Migrate from Sublanguage — keep every translation and every translated URL

Sublanguage is minimal by design: one post, and its translations stored on it. This page is the honest version of what moving to TranslateRocket — a free multilingual WordPress plugin — actually involves: what comes across, what does not, and how long it takes.

What this plugin does — and where it stops

Sublanguage keeps a single post and stores each translation as extra fields on it. There are no copies to keep in step, which is its strength; the flip side is that everything outside those fields — theme strings, plugin texts, a shop — is yours to handle some other way.

Where your translations actually live

Each language is a small post of type language, and its short name is the prefix of the translated fields on your posts: _it_post_title, _it_post_content, _it_post_name for the address. Categories and tags use the same prefix, and so do menu items.

What comes across

• Titles, excerpts and body content of posts, pages and custom post types.
• Your translated URLs, so the links search engines already know keep working.
• Category and tag names and descriptions.
• Menu labels you typed by hand.
• Only languages that are live. A language you left in draft in Sublanguage is not imported, and an empty field — “use the original” — is not imported as a translation.

Sublanguage can also copy translated fields onto post revisions. Those are old versions, not your pages, so they are skipped: only the current version of each post is read.

How to migrate, step by step

1. Back up your site. Nothing here modifies your content, but a migration without a backup is a bad habit whatever the tool.
2. Install TranslateRocket from wordpress.org. It is free and there is no account to create.
3. Pick your languages in TranslateRocket → Languages: the language your site is written in, and the ones you already have translations for.
4. Open TranslateRocket → Import. The screen looks at your site and tells you what it found, with a count. If it says nothing was detected, nothing is guessed at.
5. Press the import button for this plugin and let it run. Your original content is untouched.
6. Fill the gaps for free. Whatever the old plugin never covered — menus, theme strings, WooCommerce — can be translated with the translator built into Chrome and Edge: no API key, no account, nothing sent anywhere. We timed it: 464 strings in 42 seconds.
7. Check it, then remove the old plugin when you are satisfied — not before.

What life looks like afterwards

You keep the one-post-per-page model you chose Sublanguage for, and add what it never covered: interface strings, WooCommerce, SEO meta and a visual editor where you click any text on the page to translate it.

You also get the things a translation plugin is judged on once the novelty wears off: /es/-style URLs with correct hreflang, translated slugs, a language switcher as a shortcode, block or widget, per-page visibility rules, and a translation memory so the same sentence is never translated twice.

Questions people ask before switching

Can I import after deactivating Sublanguage?

Yes. The translations are read from your database, whatever the state of the plugin. Once it is off, WordPress’s address rules are rebuilt so no page ends up on the home page.

Will my translated URLs keep working?

Yes. Each page’s translated address is imported and keeps answering after the switch.

What about a language I never published?

A language still in draft in Sublanguage is not online, so it is not imported.

How much does it cost?

Nothing. TranslateRocket has no paid tier, and the translator built into Chrome and Edge needs no API key and no account.

Coming from something else? WPML · Polylang · TranslatePress · Weglot · Loco Translate · Bogo · WPGlobus · WP Multilang · Multilanguage · qTranslate · Falang · Sublanguage