Anyone who doesn't run their Joomla site in English will quickly encounter the problem that modules or extensions are only available in English or other languages. Translating them is usually not a big undertaking, but where do you find the files and how do you save them so that they can actually be read? I strongly advise against using translation extensions, as manually editing the files is not a big undertaking and makes backing up and restoring much easier, without compromising page loading speed or security.

Directly Editing the Language Files

The translation files can be found in the following folders:

Frontend: /languages/

Backend: administrator/languages/

The files are located in the folders en-GB for English and de-DE for German, and if other languages ​​are available, there will be corresponding folders.

The files can be edited, for example, with Notepad++ can be edited. I advise against editing with Microsoft Notepad or similar programs if the encoding cannot be set, as the files must be saved correctly, otherwise they will not work.

Encoding: UTF-8 (without BOM)

Line End Format: UNIX (LF)

Alternative: Database Override 

Those who do not want to work with language files, or only want to adjust a few variables, can also use the language file Overrides, found under

Extensions > Languages ​​> Overrides

Then select the language and create a new entry. It is now possible to search by key (language variable) or by the word/expression you want to translate.