Multilingual Mode
You should define the available languages in a languages section in your site configuration.
Configure Languages
The following is an example of a site configuration for a multilingual Hugo project:
DefaultContentLanguage: en
copyright: Everything is mine
languages:
ar:
languagedirection: rtl
title: مدونتي
weight: 2
en:
params:
linkedin: https://linkedin.com/whoever
title: My blog
weight: 1
fr:
params:
linkedin: https://linkedin.com/fr/whoever
navigation:
help: Aide
title: Mon blogue
weight: 2
params:
navigation:
help: Help
DefaultContentLanguage = "en"
copyright = "Everything is mine"
[languages]
[languages.ar]
languagedirection = "rtl"
title = "مدونتي"
weight = 2
[languages.en]
title = "My blog"
weight = 1
[languages.en.params]
linkedin = "https://linkedin.com/whoever"
[languages.fr]
title = "Mon blogue"
weight = 2
[languages.fr.params]
linkedin = "https://linkedin.com/fr/whoever"
[languages.fr.params.navigation]
help = "Aide"
[params]
[params.navigation]
help = "Help"
{
"DefaultContentLanguage": "en",
"copyright": "Everything is mine",
"languages": {
"ar": {
"languagedirection": "rtl",
"title": "مدونتي",
"weight": 2
},
"en": {
"params": {
"linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/whoever"
},
"title": "My blog",
"weight": 1
},
"fr": {
"params": {
"linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/fr/whoever",
"navigation": {
"help": "Aide"
}
},
"title": "Mon blogue",
"weight": 2
}
},
"params": {
"navigation": {
"help": "Help"
}
}
}
Anything not defined in a languages block will fall back to the global value for that key (e.g., copyright for the English en language). This also works for params, as demonstrated with help above: You will get the value Aide in French and Help in all the languages without this parameter set.
With the configuration above, all content, sitemap, RSS feeds, paginations,
and taxonomy pages will be rendered below / in English (your default content language) and then below /fr in French.
When working with front matter Params in single page templates, omit the params in the key for the translation.
defaultContentLanguage sets the project’s default language. If not set, the default language will be en.
If the default language needs to be rendererd below its own language code (/en) like the others, set defaultContentLanguageInSubdir: true.
Only the obvious non-global options can be overridden per language. Examples of global options are baseURL, buildDrafts, etc.
Disable a Language
You can disable one or more languages. This can be useful when working on a new translation.
disableLanguages = ["fr", "ja"]
Note that you cannot disable the default content language.
We kept this as a standalone setting to make it easier to set via OS environment:
HUGO_DISABLELANGUAGES="fr ja" hugo
If you have already a list of disabled languages in config.toml, you can enable them in development like this:
HUGO_DISABLELANGUAGES=" " hugo server
Configure Multilingual Multihost
From Hugo 0.31 we support multiple languages in a multihost configuration. See this issue for details.
This means that you can now configure a baseURL per language:
If a
baseURLis set on thelanguagelevel, then all languages must have one and they must all be different.
Example:
languages:
en:
baseURL: https://example.com
languageName: English
title: In English
weight: 2
fr:
baseURL: https://example.fr
languageName: Français
title: En Français
weight: 1
[languages]
[languages.en]
baseURL = "https://example.com"
languageName = "English"
title = "In English"
weight = 2
[languages.fr]
baseURL = "https://example.fr"
languageName = "Français"
title = "En Français"
weight = 1
{
"languages": {
"en": {
"baseURL": "https://example.com",
"languageName": "English",
"title": "In English",
"weight": 2
},
"fr": {
"baseURL": "https://example.fr",
"languageName": "Français",
"title": "En Français",
"weight": 1
}
}
}
With the above, the two sites will be generated into public with their own root:
public
├── en
└── fr
All URLs (i.e .Permalink etc.) will be generated from that root. So the English home page above will have its .Permalink set to https://example.com/.
When you run hugo server we will start multiple HTTP servers. You will typlically see something like this in the console:
Web Server is available at 127.0.0.1:1313 (bind address 127.0.0.1)
Web Server is available at 127.0.0.1:1314 (bind address 127.0.0.1)
Press Ctrl+C to stop
Live reload and --navigateToChanged between the servers work as expected.
Taxonomies and Blackfriday
Taxonomies and Blackfriday configuration can also be set per language:
Taxonomies:
tag: tags
blackfriday:
angledQuotes: true
hrefTargetBlank: true
languages:
en:
blackfriday:
angledQuotes: false
title: English
weight: 1
fr:
Taxonomies:
plaque: plaques
title: Français
weight: 2
[Taxonomies]
tag = "tags"
[blackfriday]
angledQuotes = true
hrefTargetBlank = true
[languages]
[languages.en]
title = "English"
weight = 1
[languages.en.blackfriday]
angledQuotes = false
[languages.fr]
title = "Français"
weight = 2
[languages.fr.Taxonomies]
plaque = "plaques"
{
"Taxonomies": {
"tag": "tags"
},
"blackfriday": {
"angledQuotes": true,
"hrefTargetBlank": true
},
"languages": {
"en": {
"blackfriday": {
"angledQuotes": false
},
"title": "English",
"weight": 1
},
"fr": {
"Taxonomies": {
"plaque": "plaques"
},
"title": "Français",
"weight": 2
}
}
}
Translate Your Content
There are two ways to manage your content translations. Both ensure each page is assigned a language and is linked to its counterpart translations.
Translation by filename
Considering the following example:
/content/about.en.md/content/about.fr.md
The first file is assigned the English language and is linked to the second. The second file is assigned the French language and is linked to the first.
Their language is assigned according to the language code added as a suffix to the filename.
By having the same path and base filename, the content pieces are linked together as translated pages.
Translation by content directory
This system uses different content directories for each of the languages. Each language’s content directory is set using the contentDir param.
languages:
en:
contentDir: content/english
languageName: English
weight: 10
fr:
contentDir: content/french
languageName: Français
weight: 20
[languages]
[languages.en]
contentDir = "content/english"
languageName = "English"
weight = 10
[languages.fr]
contentDir = "content/french"
languageName = "Français"
weight = 20
{
"languages": {
"en": {
"contentDir": "content/english",
"languageName": "English",
"weight": 10
},
"fr": {
"contentDir": "content/french",
"languageName": "Français",
"weight": 20
}
}
}
The value of contentDir can be any valid path – even absolute path references. The only restriction is that the content directories cannot overlap.
Considering the following example in conjunction with the configuration above:
/content/english/about.md/content/french/about.md
The first file is assigned the English language and is linked to the second. The second file is assigned the French language and is linked to the first.
Their language is assigned according to the content directory they are placed in.
By having the same path and basename (relative to their language content directory), the content pieces are linked together as translated pages.
Bypassing default linking.
Any pages sharing the same translationKey set in front matter will be linked as translated pages regardless of basename or location.
Considering the following example:
/content/about-us.en.md/content/om.nn.md/content/presentation/a-propos.fr.md
# set in all three pages
translationKey: "about"
By setting the translationKey front matter param to about in all three pages, they will be linked as translated pages.
Localizing permalinks
Because paths and filenames are used to handle linking, all translated pages will share the same URL (apart from the language subdirectory).
To localize the URLs, the slug or url front matter param can be set in any of the non-default language file.
For example, a French translation (content/about.fr.md) can have its own localized slug.
Title: A Propos
slug: a-propos
Title = "A Propos"
slug = "a-propos"
{
"Title": "A Propos",
"slug": "a-propos"
}
At render, Hugo will build both /about/ and /fr/a-propos/ while maintaining their translation linking.
Page Bundles
To avoid the burden of having to duplicate files, each Page Bundle inherits the resources of its linked translated pages’ bundles except for the content files (markdown files, html files etc…).
Therefore, from within a template, the page will have access to the files from all linked pages’ bundles.
If, across the linked bundles, two or more files share the same basename, only one will be included and chosen as follows:
- File from current language bundle, if present.
- First file found across bundles by order of language
Weight.
Reference the Translated Content
To create a list of links to translated content, use a template similar to the following:
{{ if .IsTranslated }}
<h4>{{ i18n "translations" }}</h4>
<ul>
{{ range .Translations }}
<li>
<a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Lang }}: {{ .Title }}{{ if .IsPage }} ({{ i18n "wordCount" . }}){{ end }}</a>
</li>
{{ end }}
</ul>
{{ end }}
The above can be put in a partial (i.e., inside layouts/partials/) and included in any template, whether a single content page or the homepage. It will not print anything if there are no translations for a given page.
The above also uses the i18n function described in the next section.
List All Available Languages
.AllTranslations on a Page can be used to list all translations, including the page itself. On the home page it can be used to build a language navigator:
<ul>
{{ range $.Site.Home.AllTranslations }}
<li><a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Language.LanguageName }}</a></li>
{{ end }}
</ul>
Translation of Strings
Hugo uses go-i18n to support string translations. See the project’s source repository to find tools that will help you manage your translation workflows.
Translations are collected from the themes/<THEME>/i18n/ folder (built into the theme), as well as translations present in i18n/ at the root of your project. In the i18n, the translations will be merged and take precedence over what is in the theme folder. Language files should be named according to RFC 5646 with names such as en-US.toml, fr.toml, etc.
From within your templates, use the i18n function like this:
{{ i18n "home" }}
This uses a definition like this one in i18n/en-US.toml:
[home]
other = "Home"
Often you will want to use to the page variables in the translations strings. To do that, pass on the “.” context when calling i18n:
{{ i18n "wordCount" . }}
This uses a definition like this one in i18n/en-US.toml:
[wordCount]
other = "This article has {{ .WordCount }} words."
An example of singular and plural form:
[readingTime]
one = "One minute to read"
other = "{{.Count}} minutes to read"
And then in the template:
{{ i18n "readingTime" .ReadingTime }}
Customize Dates
At the time of this writing, Go does not yet have support for internationalized locales for dates, but if you do some work, you can simulate it. For example, if you want to use French month names, you can add a data file like data/mois.yaml with this content:
1: "janvier"
2: "février"
3: "mars"
4: "avril"
5: "mai"
6: "juin"
7: "juillet"
8: "août"
9: "septembre"
10: "octobre"
11: "novembre"
12: "décembre"
…then index the non-English date names in your templates like so:
<time class="post-date" datetime="{{ .Date.Format '2006-01-02T15:04:05Z07:00' | safeHTML }}">
Article publié le {{ .Date.Day }} {{ index $.Site.Data.mois (printf "%d" .Date.Month) }} {{ .Date.Year }} (dernière modification le {{ .Lastmod.Day }} {{ index $.Site.Data.mois (printf "%d" .Lastmod.Month) }} {{ .Lastmod.Year }})
</time>
This technique extracts the day, month and year by specifying .Date.Day, .Date.Month, and .Date.Year, and uses the month number as a key, when indexing the month name data file.
Menus
You can define your menus for each language independently. Creating multilingual menus works just like creating regular menus, except they’re defined in language-specific blocks in the configuration file:
defaultContentLanguage = "en"
[languages.en]
weight = 0
languageName = "English"
[[languages.en.menu.main]]
url = "/"
name = "Home"
weight = 0
[languages.de]
weight = 10
languageName = "Deutsch"
[[languages.de.menu.main]]
url = "/"
name = "Startseite"
weight = 0
The rendering of the main navigation works as usual. .Site.Menus will just contain the menu in the current language. Note that absLangURL below will link to the correct locale of your website. Without it, menu entries in all languages would link to the English version, since it’s the default content language that resides in the root directory.
<ul>
{{- $currentPage := . -}}
{{ range .Site.Menus.main -}}
<li class="{{ if $currentPage.IsMenuCurrent "main" . }}active{{ end }}">
<a href="{{ .URL | absLangURL }}">{{ .Name }}</a>
</li>
{{- end }}
</ul>
Missing Translations
If a string does not have a translation for the current language, Hugo will use the value from the default language. If no default value is set, an empty string will be shown.
While translating a Hugo website, it can be handy to have a visual indicator of missing translations. The enableMissingTranslationPlaceholders configuration option will flag all untranslated strings with the placeholder [i18n] identifier, where identifier is the id of the missing translation.
For merging of content from other languages (i.e. missing content translations), see lang.Merge.
To track down missing translation strings, run Hugo with the --i18n-warnings flag:
hugo --i18n-warnings | grep i18n
i18n|MISSING_TRANSLATION|en|wordCount
Multilingual Themes support
To support Multilingual mode in your themes, some considerations must be taken for the URLs in the templates. If there is more than one language, URLs must meet the following criteria:
- Come from the built-in
.Permalinkor.RelPermalink - Be constructed with the
relLangURLtemplate function or theabsLangURLtemplate function OR be prefixed with{{ .LanguagePrefix }}
If there is more than one language defined, the LanguagePrefix variable will equal /en (or whatever your CurrentLanguage is). If not enabled, it will be an empty string (and is therefore harmless for single-language Hugo websites).