How to Activate a New Language in phpBB 3.0

By default, phpBB 3.0 is set to use British English. You may upload different language packs and set the default language from within your Admin Control Panel. This will help you if your site is specific to people who speak a language other than English.

Below is a tutorial on getting a language pack, installing it, and setting it to the default on your phpBB 3.0 community website.

Activating a New Default Language

  1. You will first need to understand language packs. This involves downloading your desired language, uploading it to the server, and installing it via the Administrator Control Panel. You can find that information in our General Tasks article.
  2. Once that is done, ensure you are logged into your Administrative Control Panel.
  3. From the ACP, click on the General tab from the row of tabs at the top of the page.
  4. From the General Settings tab, click on the Board Settings link from the Board Configuration category on the left-hand menu.
    select board settings from menu
  5. This gives you a screen of different general settings for your board. Find the Default Language field and select your chosen language from the dropdown. In our example, we are choosing Greek.
    choose new default language
  6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the Submit button to save the change. Your new language should now display on your website. You can see that Greek now displays in our before and after screenshots below.

Before

before langauge change

After

after language change

2 thoughts on “How to Activate a New Language in phpBB 3.0

  1. I cannot see s*** on your screenshots. Just some colored blobs. And for some reason, the board does not switch to the new language, even thought I set it as the default one.

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