. Add the language switcher to your menu, and choose whether it shows codes or language names.
  5. Optionally, make a menu for the new language with its own items.
  6. Publish. Copied pages start hidden, so nothing appears until you're ready.

If you'd like help setting one up, get in touch with the Web Village team.