Vendure has built-in support for multi-language content, allowing you to serve a fully localized storefront without any third-party translation services. The approach is based on a Translatable entity pattern, where translatable fields are stored in a dedicated translations relation rather than directly on the entity.
Entities that support multiple languages implement the Translatable interface. Instead of storing fields
like name or description directly, these entities hold a translations array. Each entry in that array
is linked to a specific LanguageCode and contains the
localized values for that language.
This means a single Product can carry an English name, a German name, and a French name all at the same time, each stored as a separate translation row in the database.
The following core entities use the Translatable pattern:
ProvinceSeller, custom fields only. A Seller's own fields, such as name, are not translated.Plugins can also define their own translatable custom entities using the same pattern.
Each Channel is configured with two language-related properties:
availableLanguageCodes — the set of languages that this channel supports.defaultLanguageCode — the language used when no explicit language is requested.These settings determine which translations are expected to exist for entities within that channel, and which language the API falls back to when a requested translation is not available.
When a client makes a GraphQL API request, Vendure determines the language to use via the languageCode
query parameter. For example, appending ?languageCode=de to the API URL will cause the response to
return German translations where available.
If no languageCode parameter is provided, the channel's defaultLanguageCode is used. If a translation
for the requested language does not exist on a given entity, Vendure falls back to the default language
translation.
This resolution happens transparently — the API consumer always receives a flat object with the translated fields, rather than the underlying translations array.
The Translatable pattern extends to custom fields as well. When you
define a custom field with the localeString type, Vendure stores translations for that field in the same
way it handles built-in translatable fields. This allows plugins and custom extensions to be fully
multi-language without additional effort.
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