[Django]-Django – how to make translation work?

Just add the paths of the locale files generated to the settings.py file like the following

LOCALE_PATHS = ( "/xxx/xxx/Projects/xxx/sites/avb/locale/",)

This is a full solution that I have been using from Django 1.4 and still in 1.7.1:

In settings.py …

Add to MIDDLEWEAR_CLASSES, locale, it enables language selection based on request:

'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware',

Add LOCALE_PATHS, this is where your translation files will be stored:

LOCALE_PATHS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'locale/'),
)

Enable I18N:

USE_I18N = True    

Set LANGUAGES that you will be translating the site to:

ugettext = lambda s: s
LANGUAGES = (
    ('en', ugettext('English')),
    ('fr', ugettext('French')),
    ('pl', ugettext('Polish')),
)

Add i18n template context processor to TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS, requests will now include LANGUAGES and LANGUAGE_CODE:

'django.core.context_processors.i18n',

In urls.py :

In url_patterns, add the below, it will enable the set language redirect view:

url(r'^i18n/', include('django.conf.urls.i18n')),

See Miscellaneous in Translations for more on this.

Add the following imports, and encapsulate the urls you want translated with i18n_patterns. Here is what mine looks like:

from django.conf.urls.i18n import i18n_patterns
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    url(r'^i18n/', include('django.conf.urls.i18n')),
)

urlpatterns += i18n_patterns('',
    (_(r'^dual-lang/'), include('duallang.urls')),
    (r'^', include('home.urls')),
)

Now anywhere you use text and want to convert it, import lazytext and wrap every string with it like so _(‘text’), you can even go to your other urls.py files and do url translation like so:

url(_(r'^dual_language/$'), landing, name='duallang_landing'),

You can wrap text that you want translated in your other files, such as models.py, views.py etc.. Here is an example model field with translations for label and help_text:

name = models.CharField(_('name'), max_length=255, unique=True, help_text=_("Name of the FAQ Topic"))

In your html templates…

Do same for your templates and load the i18n templatetag and use trans and transblock on the static stuff you want to translate. Here is an example:

{% load i18n %}

{% trans "This is a translation" %}<br><br>
{% blocktrans with book_t='book title'|title author_t='an author'|title %}
This is {{ book_t }} by {{ author_t }}. Block trans is powerful!
{% endblocktrans %}

Now run a makemessages for each of your locales:

./manage.py makemessages -l pl

And now all is left is to go into your /locales folder, and edit each of the .po files. Fill in the data for each msgstr. Here is one such example of that:

msgid "English"
msgstr "Angielski"

And finally compile the messages:

./manage.py compilemessages

For model instance data translation you can use some of the reusable packages available like

There is a lot more to learn with translations and internationalization is closely related to this topic, so check out the docs for it too. I also recommend checking out some of the internationalization packages available for Django like django-rosetta, and django-linguo. They help translate model content, django-rosetta does not create new entries for this in your database, while django-linguo does.

If you followed this you should be off to a good start. I believe this is the most standardized way to get your site running in multiple languages. Cheers!

I may be wrong – as the only time I used translation stuff was on a test project many moons ago – but I think you don’t want this:

$ django-admin.py makemessages -l he-il -e html

But rather this:

$ django-admin.py makemessages -l he_il -e html

Notice the underscore in he_il.

I was having issues with pt-BR too, until I made the messages file with pt_br instead. Then things started working…

Yeah, it is not obvious and I couldn’t find documentation about it anywhere.

Hope that helps.

I have the same problem. But I solve it by putting “Language:” to .po file. In my case .po file does not contain the “Language:” attribute, it looks like…

"Language-Team: LANGUAGE \n"
"Language: \n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"

but when I put language code (in my case ‘ru’ or ‘en’)

"Language-Team: LANGUAGE \n"
"Language: ru\n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"

it works for me

I had the same issues, it seems that your locale path have to end with a slash :

LOCALE_PATHS = (
    '/dir/to/my/locale/', 
)

Yes you do need to make message files as celopes suggests and then compile them

python manage.py compilemessages

But you will still have a problem.

Disable LocaleMiddleware for a bit, i.e. remove this

django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware

from your middleware list. Don’t use it if you do not need to switch the language at run time, but if you do need it, then there is a solution. I had the same problem before and someone explained this to me.

Also I had this weird issue before. Makemessages command would choke on strings wrapped with backslash in .py files.

I had very the same issue, i tried to switch my language and django said no go. No error, no warning, but django switched language to pl-pl (in my case). However removing all folders from locale and executing command:
django-admin.py makemessages -l pl_PL (underscore instead of dash and capital letter for second PL, worked this issue out).

I hope it helps some guys out there.

I had the same issue. I explained it with details in this link under another similar question.

Briefly, my problem has been solved by reloading the server with this code:

sudo /etc/init.d/uwsgi reload

Now, everytime I change the phrases and after compiling language files, I reload the server too to see the changes.