under construction WordPress Multilingual WebsiteThe translation of the navigation menu is especially critical. The WPML plugin provides the flexibility to customize the menu structure for different languages. Especially if your website contains customized links or if each language requires different navigation content, knowing how to translate menus the right way can greatly improve the user experience of your multilingual site. In this article, we will explain how to use WPML to translate different types of menus step by step.
![Image [1]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Fixing Multilingual Menu Structure with Custom Links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806143209296-image.png)
I. Translation of default menu links
WPML automatically generates menu items for links to pages, articles, products and categoriesrenderingversion. The user only has to translate the content of the menu links and leave the rest to WPML.
![Image [2]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Taking care of multilingual menu structure with custom links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806143127344-image.png)
![Image [3]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Taking care of multilingual menu structure with custom links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806143143972-image.png)
II. Translating menus displayed differently in each language
If you want to have a different menu structure, number of items or navigation labels for each language, you need to create separate menus for each language. Procedure:
- Go to the backend and click Appearance → Menu
- At the top of the page, select the language in which you want to create the menu and click on the "plus" icon next to the language.
![Image [4]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Fixing Multilingual Menu Structure with Custom Links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806143657916-image.png)
- Name the new menu and click "Create Menu".
- Add menu items in the corresponding language, either using translated pages or customized navigation tabs
![Image [5]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Fixing Multilingual Menu Structure with Custom Links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806144022175-image.png)
- Click Save to complete the creation of this language menu
In this way, visitors switching languages will see the structure and content of the separatepolyglotMenu.
![Image [6]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Fixing Multilingual Menu Structure with Custom Links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806144307618-image.png)
![Image [7]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Fixing Multilingual Menu Structure with Custom Links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806144319131-image.png)
III. Translating menus built with the site editor
If you are using the Full Site Editing build menu, you can also build the menu via the WPML Translate the navigation blocks in the template to complete the menu translation:
- show (a ticket) WPML → Translation Management
- Select the template that contains the navigation block and check the menu you want to translate
![Image [8]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Fixing Multilingual Menu Structure with Custom Links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806144525749-image.png)
- Select the translation method (human translation orautomatic translation) for translation
This approach is suitable for users with block themes and maintains the consistency of the menu across different template structures.
IV. Translation of menus containing customized links
For menus that contain custom links, you need to manually add those links to thestring translationCenter:
- leave for WPML → WP Menus Sync page, click "Synchronize"
- Check the custom link menu items you want to synchronize and click "Apply Changes".
![Image [9]-WPML Menu Translation Complete Tutorial: Taking care of multilingual menu structure with custom links](https://www.361sale.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250806144729405-image.png)
- A prompt link will appear at the bottom of the page, click to enter string translation module (in software)
- Add translations to just-synchronized links, including navigation labels and URLs
- Go back to the WP Menus Sync page and click on the "Sync" update menu again.
After completing these steps, the customized links will appear in the translated menu and will be correctly adapted for language switching.
summarize
WPML provides a variety ofmenu translationThe approach applies to both regular content with automatic processing and language menus with customized structure and navigation differentiation. Through menu synchronization and string translation functions, the language versions of customized links can be precisely controlled, enabling seamless menu switching in multilingual environments. Mastering these processes, building clear and professional multilingual navigation will become simple and efficient.
Link to this article:https://www.361sale.com/en/73194The article is copyrighted and must be reproduced with attribution.






















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