Background of the issue:
I have over 1,000 product categories on my website hidden link, each translated into 4 languages (Latvian, English, French, Russian). I need to add translations for these existing categories in a new language (German) using WP All Import.
Symptoms:
I imported the categories in Latvian first and then imported the German categories, marking them as translations of the previously imported Latvian terms in the WPML tab during import. However, this approach didn’t link the translations correctly.
Questions:
How could I import new language translations for existing product categories?
Thank you for reaching out to WPML support. While one of my colleagues reviews your ticket, I’d like to share some initial debugging steps that might help right away.
When using the WPML Export and Import add-on, the imported categories should link correctly to the existing translated categories, provided the process is followed as described.
Let us know if you run into any issues or need further assistance.
As I have understood and as per your question, you are trying to import translation to existing categories on your website.
I am afraid that will not be possible out of box, you will need to export all languages, make sure the language info / CSV file is correct as per docs shared and then import back each language. Then it will work fine and WPML will connect default language and translation correctly.
Other way is, as you are doing it now, but instead manually assigning 1000 categories develop a custom code solution using our hook and connect German category as translation of default language:
