Home›Support›English Support›[Resolved] Automatic Translation: Gender issue and German (Switzerland) missing
[Resolved] Automatic Translation: Gender issue and German (Switzerland) missing
This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem: The client is developing a site using WPML for automatic translation and faces issues with gender-specific translations defaulting to the feminine form. Additionally, the client needs support for Swiss German, which is not available in the current translation options. Solution: 1. For gender-specific translations, switching from DeepL to WPML AI is recommended. WPML AI allows for specifying the gender by summarizing the site’s content accordingly. 2. Regarding the support for Swiss German (de_CH), which does not use the 'ß' character, although DeepL does not support this variant, we can explore enabling it through WPML AI. This would involve running tests to assess if the desired quality can be achieved, as it has not been implemented due to a lack of client requests.
If this solution does not resolve your issue or seems outdated, we recommend opening a new support ticket. We also advise checking the related known issues, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. For further assistance, please visit our support forum.
This is the technical support forum for WPML - the multilingual WordPress plugin.
Everyone can read, but only WPML clients can post here. WPML team is replying on the forum 6 days per week, 22 hours per day.
Background of the issue:
I am developing a site and using WPML for automatic translation. I want to ensure the translations reflect the correct gender and regional language variations.
Symptoms:
Automatic translation sometimes defaults to the feminine version, e.g., 'I'm a vegan cook' becomes 'Ich bin eine vegane Köchin'. Additionally, there is no option for 'German (Switzerland)', which does not use the 'ß' character.
Questions:
Is there a way to set the gender of the person writing the text in WPML?
Is there a way to choose the Swiss version of German in WPML?
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)
Hi,
before your ticket is assigned to one of my colleagues, please allow me to walk you through some initial debugging steps. This will help speed up the support process.
Could you please share the website URL and the specific permalink where the issue occurs? I’d like to investigate the cause and identify which translation engine was used.
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)
Hi Beat,
The permalink will help our programmers and linguists accurately assess via the logs what DeepL returned and in what context/why. This will help us analyze the issue and find a solution for future translations.
Primary language: hidden link
"I’m still active as a vegan cook"...
Secondary language : hidden link
"Ich bin immer noch als veganer Koch tätig"....
Maybe it can even be seen as discriminating when AI assumes that a cooking person must be female. But I of course understand that translating from a language such as English where no gender distinction is made with a word like "cook". So that's why I wondered if there was a way to tell the translation enginges WHO is writing the content and in what form.
German "ß" issue:
hidden link
"Mit meiner Erfahrung liefere ich effizient 100% massgeschneiderte Lösungen"
Adding a "German (Switzerland)" option would be ideal, but this would have to be provided by the translation engines.
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)
Hi,
1) Cook:
This is beyond our control as it depends on DeepL. If you need a better translation, you can switch to WPML AI. With WPML AI, we can instruct our own AI engine to use a specific gender by summarizing your site’s content accordingly.
2= ß in Swiss German:
DeepL does not support Swiss German (de_CH), only standard German (de). If you require Swiss German, we can explore the possibility of enabling it via our WPML AI engine. So far, we haven’t received client requests for this, which is why it hasn't been implemented yet. However, we can run some tests and assess whether we can achieve the quality we expect.
