# How to Hard Translate Your Entire WordPress WooCommerce Site: A Beginner’s Guide
Translating your WooCommerce store into another language is crucial for reaching a wider audience and boosting sales. While plugins offer easy solutions for simple translations, a hard translation, involving manually translating every string, ensures accuracy and control, especially for complex websites or nuanced terminology. This guide will walk you through the process, making it manageable even for beginners.
Why Hard Translate Your WooCommerce Site?
Using a simple translation plugin can be tempting, but it often falls short. Consider these scenarios:
- Technical Terms: Your store might use unique technical jargon or brand-specific language. Plugins struggle to correctly translate these nuances. For example, if you sell specialized tools, a plugin might misinterpret the name of a particular component.
- Contextual Issues: Direct translation doesn’t always work. A phrase might have different meanings depending on the context within your website. A hard translation allows you to address these contextual nuances manually.
- Complete Control: With hard translation, you’re in the driver’s seat. You have complete control over the accuracy and quality of the translation, guaranteeing a professional and consistent brand voice across your site.
- Using a String Extraction Tool: This involves using a tool (many are available online or as plugins) to extract all translatable strings from your theme and plugins. This creates a file (usually an `.po` file) that you then translate. Once translated (creating a `.mo` file), you’ll need to upload these files to your server.
- Manual Translation in the Database: This is a more advanced and risky method, but offers complete control. This involves directly editing the database to replace strings with their translated equivalents. We strongly recommend using a staging environment before attempting this method.
- Install and activate your chosen plugin.
- Follow the plugin’s instructions to export the strings. This usually involves navigating to a specific settings page within the plugin.
- Translate the `.po` file. You can use a translation editor (e.g., Poedit) or hire a professional translator.
- Import the translated `.mo` file. Upload the newly translated `.mo` file using the plugin’s interface.
- Access your database using phpMyAdmin or a similar tool.
- Identify tables containing translatable strings. These will often be tables related to posts, pages, products, and options. Common tables include `wp_posts`, `wp_postmeta`, `wp_options`, and `wp_woocommerce_attribute_taxonomies`.
- Manually translate the strings. This requires careful attention to detail to avoid breaking your website.
- Update the database. Save your changes.
- Broken Links: Translations might alter the URL structure.
- Display Issues: Ensure all text fits properly and the layout isn’t distorted.
- Functional Errors: Verify that forms, buttons, and other interactive elements work correctly.
Steps to Hard Translate Your WooCommerce Site
Hard translation requires a multi-stage approach. Let’s break it down:
1. Choose Your Translation Method
You have two primary choices:
2. Extract Translatable Strings (Method 1)
This method involves using a plugin like “Loco Translate” or “WPML.” These plugins provide a user-friendly interface to export your site’s translatable strings.
3. Direct Database Translation (Method 2 – Advanced and Risky!)
Caution: This method directly modifies your database. Always back up your database before proceeding!
Example (Illustrative – Specific table names and fields might differ): Let’s say the `wp_posts` table has a `post_title` column. You could find a row with `post_title` = “Product Name” and update it to `post_title` = “Nombre del Producto” (Product Name in Spanish).
4. Testing and Refinement
After translating, thoroughly test your website. Check all pages, product listings, checkout process, and other functionalities to ensure everything displays correctly and the translation is accurate. Pay attention to:
Conclusion
Hard translating your WooCommerce site guarantees accurate and controlled translations, but requires more effort than using plugins. Choose the method that best fits your technical skills and resources. Remember, meticulous planning, a solid backup strategy, and thorough testing are crucial for a successful hard translation. If you lack the technical expertise, consider hiring a professional translator or developer to assist you.
