Managing your store's languages

When you sell in multiple languages, customers and search engines need to find the right language version of your store. When you publish a language, unique URLs are created for each translated page in your store by adding the language code to the URLs. Language-specific URLs also get the following:

• Hreflang tags: Tags are added automatically for language-specific URLs.
• URL slugs: Translated slugs are optional but improve localization. For example, you can translate /products/chair to /produkte/stuhl.

For example, suppose your primary domain is example.com. If you publish French and German as additional languages, then your store URLs change to example.com/fr and example.com/de.

You can also have different languages available on different domains by using the international domains feature.

URL slugs can be translated manually with the Shopify Translate & Adapt app, a compatible third-party translation app, or by using CSV export and import.

Search engines need to index your store in all the translated languages. Hreflang tags are added automatically, and all published languages are included in sitemaps, which help search engines detect the different languages on your store. You can manage this setting from Online Store > Preferences. Learn more about automatic hreflang tags.

Each piece of translated content has one of the following statuses:

• Translated: The content has translations available.
• Outdated: The content in the default language has been updated, but the translations don't reflect any updates.
• Untranslated: There are no translations for this content type.

When you update your theme, your custom translations are kept, and translations for content that changed are marked as outdated so that you can review them.

If your store is located in a country where Auto-sync is available, then the Translate & Adapt app also displays a status for each language. Learn more about automatic translation statuses.

To have a market use a subfolder of your primary domain, such as example.com/fr-ca, instead of a separate domain, set up target markets using subfolders.

You can assign an unpublished language only to a domain that already has a default language.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. Click Add language.

3. In the Add language dialog, select a language from the drop-down menu, and then click Next.

4. Turn on each domain that you want to make the language available on, and then click Done. Each domain in the list displays the markets that use it.

5. Do either of the following to add translations:

   • Use the Translate & Adapt app to import your translated content into Shopify.
   • Visit the Shopify App Store and install a translation app to your store. Follow the steps in the app to translate your online store's content and publish new languages.

Publish a language to make it available to customers in your online store.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to the language that you want to make available to customers in your store.

3. Click Publish.

4. If you haven't added translations for the language, then click Publish in the confirmation dialog.

You can unpublish a language, which hides the language from customers without deleting the language or the translations. Any links to the store in that particular language result in a 404 error, so create redirects for any of your unpublished languages.

Unpublishing a language also removes it from every domain that it was assigned to.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to the language that you want to make unavailable.

3. Click Unpublish.

4. In the dialog, click Unpublish.

If you're confident that you don't need translations in that language, then you can also delete the language. Deleting a language also deletes all translations of that language permanently. If you add the language again in the future, then you need to re-add the translations.

You can remove only a language that isn't published. To remove a published language, unpublish the language first.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to the unpublished language that you want to remove from your store.

3. Click Remove language.

4. In the dialog, click Delete.

You can change the default language of your store. Your default store language is used in your store's checkout and theme.

After you change the default language of your online store, your previous default language is removed from Settings > Languages. To use your previous default language as a secondary language, add it again in Settings > Languages, and then assign it to a domain.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to your current default language.

3. Click Change default.

4. In the Change default language dialog, select a language from the menu.

5. Click Save.

Languages are assigned to domains, and each market uses a domain. The languages that you assign to a domain are available to customers in every market that uses that domain. To change which domain a market uses, refer to Assigning domains and languages to markets.

A market that uses a subfolder, such as example.com/en-ca, can have its own language settings. If a market uses a subfolder, then manage that market's languages from its Domain / language customization instead. Learn how to add a domain and language customization to a market.

Before you assign an unpublished language to a domain, the domain needs a default language.

You can also assign currencies to specific markets from Markets > Currencies in your Shopify admin.

Assign a language to a domain

Assign a language to a domain to make it available to customers in the markets that use that domain.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to the language that you want to assign.

3. Click Assign to domain.

4. In the Assign [language] to domain dialog, turn on each domain that you want to make the language available on. Each domain lists the markets that use it.

5. Click Done.

Set a language as a domain's default

Each domain has a default language, which customers are shown when they first visit the domain. If language redirection is turned on, then customers are shown the language that matches their browser settings when that language is available on the domain.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to the language that you want to use as a domain's default.

3. Click Set as domain default.

4. In the dialog, select the domain that you want to set the default language for.

5. If the domain already has a default language, then select the language that you want to use as the new default.

6. Click Done.

Remove a language from a domain

Remove a language from a domain when you no longer want to offer it to customers in the markets that use that domain. URLs that use that language's URL slug on the domain stop working. The language and its translations stay in your store, so you can assign it to the domain again later.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.

2. In the languages table, click the icon next to the language that you want to remove from a domain.

3. Click Assign to domain.

4. Turn off the domain that you want to remove the language from.

5. Click Done.