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Civet

Updated October 24, 2026

How to translate a Shopify store into German

The steps to publish a German version of your Shopify store with Shopify Markets, and what to check before you tell customers it exists.

German is one of the most common first languages to add for stores that sell into the EU. Shopify Markets handles the language URLs and hreflang tags for you. The work is in translating every field, not just the visible description.

Steps

  1. Add German in Shopify

    In the Shopify admin, open Settings → Languages, add German, and publish it for the markets where you want it shown.

  2. Translate your content

    Translate products, collections, pages, navigation and theme text, using Shopify's Translate & Adapt app or another app that writes to Shopify's native translations.

  3. Translate the SEO fields

    Make sure each page has a German SEO title, meta description and URL handle, and that image alt text is translated.

  4. Check the published pages

    Open a few pages under /de/, check that nothing is still in English, and view the source to confirm the hreflang tags include de.

Related guides

FAQ

Common questions

Does it work with Shopify Markets and my theme?

Yes. Civet uses the languages you publish in Shopify Markets, and your theme shows them through its own language selector. We don't add a widget. Shopify creates the language URLs and hreflang tags itself.

I already have translations. Will Civet overwrite them?

Not unless you ask it to. Existing translations are treated as protected when you install. The first preview shows them as "kept", and you choose whether any should be re-translated.

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