I am trying to develop a bilingual site based on WordPress (bilingual sites in Quebec are a necessary reality). The problem is I find automated translators (i.e. Google Translate) do not get the context right.
I noticed during a WordPress install (with Fantastico) I can select the folder where WordPress would live. Would it possible to have set up like:
public_html
|-index.html
|-english_site
|-wordpress install for english
|-french_site
|-wordpress install for french
Is it feasable to have both WordPress installs hook into the same database and media uploads? Or is there a better way to avoid automated translators?
I’d definitely recommend, WPML plugin for handling multilingual sites.
One admin area, every bit of content can have multiple hand crafted translations. Including pages, posts, menus etc. Plugins also get translated if they contain the relevant translation files.
Also supports sub domains, so you could do french.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com (english / default).
Just notice that if you install any multilingual plugin, you should NOT have multiple WordPress instances. Multilingual plugins use a single WP install to serve several languages.
The language-directories structure that you see in the URL is a virtual thing. You shouldn’t have real directories on the server. WordPress should be installed in the root path, not in a language directory.
If you’re looking to serve languages from different domains (or subdomains), have a look at this FAQ for how to setup on your DNS and Apache.