Reign BuddyPress WordPress Demo Deutsch

Running a German-language community on WordPress with Reign and BuddyPress takes three separate translation layers working together: WordPress core and BuddyPress (translated by the German polyglots team), the Reign theme (shipped with a German language file), and the add-on plugins you bolt on. Get all three loaded in the right order and every button, tab and notification appears in German; miss one and you get the familiar half-translated profile page where “Freunde” sits next to “Send Private Message”.

Reign first bundled a German translation back in version 3.8.0, which is what this post originally announced. The theme is now on the 8.x branch, and the process for setting up a German (or any other language) community is different enough that the whole guide deserved a rewrite. Here is how we set up a German Reign site today, what to translate where, and the traps that catch people.

How WordPress decides which language to show

WordPress picks a locale in this order: the user’s own language from Users → Profile (if set), then the site language from Settings → General → Site Language. For a locale such as de_DE, it then looks for translation files in these places:

1. wp-content/languages/ for core, wp-content/languages/plugins/ and wp-content/languages/themes/ for packages downloaded from translate.wordpress.org.
2. The languages folder inside the theme or plugin itself, where authors ship their own .po/.mo files.
3. Custom overrides, most commonly wp-content/languages/loco/ when you use Loco Translate.

Since WordPress 6.5, core reads .l10n.php files first if they exist and falls back to .mo. Files you create with Loco Translate or Poedit are still .mo, which is fine; the PHP format is a performance optimisation, not a requirement.

German has three locales on WordPress.org: de_DE (Deutsch), de_DE_formal (Sie form) and de_CH (Swiss, with ss instead of ß). Pick the formal variant for professional networks and B2B communities, the informal one for hobby and consumer communities. This matters because a theme file named reign-de_DE.mo will not load when the site is set to de_DE_formal; you need a copy named for the exact locale.

Step 1: set the site language and let core and BuddyPress translate themselves

1. Go to Settings → General → Site Language and choose Deutsch (or Deutsch (Sie) for the formal register). Save. WordPress downloads the core language pack immediately.
2. Go to Dashboard → Updates and click Update Translations. This pulls German packs for every plugin and theme that has them on WordPress.org, including BuddyPress.
3. Check wp-content/languages/plugins/ for buddypress-de_DE.mo. If it is missing, the site could not reach WordPress.org, which is common on locked-down staging servers; download the pack manually from the BuddyPress German translation project and upload it.

BuddyPress German is maintained by volunteers and sits close to 100% for the stable branch. If you spot an untranslated string after updating, it is usually a new string in the latest release that has not been approved yet. You can suggest a translation on translate.wordpress.org, and it will reach your site on the next translation update.

BuddyBoss Platform is not on WordPress.org, so it does not get automatic packs. It ships its own languages folder with a German file, and anything missing has to be handled with Loco Translate as described below.

Step 2: load the Reign German translation

Reign ships a languages folder inside the theme containing reign.pot and ready-made translation files, German among them. With Site Language set to Deutsch, the theme loads reign-de_DE.mo automatically through load_theme_textdomain(). Nothing else to do for the bulk of the theme strings.

The parts of a Reign site that do not come from the theme’s text domain, and therefore need their own translation:

• Wbcom Essential, the companion plugin that provides the Elementor widgets, header layouts and a lot of the community templates. Text domain wbcom-essential, with its own languages folder.
• Reign add-ons such as Reign for LearnDash or the Dokan and GeoDirectory add-ons. Each is a separate plugin with a separate text domain.
• Customizer text such as the footer copyright line, the registration page heading and call-to-action buttons. These are options, not strings, so you type them in German directly in Appearance → Customize.
• Demo content. Imported demo pages, menus and widgets arrive in English. Translate page titles, menu labels and widget titles by editing them; no translation file covers content.

Step 3: translate the add-ons with Loco Translate

Loco Translate (free, on WordPress.org) is the tool we use for everything that is not covered by an official pack. The setup that survives updates:

1. Install and activate Loco Translate from Plugins → Add New.
2. Go to Loco Translate → Themes → Reign (or Loco Translate → Plugins → the add-on). If a German file already exists you will see its completion percentage.
3. Click New language (or the existing German row), choose Deutsch, and under Location choose Custom. This writes files to wp-content/languages/loco/themes/reign-de_DE.po. Never choose Author, because that saves into the theme folder and the next Reign update deletes your work.
4. Use the filter box to find untranslated strings, translate them, and click Save. Loco compiles the .mo for you.
5. Repeat for each plugin that shows untranslated strings on the front end.

Loco also lets you override an existing official translation. If the official BuddyPress pack says “Aktivität” and your community calls it “Neuigkeiten”, create a custom German file for BuddyPress in Loco, translate only that one string, and Loco’s custom location takes priority over the official pack.

Our Loco Translate guide for BuddyX walks through the same steps with screenshots; the process is identical for Reign.

Finding the string you are looking at

When a front-end label stays in English, the quickest way to find out which plugin owns it is to search the string in Loco’s sync view across each component, or run a grep on the server:

grep -rn "Send Private Message" wp-content/themes/reign-theme wp-content/plugins --include=*.php | head

The text domain in the __() or _e() call tells you which translation file to edit.

German-specific settings worth changing

Translation files handle words. These settings handle everything else a German audience expects.

Setting	Where	Recommended value
Timezone	Settings → General	Berlin (handles summer time correctly, unlike a fixed UTC+1)
Date format	Settings → General	Custom j. F Y (21. August 2026)
Time format	Settings → General	H:i (24-hour)
Week starts on	Settings → General	Montag
Decimal and thousands separators	WooCommerce → Settings → General (if selling)	Comma decimal, full stop thousands, price suffix “inkl. MwSt.”
Permalinks	Settings → Permalinks	Keep ASCII slugs; WordPress already converts umlauts (ü → ue) in slugs

BuddyPress slugs (/members/, /groups/, /activity/) can be translated too. Since BuddyPress 12 the directory and component slugs are editable under Settings → BuddyPress → URLs, so you can serve /mitglieder/ and /gruppen/ without a code snippet. Set these before launch; changing them later breaks every shared link.

Legal pages German communities need

This is where German sites differ most from English-speaking ones, and a theme cannot do it for you. A German community site is expected to have:

• Impressum, linked from every page (usually the footer). Reign’s footer widget areas or the Customizer copyright line are the normal place.
• Datenschutzerklärung covering BuddyPress data (profile fields, private messages, activity), any analytics, and embedded services such as Gravatar, which loads avatars from a US server. Many German sites disable Gravatar under Settings → Discussion and rely on uploaded avatars.
• Consent for registration: a checkbox on the signup form agreeing to the terms and privacy policy. BuddyPress does not add this by default; an xProfile checkbox field marked required on the Base group does the job, or a dedicated GDPR plugin.
• Cookie consent before any optional script runs, including social share buttons and embedded videos in activity posts.

We include these in every German launch checklist because the fines are real and the fix is cheap.

Testing the translation properly

A German admin sees a German site and assumes it is done. Test as a fresh member instead:

1. Register a new account in a private window and read every step: signup form, activation email, first login, profile edit.
2. Post an activity update, send a friend request, join a group, send a private message. Notifications and emails for each of these come from BuddyPress email templates, which are posts under Emails in the admin and are not covered by translation files. Edit them in German directly.
3. Trigger errors: wrong password, taken username, upload too large. Error strings are the ones most often left in English.
4. Check the WooCommerce checkout and any LearnDash course pages if you run them; both have their own large translation sets that update separately.
5. Switch one test user to English in their profile to confirm per-user language works, which matters for international communities on a German default.

Running German alongside other languages

If the community needs more than one language, you have two honest options. A single-language site with per-user language selection (the built-in Users → Profile → Language setting) works well when the content is user-generated: the interface follows the member, the posts stay in whatever language members write. For editorial content that must exist in several languages, use WPML or Polylang, both of which support BuddyPress to a point but add real complexity to profile and group URLs. We only recommend the multilingual-plugin route when the site has a content team producing translated articles; for a pure community, per-user interface language is enough.

Frequently asked questions

Does Reign still include a German translation?

Yes. The theme’s languages folder ships with German and other common locales, and the file updates with each release. Strings added in a new version may lag a release or two; Loco Translate fills the gap.

Will my translations disappear when I update Reign?

Only if you saved them inside the theme folder. Save to the custom location (wp-content/languages/loco/) and updates leave them untouched. Translations stored in a child theme’s languages folder also survive, but the Loco custom location is simpler.

Why is part of my profile page still in English after switching to Deutsch (Sie)?

The formal locale is de_DE_formal, and most theme and plugin authors only ship de_DE. WordPress does not fall back from formal to informal for third-party text domains. Copy the informal file, rename it to reign-de_DE_formal.mo in the custom location, or create the formal variant in Loco.

Can I contribute translations back?

For BuddyPress and other WordPress.org plugins, suggest strings on translate.wordpress.org. For Reign and Wbcom plugins, send us the .po file through support and we will bundle it in the next release with credit.

What we’d do

Set the site language first, run Update Translations, and look at what is left. Install Loco Translate, create custom-location German files for Reign, Wbcom Essential and any add-on with gaps, and translate only the strings that actually appear on your pages. Then set Berlin time, German date formats, the German BuddyPress slugs, and write the Impressum and Datenschutzerklärung before a single member signs up. The Reign theme handles the layout; an afternoon with Loco handles the rest.