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Formal German Translation Conflict With WPML

This guide applies to:

  • Basic Edition
  • Plus Edition
  • Pro Edition
  • Business Edition

Introduction

This guide will help you troubleshoot and fix issues with displaying the booking calendar correctly in Formal German on your site when WPML and the German (Formal) Language Pack are installed.

Formal German not working with WPML

If you have the WPML Multilingual CMS and WPML String Translation plugins activated on your site along with the SSA plugin, you might run into a problem. The booking calendar displayed in German (Formal) Language via the SSA locale shortcode might not translate into German (Formal) Language despite having the language pack installed.

[ssa_booking ssa_locale="de_DE_formal"]
German (Formal) Language Pack Installed
The German (Formal) language pack installed.

For example, with the same setup on our site and adding the booking calendar in German (Formal) Language via the SSA locale shortcode, the booking calendar is displayed in German and not Formal German.

Booking Calendar displayed in German
The booking calendar displayed in German instead of Formal German.

How to Solve

To solve this issue, change the locale WPML uses for German to Formal German.

  1. Go to WPML > Settings and click Languages.
  2. In the Manage and Hide Site Languages section, click Edit on the German row.
  3. The Locale field is locked by default. Click the lock icon, then click Yes, edit the locale to confirm.
  4. Change the locale from de_DE to de_DE_formal and click Save.
  5. Refresh the page where you added the booking calendar with the de_DE_formal shortcode. The booking calendar should now display in the correct language.

On WPML versions before 5.0, go to WPML > Languages, click Edit Languages under Site Languages, and change the Default Locale for German to de_DE_formal.

WPML Languages settings with the German row's Edit menu open and the Locale set to de_DE_formal
The German language’s Edit menu in WPML’s Languages settings, with the locale set to de_DE_formal.

If you have translated plugins (other than SSA) with WPML on your site, you might be required to re-download the translations again for some of those plugins once you change the locale in the WPML language settings.

After making the changes, the booking calendar should be displayed correctly in German (Formal).

Booking Calendar displayed in German (Formal)
The booking calendar displayed in German (Formal).

Still stuck?

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