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How can I change the language version of WordPress?

The WordPress installation was originally set to one language. However, I want to change it to another. The question is how this can be done without having to delete and reinstall the entire installation?

Mon, 5 Aug 2013 11:58:03
  • aristath
    • Recruit

    @Decura

    If you simply google this you’ll find LOTS of tutorials online.

    Google is your friend… use it. It’s a lot faster than writing a question in these forums and then waiting for a reply.

    Just to save some time though, here are the basics:

    1. Open up your wp-config.php file and set WPLANG to a language of your choosing.

    See http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language for individual language codes etc.

    2. Go to Settings => General and select the language there

    3. Download the language file for WordPress core from the link I posted above, and follow the instructions there. You just have to copy the file you download to /wp-content/languages

    4. Use PoEdit or this plugin http://wordpress.org/plugins/codestyling-localization/ to translate all your other plugins. Of course if you have WPML you can use that instead to do your translations.

    I hope that helps!

    Cheers,

    Ari.

  • Decura
    • The Bug Hunter

    @aristath

    Just for reference – the primary reason why I use WPMU DEV is to gain access to the forum. Any question serves as a knowledge base and the answer to any question acts a curated list of possible solutions. A search may in many cases result in countless of pages that can take hours or even days to go through. Asking a question here and working on other tasks in between does save a lot of time. It is simply a matter of prioritization.

  • aristath
    • Recruit

    Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t say that you shouldn’t post questions like these here, but here’s what’s happening:

    We get a large number of posts in these forums, and it’s our job to answer these posts.

    On average I (and every other staff member) pick up about 50 new posts per day that I have to reply to.

    On top of that, there are hundreds of posts that I have to keep an eye on and reply to when a user asks an additional question, provides some more info etc.

    Some questions require lots of time because we have to examine things, test, write some custom code, test again, look up solutions to your issues and so on. Some posts require a minute of thinking, others require half an hour.

    When someone asks a question without even looking themselves for an answer first, all they accomplish is that when they make a question that really requires our attention, we don’t have enough time to respond properly!

    Take for example this morning: I woke up and I have 113 responses to go through and respond to, while at the same time I answer to all new threads.

    If I need 5 minutes to simply google for a simple question and copy-paste what I find here as a response to simple questions, that’s something that you can also before asking your question. This way, when you ask a question that really troubles you, we’ll be able to spend these extra 5 minutes to find a solution to your issue!

    And though 5 minutes are not a big deal, if you add all the 5-minute posts that we respond to on a daily basis, you’ll see that we’ll probably get an hour to find solutions to the real issues.

    So in the end, what I’m trying to say is that posting questions like these only harms the quality of service that we provide when we try to help you guys.

    I hope that makes it a bit more clear.

    Cheers,

    Ari.

  • Decura
    • The Bug Hunter

    @aristath

    Well, a part of the problem is that this is both a community forum and support system. Not all questions require answers from the staff.

    An example is a recommendation request to LMS systems. There is no issue for the staff to solve but it can still be very important for a member to select the right solution and it can take hours or days to search for solutions and perhaps also test them.

    Furthermore, you are missing the point that a search doesn’t always provide the right answer. Any question asked in the community also automatically becomes part of the knowledge base so you only have to worry about it once. Eventually, previous threads with an answer should appear already when posting the question.

    You are absolutely right in the fact that a few questions quickly adds up. This is where the membership makes sense to me as mentioned above. Spending more than a certain amount of time searching for answers elsewhere really takes the point out of being a member.

    Perhaps you should consider splitting the forum and support system as this may reduce the workload.

    Just for reference – I did search for a solution to the original question. It didn’t work so I came here not to waste any more time.