How to set different languages for different users in WordPress

Can you set one site language for WordPress website visitors, and another language to WordPress administrators? You may not see the option in WordPress to do it, but there actually is a way to set different languages for WordPress frontend and backend, and you don’t need any plugins for that.

Here’s how you do it in less than a minute.

How to set different WordPress language for site visitors and administrators

If you want to change WordPress website language you need to open Settings >> General, and change Site Language to any other language you want.

The problem is that there is only one setting for language there – you cannot set different language for website visitors and site administrators there. And if you have only one language installed in your WordPress, you won’t find any way to set different language for admin. The solutions is actually quite simple.

For example – you want to set site language for visitors in English, but admin panel needs to be in German.

You already have English language installed by default, so now you need to change Site Language to German (Deutsch).

Once you save changes Wordpress will download German translations to your site, and now you’ll have two languages installed.

It probably won’t take long to notice that adding second language to WordPress did not solve a problem – you still have only one language to choose from in Settings. And that’s OK. Set Site Language back to English (or any other language for WordPress website visitors), and now go to Users in WordPress admin.

Open any WordPress user profile you need. Since there is more than one language installed in your WordPress website, you’ll notice a new setting in user profile page – Language.

That’s how you set different language for website admin. You set one language for admininstrators in Users >> Profile page, and default site language for website visitors in Settings >> General page.

If you have multiple WordPress users (administrators, editors, etc.), everyone can have WordPress admin panel in their own preferred language.