Plugin info

Total downloads: 105,894
Active installs: 2,000
Total reviews: 17
Average rating: 5
Support threads opened: 1
Support threads resolved: 1 (100%)
Available in: 37 language(s)
Contributors: 2
Last updated: 11/28/2025 (32 days ago)
Added to WordPress: 10/2/2017 (8 years old)
Minimum WordPress version: 6.6
Tested up to WordPress version: 6.9
Minimum PHP version: 7.2.24

Maintenance & Compatibility

Maintenance score

Actively maintained • Last updated 32 days ago • Support resolved 100% • 17 reviews

73/100

Is Preferred Languages abandoned?

Likely maintained (last update 32 days ago).

Compatibility

Requires WordPress: 6.6
Tested up to: 6.9
Requires PHP: 7.2.24

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Description

Thanks to language packs it’s easier than ever before to change the main language of your site.
However, in some cases a single locale is not enough. When WordPress can’t find a translation for the active locale, it falls back to the original English strings.
That’s a poor user experience for many non-English speakers.

This feature project aims to change that by letting users choose multiple languages for displaying WordPress in.
That way you can set some sort of “fallback chain” where WordPress tries to load translations in your preferred order.

Please help us test this plugin and let us know if something is not working as you think it should.

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Arrow Up: Move selected locale one position up.
  • Arrow Down: Move selected locale one position down.
  • Home: Select first locale in the list.
  • End: Select last locale in the list.
  • Backspace/Delete: remove the selected locale from the list.
  • Alt+A: Add the current locale from the dropdown to the list.

Note: the Preferred Languages UI needs to be focused in order for the keyboard shortcuts to work.

Merging Translations

Previously, only the first available translation for a given locale and domain will be loaded.
However, when translations are incomplete, some strings might still be displayed in English.
That’s a poor user experience as well.

To prevent this, Preferred Languages now automatically merges all incomplete translations in the list.

the preferred_languages_merge_translations filter can be used to opt out of this behavior.
It provides three parameters:

  1. $merge – Whether translations should be merged. Defaults to true.
  2. $domain – The text domain
  3. $current_locale – The current locale.

Get Involved

Active development is taking place on GitHub.

If you want to get involved, check out open issues and join the #core-i18n channel on Slack. If you don’t have a Slack account yet, you can sign up at make.wordpress.org/chat/.

Installation

No installation instructions available

Frequently Asked Questions

No FAQ available

Review feed

Fernando Tellado
5/1/2019

Imprescindible - Debería estar ya en WordPress

Esto es imprescindible para cualquier usuario no angloparlante. El estado de las traducciones es irregular y sería perfecto tener un segundo e incluso un tercer idioma local para cargar si algo falta en tu idioma local, y así que no salga media web en español - por ejemplo - y el resto en inglés. Esto ya estaría en WordPress si los principales equipos de desarrollo no fuesen angloparlantes, y claro, para ellos no es una prioridad ni de lejos.
Thomas Maier
6/15/2019

In core, please

Thanks for Pascal to solve the problem of fallback languages. It is time to add it to the core and would show that WordPress is thinking globally.
capbussat
1/17/2022

Very necessary in core

I think this should be in Core for websites with several possible languages. I like it very much! Specially I appreciate that each user can also choose languages from the selected languages. (I am developing a translation plugin for my own needs to use Google Translate to translate posts/pages and complement it.)
Pieterjan Deneys
1/18/2023

Make this a core feature

I honestly think that this should be a core feature of WP. The only thing wrong I notice is that when you are looking at the front end... The language of the admin bar changes into the site language but that's the only issue I have with this plugin at the time of writing. For the rest, it's a dream plugin.
David Perez
2/20/2023

Should be in the core!

Awesome plugin!

Screenshots

  1. The new language section in 'Settings' -> 'General'

    The new language section in 'Settings' -> 'General'

  2. The new language section in your user profile.

    The new language section in your user profile.

Changelog

For the plugin’s changelog, please head over to the GitHub repository.