Sitecore Multilingual Setup

Question

I could not find a single official document on setting up and using multilingual on Sitecore SDN.

Basically, we have a requirement to enable couple of our multi-site Sitecore website to support multi-lingual i.e. Chinese Mandarin and Japanese.

Based on geoip of the visitor or some questions, we need to display either English or Mandarin or Japanese for couple of pages on site.

Given that I'm quiet new to multi-lingual set up, could someone please help me below:

Sitecore setup:

1. What exactly do I need to do in terms of Sitecore IA setup? Create separate page for each languages?

2. How will content author author the english, japanese and mandarin for the same content pages?

3. Do we need to install any language translator such that content author will type in English and it will get translated to Mandarin and Japanese during run time?

4. Is it possible that user can type in Mandarin or Japanese in Sitecore CMS?

Sitecore Experience Editor:

How will user author in Mandarin or Japanese languages using Sitecore page editor?

Coding Changes:

We are using ASP.NET MVC, do we need to make our content repository smart such that it will get content from Sitecore in specific language e.g. pass language or similar?

I googled on above topic as well, but could not find any legitimate result.

Thanks.

Answer 1

For most multi-lingual strategies, it is also recommended to have a fallback strategy so if an item does not have a version in the current context language, the user will still see something, even if its in the default language (probably English). I have a custom solution in which you can model after in my blog post:

http://mrstevenzhao.blogspot.com/2015/08/sitecore-custom-language-fallback.html

Answer 2

To make language resolution work based on user IP you may replace <processor type="Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.LanguageResolver, Sitecore.Kernel"/> with your implementation where you do resolve languages based on IP lookup.

With miltilinguality In Sitecore, you will still have the same items, but some of the fields will be versioned (having their own version for each specific language).

When authors create content - they are able to switch between languages from your ribbon.

From UI point of view, the language will be take out from exact user settings, that also includes Page Editor (in sample below user has German languguage set):

Few more links to read:

http://www.newguid.net/sitecore/2012/adding-ip-lookup-to-language-resolving/

http://www.sitecore.net/learn/blogs/technical-blogs/john-west-sitecore-blog/posts/2011/05/spoof-an-ip-address-to-test-geoip-with-the-sitecore-customer-engagement-platform.aspx

Answer 3

Your post is really broad. Below you can find high level answers to your questions. If you need any more specific answers, try to be more precise and post separate questions.

Sitecore setup:

1. You need to add selected languages under /sitecore/system/Languages node

Then you need to select chosen language and click Add a new version:

2. Your content authors will be able to select chosen language version and edit it

3. Sitecore doesn't have any automated translation out of the box. There are some code samples and modules which can help you with that. Ask google for it, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=sitecore+translate

4. Yes, user can type Mandarin or Japanese or any other language.

Experience Editor:

1. In Experience Editor authors can switch between languages in the Experience tab of the ribbon:

Coding Changes:

1. For automated language selection based on user IP, you need to use some GEO IP provider, e.g.: https://www.google.pl/search?q=sitecore+geo+ip, for switching the languages manually, create language selector, e.g.: https://www.google.pl/search?q=sitecore+language+selector

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Remember that Sitecore 8 related documentation can be found on https://doc.sitecore.net/ or https://kb.sitecore.net/