Translate a WordPress Site into German: Themes, Plugins and WPML

The two kinds of file a WordPress site needs

A WordPress site is translated in two layers, each with its own file.

• Interface strings: buttons, menus, notices and form labels from themes and plugins sit in .pot (template) and .po (translation) files, edited with Poedit or Loco Translate. For example, msgid "Read more" becomes msgstr "Weiterlesen".
• Content: pages, posts and product descriptions. If you run WPML, it exports these as XLIFF, which is also supported.

Decide on the locale first. WordPress has de_DE (standard German, informal du) and de_DE_formal (formal Sie). The file name follows the choice, e.g. mytheme-de_DE_formal.po, and the translation’s register must match it.

What German changes on a WordPress site

• Length: German text is often 20 to 35% longer than English, and compounds turn short labels into long single words. “Privacy Policy” becomes “Datenschutzerklärung”, which will not wrap without hyphenation. Menus, buttons and footers suffer first.
• Register: business sites address visitors as Sie, always capitalised, as are Ihr and Ihnen. A theme saying Sie next to a plugin saying du looks careless.
• Capitals: every noun is capitalised, so “Add to cart” becomes “In den Warenkorb”.
• Plurals: German has two forms (one, other). The .po header should read Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1);, with msgstr[0] (“%d Kommentar”) and msgstr[1] (“%d Kommentare”) for each plural string.
• Word order: verbs often move to the end of the clause. Numbered placeholders such as %1$s and %2$s let the translation reorder them safely.
• Conventions: dates written as “3. März 2025”, decimal comma, quotation marks „…“.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You get back the same file in the same format, ready to drop into the project: indentation, entry order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved; only the values change. A theme’s .pot comes back as a German .po.

Every translated value is compared with its source. If a %s, a %1$d or a <strong> tag is still missing after correction, the source value is kept and the report says so. Left untranslated: keys (msgid), empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats, identifiers and anything marked as non-translatable. The report lists translated strings and those left as they were, with the reason.

What Manuce does not do:

• compile the .mo: Poedit or Loco Translate does it in one step;
• touch your site or database;
• produce sworn or certified translations. The Impressum and privacy statement expected of a business site in Germany are legal texts: have their content checked, not just their wording.

Pricing counts the words in values only, keys and tags excluded; German is charged at the base rate (×1).

Preparing your files

• Regenerate the .pot of the theme or plugin so it holds every current string; an old template misses recent additions.
• Choose du or Sie and name the file accordingly (de_DE or de_DE_formal).
• Export WPML XLIFF in coherent batches: legal pages in one, blog posts in another, so review stays manageable.
• List terms to keep: brand and product names, discount codes. Mark them as non-translatable.
• Check contexts (msgctxt): “Post” may be a noun (“Beitrag”) or a verb (“Veröffentlichen”); without context the ambiguity remains.

Request the free sample paragraph to confirm the register before sending the whole file.

Checks after import

1. Open the .po in Poedit or Loco Translate and compile the .mo; a plural-related error usually points to a missing Plural-Forms header.
2. Set date format strings yourself (e.g. F j, Y to j. F Y): they are not translated.
3. Switch the site to German and browse the menu, cart, forms and footer on mobile and desktop; “Jetzt registrieren” or “Passwort vergessen?” may overflow a button.
4. If compounds break the layout, CSS hyphens: auto works with the lang="de" attribute WordPress sets from the locale.
5. Read the report: each string left in the source language has a reason, to fix by hand if needed.

In practice

1. Export the .po/.pot files of your themes and plugins, or your WPML XLIFF.
2. Upload: instant quote on the exact word count and a free sample.
3. Download the same file in German with the string report.
4. Compile the .po into a .mo in Poedit or Loco Translate and put it back.
5. Test menus, buttons and forms in German and set the date format.