Prevent WPML from Translating Post and Taxonomy Slugs

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Supporter timezone: Asia/Jerusalem (GMT+03:00)

Tagged: Bug

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Last updated by Itamar 6 days, 23 hours ago.

Assisted by: Itamar.

Author	Posts
March 27, 2025 at 12:03 pm #16868301
Hichem Hamdani	Background of the issue: Hi, I'm adding Arabic as a new language to my website using WPML, but I’ve noticed that when I translate taxonomies, their slugs are automatically translated into Arabic, and /ar/ is added to the URL. When I add pages for exemple I don't have this issue For example: Original (French): hidden link Translated (Arabic): hidden link I want to keep the original slug structure and prevent WPML from translating post and taxonomy slugs. Ideally, the Arabic version should retain only the /ar/ prefix while keeping the original post or category name for example: hidden link How can I achieve this? Symptoms: The slugs of taxonomies are automatically translated into Arabic when using WPML. Questions: How can I prevent WPML from translating taxonomy slugs while adding a new language? Is there a way to keep the original slug structure in the translated version?
March 27, 2025 at 2:32 pm #16869005
Itamar Supporter Languages: English (English ) Hebrew (עברית ) Timezone: Asia/Jerusalem (GMT+03:00)	Hi, I've escalated this issue to our second-tier supporters. We will keep you updated on any news regarding this issue. I appreciate your patience. Itamar.
April 2, 2025 at 8:35 am #16885918
Itamar Supporter Languages: English (English ) Hebrew (עברית ) Timezone: Asia/Jerusalem (GMT+03:00)	Hi, Our second-tier supporter explained that it was not designed to have the option 'Copy from original language if translation language uses encoded URLs' for taxonomies (categories.) It only works for posts and pages. However, our second-tier supporter submitted this as a feature request. Our developers will consider adding this in future versions of WPML. However, I can promise it will be added. It is up to our developers to decide. If our developers choose to add this new feature, we will update you here. We also have a known issue where having the same slug for a taxonomy term is impossible. This is actually a WordPress limitation. We explain it in the following link. https://wpml.org/errata/translated-term-slug-identical-to-the-original-term-slug/ However, you can use the suggested workaround to achieve what you need on your website, which is having the slug in French and not in Arabic. Regards, Itamar.