Has anyone built a site with support for multiple languages such as Spanish, Russian, Arabic, etc?

Question

I have a question about building a site and display contents in different language based on where the user is browsing from. I just googled the topic and a lot of specific information came up. What I'm looking for is actually just top level info that I can present this to someone. I've never done multi lang sites before so baby steps please.

Should I create separate pages for each language? (That's about 6800 pages) What are the generally excepted languages in the world that is used for this purpose? I mean, of the 6800 languages I assume a great majority are tribal dialects in regions that don't use computer.

Or, how about creating pages dynamically and store language info in a database?

I saw something in reference to Localization but not sure if that can be used for more than two languages.

Thanks,

Risho

Answer 1

The first big step is internationalization (aka i18n): Implement the structure that will allow to translate your website and present it to user in different cultures.

The 2nd step is localization (aka l10n): Translating of your website into one or more other languages and adapting it to different cultures.

Internationalization is a bit like climbing the mountain in front of your village and localization is getting down from the top of the mountain to the villages in the different other valleys: Climbing up the mountain is not an easy task but it's the shortest path to travel to the surrounding valleys.

The choice of languages obviously depends on your users/customers target. A local service provider in St-Jean-de-Luz may consider worthier to translate her website from French to Basque (650K speakers) rather then to English (> 1 billion speakers) since she targets local customers.

On the other hand, an ISV in the same town selling culture-agnostic software (assuming that ever exists) would try to reach a broader audience and translate their site to English.

There are many ways to achieve globalization (i18n+l10n), none of which being small jobs! There are many resources to help you out. This article may be a good starting point.

I just ask for one thing: Please don't base language selection on country/geo-location. You should rather do it (if at all) on HTTP Accept-language header: Language is not a matter of countries. Many countries (even small ones) have different communities in term of language spoken. In addition, more and more people migrate yet don't want to abandon their native language.

Answer 2

What exactly to use is depend on what kind of information you want to localize. If it's only titles, labels or stuff like that resource files would be enough. But it's about the content, probably you need to keep this data into DB, in this case you should create web interface or any other tool to access this info (for editing).

I wouldn't suggest to have pages for the specific languages. But, if this information is consistent and will not be changed or extended it may be the option.

Answer 3

Consider Google Analytics to determine usage country by country. And, I would also suggest using resource files to keep the various language-specific text in place.

Answer 4

I think what you are looking for is internationalising your site. You might want to learn about internationalisation ( i18n).