What is the purpose of an extra file for translation?

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What code is required to put in functions.php in order to make the theme translation ready?

The TwentyEleven theme has only following line:

load_theme_textdomain( 'twentyeleven', get_template_directory() . '/languages' );

But in many tutorials they have mentioned to add following:

load_theme_textdomain( 'twentyeleven', get_template_directory() . '/languages' );
$locale = get_locale();
    $locale_file = TEMPLATEPATH . "/languages/$locale.php";
    if ( is_readable( $locale_file ) )
        require_once( $locale_file );

Is the second part required to add in the functions.php file to make it translation ready? If it is, why the TwentyEleven theme does not have it?

1 Answer
1

The second part is not required, it just loads a PHP file with language specific functions.

Examples

  • In some countries/regions/religions it is not allowed to use capital letters in a word for anything else than the name of some god. In these cases you probably want to remove the WordPress to WordPress filter.

  • Some languages (Chinese) do not use spaces (in a predictable manner). If you use a function to set the excerpt length by words you will probably fail. In a language specific file you can disable that excerpt filter.

  • Different languages need different amounts of space, vertically and horizontally. See the very helpful article Text size in translation.
    The English word views is three times as long in Italian: visualizzazioni. That’s one of the reasons to test your layout not just in an extremely compact language like English. Thai for example takes more vertical space – you may have to adjust a grid layout with some extra rules (think <input size> and CSS of course).

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