Supported Locales

The CLI supports 100+ languages and regional variants.

Universal Support

All languages use standard ISO 639-1 codes for consistency across platforms.

Common Languages#

The most frequently used locales:

Language	Code	Example
English (US)	`en` or `en-US`	Hello
Spanish	`es`	Hola
French	`fr`	Bonjour
German	`de`	Hallo
Italian	`it`	Ciao
Portuguese	`pt`	Olá
Japanese	`ja`	こんにちは
Korean	`ko`	안녕하세요
Chinese (Simplified)	`zh` or `zh-CN`	你好
Chinese (Traditional)	`zh-TW`	你好
Russian	`ru`	Привет
Arabic	`ar`	مرحبا
Hindi	`hi`	नमस्ते
Dutch	`nl`	Hallo
Polish	`pl`	Cześć

Regional Variants#

Specify regional dialects for precise localization:

json

{
  "locales": ["en-US", "en-GB", "es-ES", "es-MX", "pt-BR", "pt-PT", "fr-FR", "fr-CA"]
}

en-US - United States
en-GB - United Kingdom
en-CA - Canada
en-AU - Australia
en-NZ - New Zealand

Example differences:

Key	en-US	en-GB
color	Color	Colour
elevator	Elevator	Lift
apartment	Apartment	Flat

All Supported Locales#

Complete list of ISO 639-1 language codes:

af - Afrikaans
ar - Arabic
bg - Bulgarian
bn - Bengali
ca - Catalan
cs - Czech
da - Danish
de - German
el - Greek
en - English
es - Spanish
et - Estonian
fa - Persian
fi - Finnish
fr - French
gu - Gujarati

Configuration#

Specify locales in your config file:

json

{
  "locales": ["en", "es", "fr", "de", "ja"]
}

Or use regional variants:

json

{
  "locales": ["en-US", "en-GB", "es-ES", "es-MX", "pt-BR", "pt-PT"]
}

RTL Language Support#

Right-to-left languages are fully supported:

ar - Arabic
he - Hebrew
fa - Persian
ur - Urdu

RTL Handling

The platform automatically detects RTL languages and applies proper text direction in the web editor.

Custom Locale Codes#

Need a custom locale not in the standard list?

bash

lingo config:add-locale --code custom-locale --name "Custom Language"

Or contact support to add official support for new languages.

Locale Fallbacks#

Configure fallback behavior for missing translations:

json

{
  "locales": ["en", "es", "fr"],
  "fallbackLocale": "en"
}

If a key is missing in es, it will fall back to the en translation.

Avoid Over-Reliance on Fallbacks

Fallbacks are useful during development, but ensure all locales have complete translations before shipping to production.

Next Steps#

Extract keys with AI to auto-generate translation files
Return to Quick Start to begin implementation

The CLI supports 100+ languages and regional variants.

Universal Support

All languages use standard ISO 639-1 codes for consistency across platforms.

Common Languages#

The most frequently used locales:

Language	Code	Example
English (US)	`en` or `en-US`	Hello
Spanish	`es`	Hola
French	`fr`	Bonjour
German	`de`	Hallo
Italian	`it`	Ciao
Portuguese	`pt`	Olá
Japanese	`ja`	こんにちは
Korean	`ko`	안녕하세요
Chinese (Simplified)	`zh` or `zh-CN`	你好
Chinese (Traditional)	`zh-TW`	你好
Russian	`ru`	Привет
Arabic	`ar`	مرحبا
Hindi	`hi`	नमस्ते
Dutch	`nl`	Hallo
Polish	`pl`	Cześć

Regional Variants#

Specify regional dialects for precise localization:

json

{
  "locales": ["en-US", "en-GB", "es-ES", "es-MX", "pt-BR", "pt-PT", "fr-FR", "fr-CA"]
}

en-US - United States
en-GB - United Kingdom
en-CA - Canada
en-AU - Australia
en-NZ - New Zealand

Example differences:

Key	en-US	en-GB
color	Color	Colour
elevator	Elevator	Lift
apartment	Apartment	Flat

All Supported Locales#

Complete list of ISO 639-1 language codes:

af - Afrikaans
ar - Arabic
bg - Bulgarian
bn - Bengali
ca - Catalan
cs - Czech
da - Danish
de - German
el - Greek
en - English
es - Spanish
et - Estonian
fa - Persian
fi - Finnish
fr - French
gu - Gujarati

Configuration#

Specify locales in your config file:

json

{
  "locales": ["en", "es", "fr", "de", "ja"]
}

Or use regional variants:

json

{
  "locales": ["en-US", "en-GB", "es-ES", "es-MX", "pt-BR", "pt-PT"]
}

RTL Language Support#

Right-to-left languages are fully supported:

ar - Arabic
he - Hebrew
fa - Persian
ur - Urdu

RTL Handling

The platform automatically detects RTL languages and applies proper text direction in the web editor.

Custom Locale Codes#

Need a custom locale not in the standard list?

bash

lingo config:add-locale --code custom-locale --name "Custom Language"

Or contact support to add official support for new languages.

Locale Fallbacks#

Configure fallback behavior for missing translations:

json

{
  "locales": ["en", "es", "fr"],
  "fallbackLocale": "en"
}

If a key is missing in es, it will fall back to the en translation.

Avoid Over-Reliance on Fallbacks

Fallbacks are useful during development, but ensure all locales have complete translations before shipping to production.

Next Steps#

Extract keys with AI to auto-generate translation files
Return to Quick Start to begin implementation