The translation doesn't work

Syntax Error

If your language file contains one or more syntax errors, the file will be truncated and some definitions will not be translated. Joomla will either print the language code non-translated or will default to English.

Make sure all the lines of your file are written by following the syntax below:

LANGKEY="Translated Text"

This line represents:
- the status language key used from the program (LANGKEY) and must not be changed
- the equals symbol (=)
- the text to translate, wrapped between 2 double quotes ("Translated text").

To translate the example above in Spanish, the code will be:

LANGKEY="Texto Traducido"

Even if a single quote is missing or the equal symbol doesn't exist on a line, your file will be truncated and will not be read by Joomla.

When your language definitions contain double quotes ", make sure to be using the escape character or syntax errors will occur. For example, if you need to use a translation containing double quotes like "Starting From" Price, the two double quotes must be escaped as follows:

LANGKEY="\"Starting From\" Price"

The escape method consists in placing a leading back-slash before each double quote which is part of the translation.

Wrong File Translated

The file you translated may not be the one for the section you are looking at. Each section of the extension has to be translated from its own language file.

All the language files of the extension are located in the following directories:
/administrator/language/en-GB/
/language/en-GB/
The en-GB folder contains only the original language files of the extension. The translated language files will be located in a different tag folder, like fr-FR or de-DE, es-ES, it-IT etc...

When you are looking at some pages of the administrator section, the language file loaded will be located in /administrator/language/LANG_SUFFIX/. Modules and the front-end part of the extension instead use the files located in /language/LANG_SUFFIX/.

Wrong Current Language

The default language or the current/active language of your Joomla site, is not the one you translated.

For example, if the default or active language is Spanish, making changes to the English file will not produce any result unless you switch language through the Joomla Language Switcher Module or any other third party modules.