Multilingual mode
You should define the available languages in a languages
section in your site configuration.
Also See Hugo Multilingual Part 1: Content translation.
Configure languages
This is the default language configuration:
languages:
en:
disabled: false
languageCode: ""
languageDirection: ""
languageName: ""
title: ""
weight: 0
[languages]
[languages.en]
disabled = false
languageCode = ''
languageDirection = ''
languageName = ''
title = ''
weight = 0
{
"languages": {
"en": {
"disabled": false,
"languageCode": "",
"languageDirection": "",
"languageName": "",
"title": "",
"weight": 0
}
}
}
This is an example of a site configuration for a multilingual project. Any key not defined in a languages
object will fall back to the global value in the root of your site configuration.
defaultContentLanguage: de
defaultContentLanguageInSubdir: true
languages:
de:
contentDir: content/de
disabled: false
languageCode: de-DE
languageDirection: ltr
languageName: Deutsch
params:
subtitle: Referenz, Tutorials und Erklärungen
title: Projekt Dokumentation
weight: 1
en:
contentDir: content/en
disabled: false
languageCode: en-US
languageDirection: ltr
languageName: English
params:
subtitle: Reference, Tutorials, and Explanations
title: Project Documentation
weight: 2
defaultContentLanguage = 'de'
defaultContentLanguageInSubdir = true
[languages]
[languages.de]
contentDir = 'content/de'
disabled = false
languageCode = 'de-DE'
languageDirection = 'ltr'
languageName = 'Deutsch'
title = 'Projekt Dokumentation'
weight = 1
[languages.de.params]
subtitle = 'Referenz, Tutorials und Erklärungen'
[languages.en]
contentDir = 'content/en'
disabled = false
languageCode = 'en-US'
languageDirection = 'ltr'
languageName = 'English'
title = 'Project Documentation'
weight = 2
[languages.en.params]
subtitle = 'Reference, Tutorials, and Explanations'
{
"defaultContentLanguage": "de",
"defaultContentLanguageInSubdir": true,
"languages": {
"de": {
"contentDir": "content/de",
"disabled": false,
"languageCode": "de-DE",
"languageDirection": "ltr",
"languageName": "Deutsch",
"params": {
"subtitle": "Referenz, Tutorials und Erklärungen"
},
"title": "Projekt Dokumentation",
"weight": 1
},
"en": {
"contentDir": "content/en",
"disabled": false,
"languageCode": "en-US",
"languageDirection": "ltr",
"languageName": "English",
"params": {
"subtitle": "Reference, Tutorials, and Explanations"
},
"title": "Project Documentation",
"weight": 2
}
}
}
defaultContentLanguage
- (
string
) The project’s default language tag as defined by RFC 5646. Must be lower case, and must match one of the defined language keys. Default isen
. Examples:
en
en-gb
pt-br
defaultContentLanguageInSubdir
- (
bool
) Iftrue
, Hugo renders the default language site in a subdirectory matching thedefaultContentLanguage
. Default isfalse
. contentDir
- (
string
) The content directory for this language. Omit if translating by file name. disabled
- (
bool
) Iftrue
, Hugo will not render content for this language. Default isfalse
. languageCode
- (
string
) The language tag as defined by RFC 5646. This value may include upper and lower case characters, hyphens or underscores, and does not affect localization or URLs. Hugo uses this value to populate thelanguage
element in the built-in RSS template, and thelang
attribute of thehtml
element in the built-in alias template. Examples:
en
en-GB
pt-BR
languageDirection
- (
string
) The language direction, either left-to-right (ltr
) or right-to-left (rtl
). Use this value in your templates with the globaldir
HTML attribute. languageName
- (
string
) The language name, typically used when rendering a language switcher. title
- (
string
) The language title. When set, this overrides the site title for this language. weight
- (
int
) The language weight. When set to a non-zero value, this is the primary sort criteria for this language.
Changes in Hugo 0.112.0
In Hugo v0.112.0
we consolidated all configuration options, and improved how the languages and their parameters are merged with the main configuration. But while testing this on Hugo sites out there, we received some error reports and reverted some of the changes in favor of deprecation warnings:
site.Language.Params
is deprecated. Usesite.Params
directly.- Adding custom parameters to the top level language configuration is deprecated. Define custom parameters within
languages.xx.params
. Seecolor
in the example below.
languageCode: en-us
languages:
en:
params:
color: blue
sv:
languageCode: sv
title: Min blogg
title: My blog
languageCode = 'en-us'
title = 'My blog'
[languages]
[languages.en]
[languages.en.params]
color = 'blue'
[languages.sv]
languageCode = 'sv'
title = 'Min blogg'
{
"languageCode": "en-us",
"languages": {
"en": {
"params": {
"color": "blue"
}
},
"sv": {
"languageCode": "sv",
"title": "Min blogg"
}
},
"title": "My blog"
}
In the example above, all settings except color
below params
map to predefined configuration options in Hugo for the site and its language, and should be accessed via the documented accessors:
{{ site.Title }}
{{ site.LanguageCode }}
{{ site.Params.color }}
Disable a language
To disable a language within a languages
object in your site configuration:
languages:
es:
disabled: true
[languages]
[languages.es]
disabled = true
{
"languages": {
"es": {
"disabled": true
}
}
}
To disable one or more languages in the root of your site configuration:
disableLanguages:
- es
- fr
disableLanguages = ['es', 'fr']
{
"disableLanguages": [
"es",
"fr"
]
}
To disable one or more languages using an environment variable:
HUGO_DISABLELANGUAGES="es fr" hugo
Note that you cannot disable the default content language.
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
:
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 typically 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.
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 file name
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 file name.
By having the same path and base file name, 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
parameter.
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
translationKey: about
translationKey = 'about'
{
"translationKey": "about"
}
By setting the translationKey
front matter parameter to about
in all three pages, they will be linked as translated pages.
Localizing permalinks
Because paths and file names are used to handle linking, all translated pages will share the same URL (apart from the language subdirectory).
To localize URLs:
- For a regular page, set either
slug
orurl
in front matter - For a section page, set
url
in front matter
For example, a French translation can have its own localized slug.
---
slug: a-propos
title: A Propos
---
+++
slug = 'a-propos'
title = 'A Propos'
+++
{
"slug": "a-propos",
"title": "A Propos"
}
At render, Hugo will build both /about/
and /fr/a-propos/
without affecting the translation link.
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 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.
Artificial languages with private use subtags as defined in RFC 5646 § 2.2.7 are also supported. You may omit the art-x-
prefix for brevity. For example:
art-x-hugolang
hugolang
Private use subtags must not exceed 8 alphanumeric characters.
Query basic translation
From within your templates, use the i18n
function like this:
{{ i18n "home" }}
The function will search for the "home"
id:
home:
other: Home
[home]
other = 'Home'
{
"home": {
"other": "Home"
}
}
The result will be
Home
Query a flexible translation with variables
Often you will want to use the page variables in the translation strings. To do so, pass the .
context when calling i18n
:
{{ i18n "wordCount" . }}
The function will pass the .
context to the "wordCount"
id:
wordCount:
other: This article has {{ .WordCount }} words.
[wordCount]
other = 'This article has {{ .WordCount }} words.'
{
"wordCount": {
"other": "This article has {{ .WordCount }} words."
}
}
Assume .WordCount
in the context has value is 101. The result will be:
This article has 101 words.
Query a singular/plural translation
To enable pluralization when translating, pass a map with a numeric .Count
property to the i18n
function. The example below uses .ReadingTime
variable which has a built-in .Count
property.
{{ i18n "readingTime" .ReadingTime }}
The function will read .Count
from .ReadingTime
and evaluate whether the number is singular (one
) or plural (other
). After that, it will pass to readingTime
id in i18n/en-US.toml
file:
readingTime:
one: One minute to read
other: '{{ .Count }} minutes to read'
[readingTime]
one = 'One minute to read'
other = '{{ .Count }} minutes to read'
{
"readingTime": {
"one": "One minute to read",
"other": "{{ .Count }} minutes to read"
}
}
Assuming .ReadingTime.Count
in the context has value is 525600. The result will be:
525600 minutes to read
If .ReadingTime.Count
in the context has value is 1. The result is:
One minute to read
In case you need to pass a custom data: ((dict "Count" numeric_value_only)
is minimum requirement)
{{ i18n "readingTime" (dict "Count" 25 "FirstArgument" true "SecondArgument" false "Etc" "so on, so far") }}
Localization
The following localization examples assume your site’s primary language is English, with translations to French and German.
defaultContentLanguage: en
languages:
de:
contentDir: content/de
languageName: Deutsch
weight: 3
en:
contentDir: content/en
languageName: English
weight: 1
fr:
contentDir: content/fr
languageName: Français
weight: 2
defaultContentLanguage = 'en'
[languages]
[languages.de]
contentDir = 'content/de'
languageName = 'Deutsch'
weight = 3
[languages.en]
contentDir = 'content/en'
languageName = 'English'
weight = 1
[languages.fr]
contentDir = 'content/fr'
languageName = 'Français'
weight = 2
{
"defaultContentLanguage": "en",
"languages": {
"de": {
"contentDir": "content/de",
"languageName": "Deutsch",
"weight": 3
},
"en": {
"contentDir": "content/en",
"languageName": "English",
"weight": 1
},
"fr": {
"contentDir": "content/fr",
"languageName": "Français",
"weight": 2
}
}
}
Dates
With this front matter:
date: 2021-11-03T12:34:56+01:00
date = 2021-11-03T12:34:56+01:00
{
"date": "2021-11-03T12:34:56+01:00"
}
And this template code:
{{ .Date | time.Format ":date_full" }}
The rendered page displays:
Language | Value |
---|---|
English | Wednesday, November 3, 2021 |
Français | mercredi 3 novembre 2021 |
Deutsch | Mittwoch, 3. November 2021 |
See time.Format
for details.
Currency
With this template code:
{{ 512.5032 | lang.FormatCurrency 2 "USD" }}
The rendered page displays:
Language | Value |
---|---|
English | $512.50 |
Français | 512,50 $US |
Deutsch | 512,50 $ |
See lang.FormatCurrency and lang.FormatAccounting for details.
Numbers
With this template code:
{{ 512.5032 | lang.FormatNumber 2 }}
The rendered page displays:
Language | Value |
---|---|
English | 512.50 |
Français | 512,50 |
Deutsch | 512,50 |
See lang.FormatNumber and lang.FormatNumberCustom for details.
Percentages
With this template code:
{{ 512.5032 | lang.FormatPercent 2 }}
The rendered page displays:
Language | Value |
---|---|
English | 512.50% |
Français | 512,50 % |
Deutsch | 512,50 % |
See lang.FormatPercent for details.
Menus
Localization of menu entries depends on how you define them:
- When you define menu entries automatically using the section pages menu, you must use translation tables to localize each entry.
- When you define menu entries in front matter, they are already localized based on the front matter itself. If the front matter values are insufficient, use translation tables to localize each entry.
- When you define menu entries in site configuration, you must create language-specific menu entries under each language key. If the names of the menu entries are insufficent, use translation tables to localize each entry.
Create language-specific menu entries
Method 1 – Use a single configuration file
For a simple menu with a small number of entries, use a single configuration file. For example:
languages:
de:
languageCode: de-DE
languageName: Deutsch
menu:
main:
- name: Produkte
pageRef: /products
weight: 10
- name: Leistungen
pageRef: /services
weight: 20
weight: 1
en:
languageCode: en-US
languageName: English
menu:
main:
- name: Products
pageRef: /products
weight: 10
- name: Services
pageRef: /services
weight: 20
weight: 2
[languages]
[languages.de]
languageCode = 'de-DE'
languageName = 'Deutsch'
weight = 1
[languages.de.menu]
[[languages.de.menu.main]]
name = 'Produkte'
pageRef = '/products'
weight = 10
[[languages.de.menu.main]]
name = 'Leistungen'
pageRef = '/services'
weight = 20
[languages.en]
languageCode = 'en-US'
languageName = 'English'
weight = 2
[languages.en.menu]
[[languages.en.menu.main]]
name = 'Products'
pageRef = '/products'
weight = 10
[[languages.en.menu.main]]
name = 'Services'
pageRef = '/services'
weight = 20
{
"languages": {
"de": {
"languageCode": "de-DE",
"languageName": "Deutsch",
"menu": {
"main": [
{
"name": "Produkte",
"pageRef": "/products",
"weight": 10
},
{
"name": "Leistungen",
"pageRef": "/services",
"weight": 20
}
]
},
"weight": 1
},
"en": {
"languageCode": "en-US",
"languageName": "English",
"menu": {
"main": [
{
"name": "Products",
"pageRef": "/products",
"weight": 10
},
{
"name": "Services",
"pageRef": "/services",
"weight": 20
}
]
},
"weight": 2
}
}
}
Method 2 – Use a configuration directory
With a more complex menu structure, create a configuration directory and split the menu entries into multiple files, one file per language. For example:
config/
└── _default/
├── menus/
│ ├── menu.de.toml
│ └── menu.en.toml
└── hugo.toml
Use translation tables
When rendering the text that appears in menu each entry, the example menu template does this:
{{ or (T .Identifier) .Name | safeHTML }}
It queries the translation table for the current language using the menu entry’s identifier
and returns the translated string. If the translation table does not exist, or if the identifier
key is not present in the translation table, it falls back to name
.
The identifier
depends on how you define menu entries:
- If you define the menu entry automatically using the section pages menu, the
identifier
is the page’s.Section
. - If you define the menu entry in site configuration or in front matter, set the
identifier
property to the desired value.
For example, if you define menu entries in site configuration:
menu:
main:
- identifier: products
name: Products
pageRef: /products
weight: 10
- identifier: services
name: Services
pageRef: /services
weight: 20
[menu]
[[menu.main]]
identifier = 'products'
name = 'Products'
pageRef = '/products'
weight = 10
[[menu.main]]
identifier = 'services'
name = 'Services'
pageRef = '/services'
weight = 20
{
"menu": {
"main": [
{
"identifier": "products",
"name": "Products",
"pageRef": "/products",
"weight": 10
},
{
"identifier": "services",
"name": "Services",
"pageRef": "/services",
"weight": 20
}
]
}
}
Create corresponding entries in the translation tables:
products: Produkte
services: Leistungen
products = 'Produkte'
services = 'Leistungen'
{
"products": "Produkte",
"services": "Leistungen"
}
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 --printI18nWarnings
flag:
hugo --printI18nWarnings | 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
.Permalink
or.RelPermalink
- Be constructed with the
relLangURL
orabsLangURL
template 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).
Generate multilingual content with hugo new content
If you organize content with translations in the same directory:
hugo new content post/test.en.md
hugo new content post/test.de.md
If you organize content with translations in different directories:
hugo new content content/en/post/test.md
hugo new content content/de/post/test.md