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

Which file to upload for your site

A WordPress site is translated in two layers, and they live in different files.

• Interface strings (buttons, form labels, plugin notices, theme text) sit in the theme or plugin .pot template, or in a .po you have already started. Poedit or Loco Translate will get it for you.
• Content (pages, posts, menus) if you use WPML: the plugin exports it as XLIFF, which Manuce accepts as it is.

Whatever your own language, most themes ship with English msgid strings, and that is the source used. A .pot comes back as a Spanish .po. Name it the WordPress way: es_ES.po for a theme, my-plugin-es_ES.po for a plugin, the prefix being the text domain. Then compile it into a .mo with Poedit or Loco Translate; the .mo is what WordPress actually loads.

Manuce does not connect to your site or write to its database: it works only on the files you upload.

What Spanish changes in WordPress strings

• Spain or Latin America. WordPress has separate locales: es_ES, es_MX, es_AR, es_CO and others. Vocabulary differs: ordenador / computadora, móvil / celular. For a single market, review those terms; for several, prefer neutral wording.
• Informal or formal address. “Leave a comment” becomes Deja un comentario (tú) or Deje un comentario (usted). For the plural, Spain uses vosotros, Latin America ustedes. Community translations already installed for other plugins may have chosen differently, so check consistency across the whole site.
• Inverted punctuation. “Delete %s?” becomes ¿Eliminar %s?. The ¿ must open the sentence inside the same string: if your code builds a question from two fragments, it will land in the wrong place.
• Plurals. _n() calls provide a singular and a plural. The Plural-Forms header of Spanish .po files usually declares two forms; CLDR adds a third (many) for large round numbers such as 1 millón de visitas, rarely needed for a comment counter. Note that zero takes the plural: 0 comentarios.
• Length and gender. Spanish runs longer than English: “Read more” gives Leer más, “Add to cart” Añadir al carrito. “Welcome, %s” gives Bienvenido, %s, which is masculine; Te damos la bienvenida, %s sidesteps the issue.

What Manuce returns, and what it leaves alone

You get back the same file in the same format, ready to drop into the project: headers, translator comments (#. translators:), msgctxt contexts, entry order, quotes, line endings, encoding and BOM are all preserved. Only the values change.

Every translated value is compared with the source. “Posted by %1$s on %2$s” must become Publicado por %1$s el %2$s with the same placeholders, and a link such as <a href="%s"> or a <strong> tag must stay intact. If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so.

Not translated: keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats, identifiers and anything marked as non-translatable. In practice, a format string like F j, Y stays as it is. If you want the Spanish pattern j \d\e F \d\e Y (5 de marzo de 2025), enter it yourself in Poedit or Loco Translate.

The quote counts the words to translate, excluding keys and tags; Spanish is charged at the base rate (×1 coefficient). Manuce does not provide sworn or certified translation: for terms and conditions or a privacy policy, plan a legal review.

Preparing the files and checking the live site

Before uploading

• Regenerate the .pot from the latest theme or plugin version so no recent string is missing.
• In a WPML XLIFF export, keep segments marked as non-translatable (brand or product names): they will be respected.
• Decide on register (tú or usted) and target market, then judge the free sample paragraph before paying.

After delivery

• Read the report: any strings left untranslated are listed with the reason.
• Open the .po in Poedit, check the Plural-Forms header, then compile the .mo.
• Put the files in wp-content/languages/themes/ or wp-content/languages/plugins/, where a theme update will not overwrite them.
• Switch the site language to Spanish in the general settings and test: buttons and menus on mobile, confirmation messages with ¿, date display, counters at 0, 1 and 2.

In practice

1. Export the theme or plugin .pot or .po file, or a WPML XLIFF file.
2. Upload it: instant quote on the exact word count and a free sample paragraph.
3. After payment, download the translated file and its report from your account.
4. Name the .po for the locale (es_ES, es_MX…), compile the .mo and place it in wp-content/languages.
5. Switch the site to Spanish and check buttons, ¿ questions, dates and plurals.