How to Translate?
On this page
#Posts and pages
Go to AI Translation → Translations. Each row is one original, with a column showing where it
already has a translation and where it does not:
- a green tick — translated already, and up to date
- a yellow warning — translated, but the original was changed after the translation; the box starts
ticked so the next Translate brings it up to date - a grey dash — not translated yet
- an hourglass or a gear — a job for that language is already queued or running, and the box is
disabled so the same job cannot be sent twice
Pick the languages you want and click Translate.
A language that is already translated can be ticked again. Translate then brings it up to date —
with PRO only the parts that changed are sent, and corrections you made by hand are kept (see
Updating Outdated Translations). Translate Again replaces the whole translation instead (see
How to Translate Again?).
New translations are created as drafts by default, so nothing appears on your site until you
have looked at it. Change that under Settings → Translation → Status of new translations.
#Several posts at once
Tick the boxes on the left and use Translate Selected.
Bulk translation is a PRO feature. Without the add-on the checkbox column and the button are not
on the page at all, and translations are started one post at a time from each row.
#Categories, tags and custom taxonomies
AI Translation → Taxonomy Translation works the same way, one row per term.
#The names of the taxonomies themselves
The words “Categories”, “Tags” or “Ingredients” — the taxonomy’s own labels, not its terms — are
listed on the String Translation screen, where the Domain column and filter show them as
Taxonomy labels. They are translated there like any other string: translate them once, and your
visitors see “Zutaten” where the original says “Ingredients”.
Two things worth knowing:
- Only the labels a visitor can see are offered: the general name, the singular name and the menu
name. The rest of what WordPress calls labels (“Add New Tag”, “Separate tags with commas”) is
admin wording and comes from WordPress’s own translations. - Translated labels are used on your site, not in the WordPress admin. The admin keeps showing
them in your own language, exactly as Polylang does.
#Interface strings
AI Translation → String Translation covers strings registered with Polylang: theme options,
widget titles, and anything a plugin has handed to Polylang for translation. They are translated in
batches rather than one at a time, because they are short.
#What actually gets translated
Titles, content and excerpts. ACF fields. SEO titles and descriptions for Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress
and All in One SEO. Image alt texts. Elementor text. Any meta key a plugin declares to Polylang as
translatable — plus any key you add yourself under Settings → Custom Fields.
Links are deliberately left alone. A URL that came back from a model rewritten into another language
is a broken link, so link fields are never sent for translation in the first place.
#Posts the plugin refuses
Posts built with Bricks, Divi, Beaver Builder, Oxygen or WPBakery are marked in the list and
cannot be selected.
This is on purpose. Those builders keep their content in their own storage format rather than in the
post content, and translating such a post would produce either an empty page or an untranslated copy
of the original — both of which look like the plugin is broken. Refusing the post and saying why is
the honest outcome. Elementor is fully supported and is not affected.