Localization

WARNING
All Magento CLI commands must be run by the file system owner.

Commerce translations enable you to customize and localize your store for multiple regions and markets by generating:

  • Translation dictionaries, which are a convenient way to customize or translate some words and phrases, such as those for a custom module or theme.
  • Language packages that enable you to translate any or all words and phrases in the Commerce application.

See Translations overview.

Generate a translation dictionary

You can generate a translation dictionary to customize existing strings, translate words and phrases in a custom module, localize a theme, or create language packages.

To begin translating, use a command to generate a dictionary CSV file with a collected list of all existing phrases and words.

To generate the dictionary and begin translation:

  1. Extract translatable words and phrases from enabled components using the translation collection command. Content extracts into a CSV file.

  2. Translate the existing words and phrases. You can add additional custom terms as needed.

    You have options for using the translated dictionary:

  3. You can package the translation dictionaries into a language package and provide the package to the Commerce store administrator.

  4. In the Admin, the store administrator configures the translations.

Command options:

bin/magento i18n:collect-phrases [-o|--output="<csv file path and name>"] [-m|--magento] <path to directory to translate>

The following table explains parameters and values:

Parameter
Value
Required?
<path to directory to translate>
Path to a directory that has translatable code; in other words, PHP, PHTML, or XML files that have phrases to translate.

The tool starts searching at the path that you enter and searches all files and subdirectories it contains.

Do not use this parameter if you use -m --magento.
Yes (dictionaries), no (packages).
-m --magento
Required to create a language package from this translation dictionary. If used, searches the directories that contain bin/magento. This option adds themes or modules to each line in the dictionary.

A sample follows:

“No Items Found”,“No Items Found”,module,Magento_Wishlist
No
-o --output="<path>"
Specifies the absolute file system path and file name of the translation dictionary CSV file to create. The value you enter is case-sensitive. The name of the CSV file must exactly match the locale name, including the characters’ case.

If you omit this parameter, the output is directed to stdout.
No
INFO
To create a language pack from a translation dictionary, you must use the -m|--magento option.

Translation guidelines

Use the following guidelines when translating words and phrases:

  • Change the contents of the second column only. Translate the phrases from English (US) to the desired language.
  • When creating dictionaries for locales, use the default Commerce strings.
  • While translating, pay attention to placeholders: %1, %2

Commerce uses the placeholders to insert context values; they are not used for translations. For example:

Product '%1' has been added to shopping cart.

Populates with a value:

Product 'Multimeter-2000' has been added to shopping cart.

The resulting phrase must contain at least one of each placeholder. For example, suppose that there are placeholders from %1 to %3 in the original phrase. The translation can have as many of these placeholders in any order, but there must be at least one occurrence of %1, %2, and %3. The translation cannot contain placeholder values not present in the original value (for example, %4, %5, and so on).

An example of translating a phrase:

"Buy %1 for %2 (%3 incl. tax) each","Compre %1 por %2 (%3 incl. imposto) cada"

Create a language package

As opposed to a translation dictionary, you can translate any or all words and phrases in the Commerce application using a language package. You can translate a particular component—like a module or a theme—using a translation dictionary. Learn more about language packages.

This section discusses how to create a language package, which writes CSV files to modules and themes. To create a language package, you must perform the tasks discussed in the following sections:

Run the language package command

Command usage:

bin/magento i18n:pack [-m|--mode={merge|replace}] [-d|--allow-duplicates] <source> <locale>

The following table explains the parameters and values for the language package command:

Parameter
Value
Required?
<source>
Absolute file system path and file name of a CSV file that contains the combined translation dictionary and meta-information necessary for breakdown into a language package.

Use bin/magento i18n:collect-phrases to create the CSV file then create the language package as discussed in Create directories and files.
Yes
<locale>
ISO 639-1 (language) and ISO 3166 (country) identifier of language used as file name for all resulting CSV files. Examples: de_DE, pt_PT, pt_BR.
Yes
-m --mode
If a target file exists, specifies whether to replace the existing language package or merge with the new language pack. Merging overrides any phrases that existed and adds new ones.

Values: merge or replace (default).
No
-d --allow-duplicates
Include this option to allow duplicates in the language pack. Otherwise, the command fails with an error if it encounters the same phrase in multiple entries with different translations.
No

Create directories and files

Language packages are located in a directory under app/i18n/<VendorName> in the Commerce file system with the following contents:

  • Required license files
  • composer.json
  • registration.php that registers the language package
  • language.xml meta-information file
INFO
You must lowercase the entire path. For example, see [de_de][].

To create these files:

  1. Create a directory under app/i18n.

    For example, Commerce language packages are located in app/i18n/magento

  2. Add required license files.

  3. Add composer.json that specifies dependencies for your language package.

  4. Register the language package with registration.php

  5. Add language.xml meta-information file as discussed in the next section.

Language package language.xml

When declaring a language package in the language.xml configuration file, you must specify the sequence of the language inheritance for this package.

Language inheritance enables you to create a translation called a child based on an existing translation called a parent. The child translations override the parent. However, if the child translation fails to upload or display or is missing a phrase or word, Commerce uses the parent locale. Examples of language package inheritance.

To declare a package, specify the following information:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<language xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:App/Language/package.xsd">
    <code>en_GB</code>
    <vendor>magento</vendor>
    <package>en_gb</package>
    <sort_order>100</sort_order>
    <use vendor="oxford-university" package="en_us"/>
</language>

Where:

  • code—Language package locale (required)
  • vendor—Module’s vendor name (required)
  • package—Language package name (required)
  • sort_order—Priority of uploading a package when there are several language packages available for a store
  • use—Parent language package locale from which to inherit dictionaries

If necessary, you can specify several parent packages. The parent packages are applied on a first listed, first used basis.

Example of language inheritance

Suppose that a language package inherits from two other packages, and that those packages also have parent and “grandparent” packages.

If a language package inherits from two packages, its language.xml might look like the following:

<language xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:App/Language/package.xsd">
    <code>en_GB</code>
    <vendor>magento</vendor>
    <package>language_pack</package>
    <sort_order>100</sort_order>
    <use vendor="parent-package-one" package="language_package_one"/>
    <use vendor= "parent-package-two" package="language_package_two"/>
</language>

In the preceding example:

  • language_package_one inherits from en_au_package and en_au_package inherits from en_ie_package
  • language_package_two inherits from en_ca_package and en_ca_package inherits from en_us_package

If the Commerce application cannot find word or phrase in the en_GB package, it looks in other packages in following sequence:

  1. parent-package-one/language_package_one
  2. <vendorname>/en_au_package
  3. <vendorname>/en_ie_package
  4. parent-package-two/language_package_two
  5. <vendorname>/en_ca_package
  6. <vendorname>/en_us_package

Specifying all inheritances between the language packages might result in creating circular inheritance chains. Use Magento\Test\Integrity\App\Language\CircularDependencyTest test to locate and fix such chains.

Configure multiple packages for a language

To help you to make your store more flexible, you can upload several language packages for the same language in your store. Thus, you can use different custom packages for different parts of your store because the system compiles a single package from all packages that are available for a language.

To enable an additional package for an existing language, name the new package any name except for an existing language code name (to avoid confusion). Specify configurations of a package in the language package’s language.xml meta-information file as discussed in the next section.

Examples of using translation commands

The following sections provide end-to-end examples of using the commands discussed in this topic to create translation dictionaries and translation packages:

Example: Create a translation dictionary for a module or theme

To add a German translation to a module or theme that you want to distribute to other merchants:

  1. Collect phrases from your module:

    code language-bash
    bin/magento i18n:collect-phrases -o "/var/www/html/magento2/app/code/ExampleCorp/SampleModule/i18n/xx_YY.csv" /var/www/html/magento2/app/code/ExampleCorp/SampleModule
    
    note info
    INFO
    The CSV file name must exactly match the locale, including the characters’ case.
  2. Translate the words and phrases using these guidelines.

  3. If necessary, copy xx_YY.csv to /var/www/html/magento2/app/code/ExampleCorp/SampleModule/i18n or to the module’s theme directory (depending on whether the translation dictionary is for a module or a theme).

Example: Create a language package

Similar to the preceding example, generate a CSV file, but instead of specifying a module or theme directory, specify the entire Commerce application root directory. The resulting CSV contains any phrases that the command could find in the code.

  1. Collect phrases from your module:

    code language-bash
    bin/magento i18n:collect-phrases -o "/var/www/html/magento2/xx_YY.csv" -m
    
    note info
    INFO
    The CSV file name must exactly match the locale, including the characters’ case.
  2. Translate the words and phrases using these guidelines.

  3. Create the language package.

    code language-bash
    bin/magento i18n:pack /var/www/html/magento2/xx_YY.csv -d xx_YY
    
  4. Create a directory for the language package.

    For example, /var/www/html/magento2/app/i18n/ExampleCorp/xx_yy

  5. In that directory, add all of the following:

    • A license, if required
    • composer.json (sample following)
    • registration.php (sample following)
    • language.xml (sample following)

    Sample composer.json:

    code language-json
    {
        "name": "examplecorp/language-xx_yy",
        "description": "Sample language",
        "version": "100.0.2",
        "license": [
            "OSL-3.0",
            "AFL-3.0"
        ],
        "require": {
            "magento/framework": "100.0.*"
        },
        "type": "magento2-language",
        "autoload": {
            "files": [
                "registration.php"
            ]
        }
    }
    

    Sample registration.php:

    code language-php
    <?php
    /**
     * Copyright &copy; Magento, Inc. All rights reserved.
     * See COPYING.txt for license details.
     */
    
    use Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar;
    
    ComponentRegistrar::register(
        ComponentRegistrar::LANGUAGE,
        'magento_xx_yy',
        __DIR__
    );
    

    Sample language.xml:

    code language-xml
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    /**
    * Copyright &copy; Magento, Inc. All rights reserved.
    * See COPYING.txt for license details.
    */
    
    <language xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:App/Language/package.xsd">
        <code>xx_YY</code>
        <vendor>examplecorp</vendor>
        <package>xx_yy</package>
    </language>
    
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