PHP Translation and Website Internationalization

The translation of PHP files is typically required in websites and web applications to achieve multilingual support. This enables the website to display the corresponding content based on the user's language preference.

Translation and Project Practice

We have successfully implemented website internationalization in multiple projects, and below is an introduction to one of the solutions we have used.

First, we chose O.Translator to complete the translation of PHP files, and a brief introduction to its specific usage will be provided later.

O.Translator is an online document translation platform that supports PHP file translation and can translate into more than 70 languages worldwide.

By using O.Translator, we can directly translate PHP files into multiple target languages and then dynamically load them in the project based on the language selected by the user, thereby achieving multilingual support for the website.

The following is a specific implementation plan:

Directory Structure

Assume your project directory structure is as follows:

project_root/
├── index.php
├── example.en.php
├── example.cn.php
├── example.fr.php

Create Copy Files

Create and edit a PHP static copy file for one language, here we take Chinese as an example.

example.cn.php

Translate into Other Languages

Visit O.Translator Homepage.

Click the start translation button to complete the login.

O.Translator

Upload the file, select the language as needed, and click start translation.

O.Translator

Wait for the translation to complete to obtain the target language translation.

O.Translator

example.en.php

O.Translator provides a free preview, translating a portion of the content for user reference. If satisfied with the results, users can pay with points to translate the remaining content.

This is one of the reasons we chose O.Translator: You never have to pay for unsatisfactory products.

Main file (index.php)

In the main file index.php, load the corresponding language file based on the user's language selection.

<?php

 // ...

$lang = isset($_GET['lang']) ? $_GET['lang'] : 'en';

switch($lang) {
    case 'en':
        include('example.en.php');
        break;
    case 'cn':
        include('example.cn.php');
        break;
    case 'fr':
        include('example.fr.php');
        break;
    default:
        include('example.en.php');
        break;
}

 // ...

?>

Use the following in the HTML template:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="<?php echo $lang; ?>">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title><?php echo $_['heading_home']; ?></title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <header>
      <h1><?php echo $_['heading_home']; ?></h1>
      <nav>
        <ul>
          <li><?php echo $_['heading_about']; ?></li>
          <li><?php echo $_['button_read_more']; ?></li>
        </ul>
      </nav>
    </header>
  </body>
</html>

Additional Notes

Get User Language Selection

Here, it is assumed that the user's language choice is obtained via a GET parameter (e.g., ?lang=en). You can also use other methods, such as session, cookie, or the browser's language preference.