I am new to Moodle and I need some help understanding the default language setting.
I have selected "French - Canada" as the default language on my Home page.
But, in the Site Administration, the default language setting remains English.
Should I change both settings? Why 2 settings for the same option?
There is a language setting in the user profile field, which is the default language for the user
There is a default language setting in admin (lang) which is the default language for the site (= when user is not logged in)
On top of that, you can enable browser detection of your language (autolang). In that case, the language is what your browser thinks your language is.
And then you can set a specific language for every course if you want.
So lots of places where it can go wrong
My suggestion is:
- Look at your profile when logged in and make sure that is what you want.
- Perform a search for" language" (or whatever the word is in the language you are looking at) in side administration, looking through all the settings and try to understand them. If you don't - leave them as default.
- Disable in those settings the browser detection setting (autolang)
So I hope there is something in this too long post that gives you a clue to solve your problem
Hi Koen,
Thanks for your reply. But it doesn't really answer my question, at least I don't think so! My question is what does the default language setting in Administration do? See image below. Here I have English in menu top left. I have spanish in the Default Language option but nothing appears in Spanish on the page.
Hi,
As Koen tried to explain, there are several places where you can define or select language.
If you change the default language, it will apply for new created accounts, and for non logged in user, if browser detection is desactivated. Existing accounts will have to be modified (in there profil), or via batch operation or SQL query.
Even if Espanõl is selected in your profil, as your screen shows, you're actual (selected) language is English, so it's normal that everything shows in English!
HTH,
Séverin
yes, that's what I mean.
Thank you for the addition about new and existing users Séverin.
i have another question, which you might be able to answer:
when does language auto-detect even kick in? the preferred language in the user profile is always set to something (there is no "not set" option), and auto-detect does not seem to override this option
Hi,
Auto-detect language will apply for anonymous (not logged-in) users.
HTH,
Séverin
ah, that makes sense
so I guess its not possible to to "unset" the default language setting for users and have auto-detect kick in?
what I originally wanted to do was integrate a link to choose default language into the language menu - do you know if that is possible?
original thread here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=369483
I know it's possible to set the user's language on creation of their profile, if using a CSV file (comma separated value). You just add a column to make their default language the one chosen. See the attached blank CSV file that I have used to default to Canadian French.
It worked well for my uses.
