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December 30, 2025 · Web Development · 14 min read

Building Multi-Language Websites: Harder Than Google Translate Can Fix

Adding a language switcher seems simple until you realize text direction, date formats, and cultural norms exist. Lessons from building a tour site for English and Korean speakers.

“Can You Make the Website Bilingual?”

Five words that sound harmless.

Just translate the text, add a language switcher, and call it a day. Right?

Oh, sweet summer child.

Many developers learn the hard way that “bilingual” is one of those requirements that looks tiny on paper and quietly explodes once implementation starts.

One tour booking platform needed to support both English and Korean. What initially felt like a one-week task stretched into a month—after the team thought they knew what they were doing.

Here’s what that experience taught them.

Mistake #1: Thinking Translation Is Just Word-Swapping

The naive approach is obvious:

Take the English text
Translate it
Store both versions
Switch based on language selection

Easy!

Except… not even close.

Text length changes dramatically

Korean is often much shorter.

A button labeled “View Available Tours” in English becomes “둘러보기” in Korean. Same meaning. Completely different length.

Suddenly, beautifully padded buttons look awkward. Some feel bloated. Others have text colliding with icons. Designs that were “pixel perfect” fall apart instantly.

Languages wrap differently

English relies heavily on spaces. Korean doesn’t behave the same way.

Text that wrapped cleanly in English suddenly breaks in strange places, sometimes splitting what should feel like a single idea into two lines.

Cultural context matters

A literal translation of “FAQ” means nothing in Korean. It needs to become “자주 묻는 질문” — the full phrase.

“Contact Us” can be translated directly, but that version sounds stiff and corporate. “문의하기” feels far more natural and inviting.

Google Translate gives you grammatical accuracy.
It does not give you cultural fluency.

Mistake #2: Hardcoding Text in Templates

Early implementations often look like this:

Welcome to Our Tours!

Then bilingual support arrives, and it becomes:

{{ language == 'en' ? 'Welcome to Our Tours!' : '투어에 오신 것을 환영합니다!' }}

Yes, it works.
It also quietly destroys maintainability.

Imagine:

Changing wording becomes a scavenger hunt. Adding a third language becomes a nightmare.

The Better Way: Translation Files

A proper setup separates content from templates:

// translations/en.json
{
  "welcome_title": "Welcome to Our Tours!",
  "book_now": "Book Now",
  "view_details": "View Details"
}

// translations/ko.json
{
  "welcome_title": "투어에 오신 것을 환영합니다!",
  "book_now": "지금 예약",
  "view_details": "자세히 보기"
}

Then templates stay clean:

{{ _('welcome_title') }}

Adding a new language means adding a file.
Updating text means editing one place.

Future developers silently thank past developers every single time.

Mistake #3: Forgetting About Dynamic Content

Static pages are easy.
Databases are where things get spicy.

Database content needs translation too

Tour names, descriptions, itineraries — all live in the database.

That means translations live there too.

A common approach:

tours
- id
- price
- duration

tour_translations
- tour_id
- language
- name
- description
- itinerary

More planning upfront. Far fewer regrets later.

URLs get tricky

Should URLs be:

Localized URLs are great for SEO but come with technical complexity.

A pragmatic compromise often wins:

Not perfect, but stable and predictable.

Search becomes language-aware

Users search in Korean → search Korean translations
Switch to English → search English fields

That means smarter queries and proper indexing. Multilingual search isn’t free.

Mistake #4: Not Planning for Right-to-Left Languages

This didn’t surface on the Korean project — but it did on another one involving Arabic.

RTL languages flip everything.

CSS that once behaved politely turns feral.

Modern CSS offers tools (direction: rtl, logical properties), but only if you plan for them early.

Retrofitting RTL support later is like converting a left-hand-drive car after it’s already built.

Technically possible.
Emotionally exhausting.

Mistake #5: Assuming Dates and Numbers Are Universal

They’re not.

Dates

A calendar displaying 12/25/2024 feels obvious to Americans.
To others, it’s confusing at best.

Numbers and currency

Now the rule is simple:
Use proper localization libraries. Always.

Let the software handle formatting. Humans are bad at it.

Mistake #6: Forgetting About Emails and Notifications

A user books a tour in Korean.

The confirmation email arrives in English.

Oops.

Every communication channel needs localization:

The fix: store the user’s language preference and apply it everywhere.

It sounds obvious — right up until the password reset email goes out untranslated and support gets a confused call.

Mistake #7: Not Testing With Real Users

The translations were accurate.

They were also painfully stiff.

Technically correct Korean.
Emotionally dead Korean.

Users noticed.

Despite having a Korean option, many users stuck with English. The tone felt textbook-formal, not fun or inviting — which matters a lot for tourism.

A native Korean speaker with marketing experience rewrote the copy.

Same meaning.
Completely different vibe.

Usage of the Korean version tripled.

Lesson learned:
Translation ≠ localization.

What Teams Do Differently Now

Experience reshapes the approach:

The Payoff

Once implemented correctly, the results were undeniable.

Within three months, Korean users went from 0% to 15% of total bookings.

That wasn’t growth from better marketing.
That was growth from simply speaking the user’s language — literally and culturally.

The effort paid for itself many times over.

The Bottom Line

Multilingual websites aren’t just about translation.

They’re about:

It’s far more complex than “Google Translate → paste → done.”

But when it’s done right, it unlocks entire markets that were previously locked out.

That’s not just good development.

That’s good business.

Takeaway:
Language support is localization, not translation. Plan for it early, design for flexibility, and involve native speakers from the start.