Working with Multi-languages in Laravel Without Packages

Laravel has advantageous features for localization. Let’s leverage this feature to build our app. We will not use any packages and make our own handler for translations, routes, models, and everything.

In this article, I will cover:

1. Set up your supported languages.
2. Create multi-language routes.
3. Automatically translate the page into the selected language.
4. Design and implement a translatable database.

Let’s get started.

1. Set up your supported languages

I have a fresh Laravel installed on my machine, and the first thing we will do is set up our supported languages. Create a new file in the config folder called languages.php.

<?php 

return [
    'en',
    'pt',
    'fr',
    'jp'
];

Done. Now we will use this config file to work across the app.

2. Create multi-language routes

According to the Laravel’s documentation: “By default, the Laravel application skeleton does not include the lang directory. If you would like to customize Laravel’s language files or create your own, you should scaffold the lang directory via the lang:publish Artisan command.”

php artisan lang:publish

Now, let’s create routes that support all languages. We will loop through the supported languages to create unique routes for every language.

But before that, let’s create some folders for our supported languages in the lang directory. I will name the file paths.php since it will store all of our route paths.

The folder will look something like this:

├── lang/       
│   ├── en/
│   │   ├── paths.php
│   ├── fr/
│   │   ├── paths.php
│   ├── jp/
│   │   ├── paths.php
│   ├── pt/
│   │   ├── paths.php

The content inside the paths.php is:

lang/en/paths.php

<?php
return [
    'about' => 'about',
];

lang/fr/paths.php

<?php
return [
    'about' => 'a-propos',
];

lang/jp/paths.php

<?php
return [
    'about' => 'about',
];

lang/pt/paths.php

<?php
return [
    'about' => 'sobre',
];

Now, we’ll define our routes in web/routes.php:

foreach (config('languages') as $locale) {
    if (config('app')['locale'] == $locale) {
        Route::get(__('paths.about', [], $locale), AboutController::class)->name("about.{$locale}");
    } else {
        Route::get("{$locale}/".__('paths.about', [], $locale), AboutController::class)->name("about.{$locale}");
    }
}

In the code above, you will register some new routes for all available languages:

If you want to access the path in the English version use /about but if you want to access the path in other languages use /pt/sobre for example.

3. Automatically translate the page into the selected language

Now, you probably notice that, when you access the page, the translation won’t be applied. That’s because we haven’t set our locale according to the path.

Let’s create a middleware to translate the page into the selected locale.

php artisan make:middleware SetLocale

Paste the following code for the handle method in the app/Http/Middleware/SetLocale.php

public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next): Response
{
    $lang = $request->segment(1);

    if(strlen($lang) === 2 && in_array($lang, config('languages'))){
        app()->setLocale($lang);
    }

    return $next($request);
}

The code above will set the language according to segment 1 in the request, if segment 1 is equal to our supported languages we will set it as the current language.

Now register the middleware in the app/Http/Kernel.php

protected $routeMiddleware = [
    ...
    'set-locale' => \App\Http\Middleware\SetLocale::class,
];

Update our routes to use the middleware:

Route::group([
    'middleware' => 'set-locale'
], function() {
    foreach (config('languages') as $locale) {
        if (config('app')['locale'] == $locale) {
            Route::get(__('paths.about', [], $locale), AboutController::class)->name("about.{$locale}");
        } else {
            Route::get("{$locale}/".__('paths.about', [], $locale), AboutController::class)->name("about.{$locale}");
        }
    }
});

After that, we are ready to print the page according to the selected language. For example, I have a very simple controller that prints “Hello World” using Laravel Localization.

class AboutController extends Controller
{
    public function __invoke(Request $request)
    {
        return __("general.hello_world");
    }
}

Before we see the output, we need to create new translation files called “general” for all languages. If you don’t create for all languages, the fallback language will be using the English version.

├── lang/       
│   ├── en/
│   │   ├── general.php
│   │   ├── paths.php
│   ├── fr/
│   │   ├── general.php
│   │   ├── paths.php
│   ├── jp/
│   │   ├── general.php
│   │   ├── paths.php
│   ├── pt/
│   │   ├── general.php
│   │   ├── paths.php

lang/en/general.php

<?php
return [
    'hello_world' => 'Hello World',
];

lang/fr/paths.php

<?php
return [
    'hello_world' => 'Bonjour le monde',
];

You can continue to apply this to the rest of the language.