Translate MEC

There are two main methods to translate MEC to languages other than English. These methods can be used to either translate or change the words and strings that are currently not available in the Messages part of MEC Settings.

Click here for more information about Translate Options in Modern Events Calendar.

Note: All of the available translations of the Modern Events Calendar have been done by users, and we do not accept or reject them. If you have any issues with them, you should try to fix them yourself.

How to Translate MEC?

You can either translate the .po and .mo files, or you can use dynamic translation plugins as below.

You can translate MEC .po and .mo files with four available tools. The tools available are GlotPress, Launchpad, and Pootle, but we’re going to use Poedit.

Poedit is a free, easy-to-use, and open-source program for Mac, Windows, and UNIX/Linux for editing PO files and generating MO files.

The second method for translating MEC on your website is to use a translation plugin like Loco Translate or WPML (not free).

Loco Translate provides in-browser editing of WordPress translation files. It also provides localization tools for developers, such as extracting strings and generating templates.

Translate MEC with Poedit

Download and Install Poedit.

Open Poedit and go to File > New Catalog from the POT file.

A catalog property box will open, asking for information about what you are translating. Enter the language you want to translate here, along with any other required details.

After you hit OK, you’ll be asked to name your translation file. The name is important because there’s a particular format you should follow for consistency. For example, if you’re translating Chinese to French, the file should be named “mec-fr_FR.po” (mec for MEC plugin, fr for the language, and FR for the country.)

Note: If you use the Modern Events Calendar Lite version, the name structure is: modern-events-calendar-lite-fr_FR.po and modern-events-calendar-lite-fr_FR.mo

After that, you need to save your file in the languages folder of your plugin.

Now we can start translating MEC.

Poedit provides a simple and straightforward interface that does not involve a steep learning curve. On top, you will see the translatable file. Below it, there is a table where the source text is on the left, and the target text is on the right.

When you’ve finished translating, simply save your file. Poedit will automatically create both .po and .mo files in your plugin’s language folder.

Now that MEC has been translated, you can upload it (first, you need to zip it again). You can either use FTP to upload the file or log in to your WordPress Dashboard and upload it by going to Plugins > Add Plugin. (Click here for more information about using FTP to upload the files to your WordPress website.)

You can send your .po and .mo files to our support email address ([email protected]) so that we can update our database to help other users with your language.

Translate MEC with WPML

First, you need to buy, download and install the WMPL plugin on your WordPress website.

After that, you must translate taxonomies/strings in WPML.

You can then translate your events and MEC itself into different languages.

Taxonomies like locations ,organizers, speakers, categories, tags, etc.

Translation of different fields is done with the help of String Translator. (WPML String Translation)

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To translate the Taxonomies faster, WPML has a built-in tool (WPML > Taxonomy Translation) that speeds up the translation process.

If nothing has been displayed in the Taxonomy Translation section, it means that the default language for current items has not been specified. You have to edit them and specify the current language for them. For example, set English as their current language.

Note 1:

Translation of dates, months, etc., is done using the WordPress date_i18n function. This is the same way that your posts’ date and time translations would be done.

This means that to achieve date localization (translation), you should install the base WordPress translation files for each of the languages you wish to use.

The months’ translations are supplied using native WordPress internationalization. So you should be able to get those translations using a completed translation file.

WordPress already includes localized date formats. Please make sure that the WP .mo file is correctly installed in /wp-content/languages.

Note 2:

If you want to change the name of the months in MEC, you should pay attention to the following fact:

MEC uses the default name of the months from WordPress.

Follow the below instruction in order to translate the WordPress months:

Method 1: You can change your WordPress language. To do this, please head over to WP Dashboard > Settings > Site Language.

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Method 2: You can contribute with your locale translation team on WordPress.

Translate MEC with Loco Translate

Method 3: You can use the Loco Translate plugin and translate WordPress main strings (the default strings).

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The Relocate section of the editor of the Loco Translate plugin is extremely handy. It creates a copy of the translation file and moves it to another location on your server to prevent it from getting overwritten when the plugin updates.

Also you can use it for troubleshooting too.

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Translate MEC with Say What

Say What is an easy-to-use plugin that allows you to alter strings on your site without editing WordPress core or plugin code.

Simply enter the current string and what you want to replace it with, and the plugin will automatically do the rest!

Say what?