Drupal in your language

This guide explains how to create a Drupal website in your own non-English langauge, popularly known as a localized, internationalized or a multi-lingual website

A multi-lingual or internationalized Drupal website has two key components for translation -

1. Core User Interface Elements
2. Content.

Core User Interface elements include built-in system strings - menu items, form labels, button labels such as 'Log in', 'Logout', 'Submit', 'View', 'Edit', 'Delete' etc.

Content means the actual content (nodes) of the website.

Steps for Core Interface Translation

1. Install Drupal in English
2. Enable Localization related modules from Core Optional group (need to enable Locale & Content Translation modules)
3. Add desired language/s by going to Administer > Site Configuration > Languages > Add Language - view details on Locale module handbook
4. Import Translation (Administer > Site Building > Translate Interface > Import) - you can check if Drupal interface translation for your language is available at: http://drupal.org/project/translations
5. If you dont have a translation file for your language as per step 4, you may need to translate interface on your onw - Translate interface (Administer > Site Building > Translate Interface > Search) - view details on Content Translation module handbook

Steps for Content Translation

If you are planning to build your website in a single non-English language, you may not need to do anything special for actual content (nodes) translation. Simply make your desired language as Defaul in the step 3 mentioned above & start adding content in your own language. You need to follow the below mentioned steps only if you are building a bi-lingual or a multi-lingual website.

Steps

1. Enable multi-lingual content capability for desired Content Types. Go to Administer > Content Management > Content Types, edit desired content types. Under workflow group, you will see an option for Multi-lingual support, choose appropriate option ('Enabled with translation' option gives 'Translate' tab to all nodes for this content type)
2. Once you enable Multi-lingual support for a content type - while adding new nodes of this content type, users will see a Drop Down of all enabled languages & they can select the desired language for the node.
3. Also, for all existing nodes, users with Translate Content permission can see a Translate tab & will be able to add translations to existing nodes.

For proper multi-lingual menu system & multi-lingual blocks, you may need to use a contributed module called Internationalization

Drupal language-related resources.

For Drupal versions in many languages, see:

• Translations
• Locale: multi-language support

For support and collaboration in your language or country, see:

• Language-specific communities
• Drupal local groups directory
• Geographical groups directory

For more Drupal language-specific resources, see:

• Translation, multilanguage content and internationalization
• Drupal sites by country, language...

For information on how you can help the Drupal project create localized versions of Drupal, see the Translating section of the Getting Involved handbook.