Preparing your site for multiple languages

As your Moodle™ use grows so does your population of users and with them the number of native languages. Understanding your users language needs is essential to create a successful program. To effectively meet the needs of users consider the following areas when determining your site settings.

Language settings

Settings > Site administration > Language > Language settings

This page will assist you in setting the basic language options for your site. By default many of the settings are enabled the way you would want them to support multiple languages. For the Default language setting choose the language that is predominately used on your site; users are able to override this setting in their personal profile. Also ensure that the Display language menu is checked and the Languages on language menu is empty as this will allow all enabled language packs to display as an option in the language drop-down menu.

Language packs

Settings > Site administration > Language > Language packs

Moodle™ supports a variety of languages however just because they display in the list of available languages does not mean that they will show in the language menu. Move an available language pack from the right table to the left by selecting the language and clicking Install selected language pack. Remember that some languages have more than one dialect; first install the base language and then install the desired dialects.

In addition to American English (en_us) Spanish (es) and Brazilian Portuguese (pt_br) Joule has recently updated the user interface for the following languages:

• Czech (cs)
• German (de)
• Finnish (fi)
• French (fr)
• Dutch (nl)
• Polish (pl)

User preferred language

Settings > My profile settings > Edit profile > Preferred language

A user is able to set their default language preference inside of their profile settings. However this setting can be changed at the site level if a user selects a different language from the language menu. Additionally instructors are able to set a language at the course level and if they so desire may force this language so that it overrides what is set by the user in their profile settings.

To learn additional information on preparing your site for multiple languages and other administrative settings join us in the Open LMS Effective Site Administration online course.

~Janelle Gieseke, Senior Trainer