More than one language

Your site can be in more than one language. Each translated page is a real page at its own address, so visitors and search engines find it in their language.

Choose languages for a new site

When you create a site (Sites → New site), pick up to three under Other languages: 简体中文, 繁體中文, English, Bahasa Melayu, தமிழ் (Tamil), Bahasa Indonesia, 日本語, 한국어, Tiếng Việt, ไทย, Español and Français. Firetend builds the site in its main language first, then translates every page into each language you picked. If your current website already has pages in that language, their wording is used.

Add a language to a live site

Ask for it as a design change on the Design page, for example "Add a Chinese version". The design agent adds the language, translates every page and adds a language switcher to the header. You review the preview and publish it like any other design change, and it uses 10 actions in the same way.

What visitors see

• Your main language stays at its usual address (/courses/). Each other language has its own, such as /zh/courses/ for Chinese.
• The language switcher in the header opens the same page in another language, or that language's home page if the page isn't translated.
• Site search finds pages in the visitor's language.
• Search engines are told which pages are translations of each other, so they show people the right one.
• Built-in words on forms, maps, videos and search are shown in English, Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese to match the page. In other languages they stay in English.

Edit a translated page

Open the translated page in the Editor: click the language switcher in the preview, or choose Edit next to it under Content. Then click any text and type, as on any page. Clicking text on a Chinese page edits the Chinese version only; your main page stays as it is.

The same goes for site-wide text such as your tagline: change it on a translated page and you change it in that language. The first time, it starts from your main-language text.

Under Content, translations are listed with their collection, each with a language badge such as zh.

Ask the content agent

The content agent knows your site's languages and translates into them. Ask it, for example:

• "Translate the Services page into Chinese"
• "Translate the pages that aren't in Chinese yet"
• "Update the translations"

To add a language the site doesn't have yet, ask for a design change instead (above).

It writes each translation for that language's readers rather than word for word, and keeps every fact, name, price and link the same. In one go it handles up to about 15 pages, most important first, and tells you what's left. Each page it translates uses about 8 actions, the same as writing a page.

When the original changes

A translation doesn't change by itself when you edit the main page. Firetend remembers which version of the original each translation was made from, so the content agent can find the ones that are out of date. Ask it to "update the translations" and it does those first, then any pages still missing in a language. When the agent changes a page that has translations, it tells you and offers to update them.

Good to know

• Each translation is saved to your draft like any other change. It goes live when you publish.
• Languages written right to left, and a separate domain for each language, aren't available yet.