Drupal Multilingual Setup

Drupal Multilingual Setup

Drupal is one of the best CMS for multilingual sites. Translation support is built into core: content, configuration, administration interface, menus, blocks, taxonomy terms are all translatable.

Required Modules (all in core)

drush en language locale content_translation config_translation -y
drush cr

• language — base language module
• locale — interface translation
• content_translation — content translation (nodes, taxonomies, blocks)
• config_translation — configuration translation (field labels, content types)

Adding Languages

Configuration → Languages → Add language. Drupal automatically downloads interface translations from drupal.org.

URL pattern configuration: Configuration → Languages → Detection and selection:

• URL prefix: ru/, en/ — recommended
• Domain: ru.site.com, site.com — for large multilingual sites

Enabling Translation for Content Type

Configuration → Content language → select content type → enable translation for each field individually.

Or programmatically:

// Enable Content Translation for all 'article' type fields
$config = \Drupal::configFactory()->getEditable('language.content_settings.node.article');
$config->set('third_party_settings.content_translation.enabled', TRUE)->save();

Creating Translation via API

use Drupal\node\Entity\Node;

// Load original node (English)
$node = Node::load(42);

// Add translation
if (!$node->hasTranslation('ru')) {
    $translated = $node->addTranslation('ru', [
        'title' => 'Заголовок на русском',
        'body'  => ['value' => '<p>Текст на русском</p>', 'format' => 'full_html'],
        'status' => 1,
    ]);
    $translated->save();
}

Twig: Language-Aware Display

{# Get current language #}
{% set current_lang = language.getId() %}

{# Language switcher links (use Views Language Switcher instead) #}
{% for language in languages %}
    <a href="{{ path('<current>', {}, {'language': language}) }}"
       hreflang="{{ language.getId() }}"
       {% if language.getId() == current_lang %}class="active"{% endif %}>
        {{ language.getName() }}
    </a>
{% endfor %}

Configuration Translation

Field labels, content type descriptions, button text — translated via Configuration → Translations. Or via export:

drush config:export
# Edit locale/*.po files
drush locale:import en /path/to/en.po

Menus and Blocks

Each menu item is translated separately via Structure → Menus → [menu] → Edit → Translate. Blocks: Structure → Block placement → [block] → Translate.

URL Aliases for Translations

Pathauto creates aliases for each translation separately: /about (en), /uk/про-нас (uk). Configuration: Configuration → Pathauto → patterns include [node:language].

hreflang for SEO

Drupal automatically adds <link rel="alternate" hreflang="..."> for all translations via Metatag module:

composer require drupal/metatag
drush en metatag -y

Timeline

Basic multilingual setup for 2–3 languages with content type and interface translation — 2–3 days. Full multilingual configuration with URL patterns, hreflang, and menus — 4–5 days.