BuddyPress is one of the original WordPress plugins that allows you to turn your site into a fully-functioning social network. It’s a simple, open-sourced option that has been a popular choice for many years. The BuddyPress Multilingual glue plugin allows you and, very importantly, the visitors of your site to have a consistent language experience. It ensures all pages display in the required language.
BuddyBoss is built on BuddyPress, offering all the same features with a modern and fresh look. It also offers a premium version, which includes its own theme and even more functionality via the BuddyBoss Platform Pro plugin.
On This Page:
- Getting Started
- Translating Pages
- Translating Other BuddyPress or BuddyBoss Texts
- Translating Profile Fields
- Translating Group Names and Descriptions
- Known Issues
- Getting Support
Getting Started
Start by installing and activating the following plugins:
- WPML Multilingual CMS version 4.5 or above
- WPML String Translation add-on
- Up-to-date versions of BuddyPress or BuddyBoss
- BuddyPress Multilingual add-on (also available on your WPML account’s Downloads page)
Running BuddyPress 12.0 or above?
You need to install and activate the BP Classic Add-on.
This add-on allows you to maintain compatibility with WPML and BuddyPress Multilingual and ensures WPML features work correctly.
Please note: For BuddyPress Multilingual to work, your site’s language URL format needs to be set to use different languages in directories. You can find the language URL options by going to WPML → Languages and scrolling to the Language URL Format section.
If you’re new to WPML, check out our Getting Started Guide. It quickly walks you through different translation options you can use.
Translating BuddyPress and BuddyBoss Pages
When you install and activate BuddyPress or BuddyBoss, you’ll have a set of pages created automatically. You can easily translate these pages with WPML. You can let WPML translate pages automatically, send them to be translated by others, or do the translation yourself.
Translating Other BuddyPress or BuddyBoss Texts
Like many other plugins and themes, BuddyPress and BuddyBoss include text that is not part of the standard Pages, Posts, or Taxonomy. We call these strings, and you can translate them using WPML’s String Translation add-on.
First, go to WPML → Theme and Plugins Localization. If you use BuddyPress or the BuddyBoss Platform, scan the plugin. BuddyBoss Pro includes a theme and pro plugin you can scan for strings as well.
Translating Profile Fields
BuddyPress and BuddyBoss both allow you to add profile fields to your social network members. Using WPML, you can translate these fields.
After creating the fields in your default language, click the Register fields button in the notice that appears on the Profile Fields page.
Then, go to the WPML → String Translation page, look for those field names and values, and translate them.
Here’s an example of a profile field when translating it on the String Translation page.
Translating Group Names and Descriptions
BuddyPress and BuddyBoss both allow admins and site users to create public, hidden, or private groups.
To translate a group’s name or description, go to WPML → String Translation and find the group content you created. Click the plus icon to add your translations.
After translating the page, name and description, you will see the translated group on your site’s front-end:
Known Issues
WPML works fine with this plugin, but sometimes there could be minor issues we're working on. This is expected as both plugins provide frequent updates.
Current unresolved issues:
- BuddyPress – Member Pages Not Available For Translation After Version 12.0
- BuddyPress – PHP Fatal error: Uncaught ArgumentCountError: Too few arguments to function WPML\\BuddyPress\\Groups::translateExcerpt()
- BuddyPress – Profile fields are not translated on the frontend
- Problems with BuddyPress Multilingual and Redis Object Cache or Object Cache Pro
You can also search all known issues including previously resolved issues for this plugin.
Getting Support
In case you need help translating your site built using BuddyPress and WPML, visit WPML’s support forum.
