Creating a Multi-Langual website?

[woopidoo2]

Ive been thinking and reading on how to do this, but I still dont know it.

 

 

 

I want to create a website which is accessible in 2 languages.

 

After typing the URL that leads a user to my website, the user has to choose between English or Dutch.

 

The content of both directions are the same, just different languages.

 

 

 

How do I do this in a smart way, which is clear for me and for the visitor?

 

 

 

I was thinking about a structure like this:

 

 

 

*user goes to *

 

 

 

*user chooses English or Dutch*

 

 

 

If English:

 

www..nl/en/home

 

www..nl/en/aboutme

 

etc.

 

 

 

If Dutch:

 

www..nl/nl/home

 

www..nl.nl/overmij

 

etc.

 

 

 

Thats seems the best structure, but is this realistic to do? if so, how?

 

 

 

Thanks in advance. :)

[thrash-boy]

just have 2 different directories at the root (en for the English website and nl for the Dutch).

 

Build the website using html & css. all the content goes in the html file (have a html file for each page in each language in each directory), and every page (both dutch & english versions) use the same style sheet (css file).

 

that way you can change the layout, border thicknesses, everything by modifying 1 css file, and it will update all pages in both dutch and English versions.

 

that would be the way to go if your using html

 

 

 

here is a great site for learning how to use html with css, it taught me very well anyway:

 

http://www.htmldog.com

[JoeDaStudd]

Looks like a nice structure.

 

I would set a cookie when they choose the language so you can auto re-direct them to the correct language if they visit again.

[woopidoo2]

Nice, yes I will use html+css for this website.

 

 

 

Thanks for the comments so far.

[sloter]

You could also use a server side language and set a get element for the language Ex: http://www.yourwebsite.com/?lang=en. And then build a multidimensional array with English and your other languages being your first array key and the as the second array key put a word that means a string or something and put that where you need and then translate each string in hat array. To save on memory just make one array per language and just include the language file.