Building bilingual websites...

With the Eisteddfod yr Urdd taking place this week on Anglesey, just up the road from TropicHQ, the Welsh language is especially visible at the moment.

For those outside Wales, the Urdd is one of Europe’s largest youth festivals, centred around Welsh language, music, culture and performance. It moves to a different part of Wales each year and brings together thousands of children and young people from across the country.

As a studio based in North Wales, Welsh and English exist side by side in everyday life for us, whether that’s in schools, shops, on the roads or online.

Bilingual websites are a key specialism within our wider web development work. Many of our projects are bilingual in Welsh and English, and it’s an area where we’ve built a lot of experience over time.

Over the years, we’ve learned that building a bilingual website is about far more than simply translating text from one language into another. Done properly, both languages should feel equally considered, with the same information, the same functionality and the same overall experience regardless of which language a visitor chooses to use.

Why organisations choose to go bilingual

For some organisations in Wales, particularly in the public sector, providing content in both Welsh and English is a legal requirement. For others, it’s a more practical decision.

Sometimes it’s about accessibility. Sometimes it’s about reflecting the communities they work within. Quite often, it’s simply because people are more comfortable engaging with information in the language they use day to day.

We’ve worked on bilingual websites for organisations of all sizes, from charities and visitor attractions to cafes, tourism businesses and independent companies.

A few years ago, bilingual websites could feel expensive, awkward to manage and realistically a bit out of reach for smaller organisations.

That’s changed quite a lot. Better tools, improved translation workflows and advances in AI-assisted translation have made multilingual websites far more achievable than they used to be.

Equality matters in bilingual websites

One thing we’ve learned over time is that a bilingual website only really works if both languages feel properly supported.

Switching from English to Welsh shouldn’t suddenly mean losing content, functionality or access to information.

It’s surprisingly easy for one language to slowly become the ‘main’ version of a site if there isn’t a proper process behind it.

That applies to everything from page content and navigation to downloads, forms and ongoing updates.

In reality, maintaining that balance is usually less about the technology itself and more about the workflow around it.

There are now a wide range of multilingual tools available, from fully managed translation platforms to systems that can automatically translate content at the click of a button.

The important thing is making sure organisations have a clear workflow for keeping both languages aligned as the website evolves.

Whenever new content is added in English, there needs to be a process in place to make sure the Welsh version is updated too, whether that’s through automatic translation tools, internal review processes or external translation partners.

Translation technology has changed enormously

One of the biggest changes we’ve seen over the past few years is the quality of translation technology.

Historically, automatic Welsh translation tools had a pretty poor reputation. Literal translations, inconsistent terminology and awkward phrasing were all fairly common, which understandably made a lot of organisations wary of relying on them.

That has improved massively over the last few years.

Modern AI-assisted translation tools are now far better at understanding context, maintaining terminology and producing genuinely useful first drafts. In practical terms, that’s made bilingual websites much more achievable for smaller organisations and businesses that may previously have seen translation as too expensive or too time-consuming.

At the same time though, quality still matters enormously.

Welsh is a language with regional variations, nuance and cultural context, and poor translation is usually spotted very quickly by fluent speakers. Even strong automated tools can occasionally miss tone, phrasing or context in ways that feel unnatural.

That’s why we still strongly believe human review is an important part of the process.

Depending on the project, that might involve:

• proof-reading and review
• working with professional translation partners
• fully human-led translation where required

The technology is incredibly useful, particularly as a starting point, but the best results still come from combining those tools with proper human oversight and quality control.

Ultimately, it’s about user experience

At its core, a good bilingual website is really about accessibility and user experience.

People are generally more comfortable engaging with information in the language they use day to day. Giving users the option to switch between Welsh and English helps make websites feel more welcoming, easier to use and more accessible, but only if both versions of the site are given the same level of care and attention.

In many ways, language choice is just another part of good website design.

The same way we think carefully about accessibility, navigation, readability and mobile usability, language is another part of the overall experience. If someone prefers to browse in Welsh, the experience should feel just as complete and just as usable.

Final thoughts

Bilingual websites have become a normal part of web development in Wales, and thankfully, they are much easier to build and manage than they used to be.

The technology has improved enormously, workflows are better, and multilingual tools are far more mature than they were even a few years ago.

Most importantly, bilingual websites no longer need to feel complicated or out of reach for smaller organisations.

With the right workflow and proper review processes in place, creating a website that works well in both Welsh and English is far more achievable than it once was.

And in a country where both languages are part of everyday life, that can only be a good thing.