Internationalization

We make use of react-i18next, a powerful internationalization framework for React / React Native which is based on i18next. In certain projects we also use:

In order to understand how this repository implements i18n, it is important to understand how these libraries work. The remainder of this document assumes a working knowledge of these libraries.

Adding i18n to your project

add i18next.config.js to project root.

const i18nextConfigBase = require('../../i18next.config.base') // this file is located in the workspace root

module.exports = {
  ...i18nextConfigBase,
  extract: {
    ...i18nextConfigBase.extract,
    defaultNS: 'PROJECT_NAMESPACE', // e.g. 'apps-journeys' or 'libs-journeys-ui'
    input: ['src/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}']
  }
}

add extract-translations command to targets object and implicitDependencies to base object in project.json. You must replace PROJECT_PATH with your project path e.g. apps/journeys.

{
  ...
  "implicitDependencies": ["locales"],
  "targets": {
    "extract-translations": {
      "executor": "@nx/workspace:run-commands",
      "options": {
        "commands": [
          {
            "command": "pnpm exec i18next-cli extract --config PROJECT_PATH/i18next.config.js"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
    ...

  }
}

update your components to make use of useTranslation hooks, appWithTranslation HOCs, Trans components etc in order to indicate to the parser that there is a string available for translation.

It is very important that you include a namespace. This namespace should be a dashed version of your project path. For example apps/journeys would become apps-journeys or libs/journeys/ui would become libs-journeys-ui.

import { useTranslation } from 'next-i18next'

function Component() {
  const { t } = useTranslation('libs-journeys-ui') // must include namespace
  return <div>{t('hello world')}</div>
}

run nx command extract-translations for the project you are working on. This should pull all of the strings requiring translations into a namespaced file for example locales/en/libs-journeys-ui.json ready for translation. This needs to be committed and kept up to date. This is tested in CI so will fail if not correctly updated.

Next.js configuration

update input in i18next.config.js located in the project root

const i18nextConfigBase = require('../../i18next.config.base')

module.exports = {
  ...i18nextConfigBase,
  extract: {
    ...i18nextConfigBase.extract,
    input: ['src/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}', 'pages/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}']
  }
}

add next-i18next.config.js to the project root

const path = require('path')

/**
 * @type {import('next-i18next').UserConfig}
 **/
const i18nConfig = {
  i18n: {
    defaultLocale: 'en',
    locales: ['en'],
    localePath: path.resolve('./libs/locales')
  }
}

module.exports = i18nConfig

update next.config.js

const { i18n } = require('./next-i18next.config')

const nextConfig = {
  i18n,
  ...
}

update pages/_app.tsx to use appWithTranslation HOC

import { appWithTranslation } from 'next-i18next'
import i18nConfig from '../next-i18next.config'

// your _app component
function CustomApp({ Component, pageProps }) {
  return <Component {...pageProps} />
}

export default appWithTranslation(JourneysApp, i18nConfig)

add async function on your page-level components, via either getStaticProps or getServerSideProps (depending on your use case)

import { serverSideTranslations } from 'next-i18next/serverSideTranslations'
import i18nConfig from '../next-i18next.config' // project root

export async function getStaticProps({ locale }) {
  return {
    props: {
      ...(await serverSideTranslations(
        context.locale ?? 'en',
        ['apps-watch'], // namespaces your components make use of
        i18nConfig
      ))
    },
  };
}

(Optional) Add a middleware to detect user's preferred language by creating a middleware.ts file in the project root. This middleware will:

Detect and manage user language preferences using browser settings and cookies
Handle redirects for language-specific routes
Use cookie fingerprinting to version language preferences

Basic implementation example:

import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from 'next/server'

const DEFAULT_LOCALE = 'en'
const SUPPORTED_LOCALES = ['en', 'es', 'fr'] // Add your supported locales
// Fingerprint is used to version cookies and may be referenced by other components
// (e.g., LanguageSwitcher)
const COOKIE_FINGERPRINT = '00001' // Increment when updating cookie logic

export function middleware(req: NextRequest): NextResponse | undefined {
  // Skip internal paths and static files
  if (req.nextUrl.pathname.startsWith('/_next') || req.nextUrl.pathname.includes('/api/') || /\.(.*)$/.test(req.nextUrl.pathname)) {
    return
  }

  // Get stored language preference with fingerprint
  const localeCookie = req.cookies.get('NEXT_LOCALE')?.value
  const [fingerprint, storedLocale] = localeCookie?.split('---') ?? []

  // If no valid fingerprinted cookie exists, get browser preference
  const preferredLanguage = (fingerprint === COOKIE_FINGERPRINT ? storedLocale : null) ?? req.headers.get('accept-language')?.split(',')[0] ?? DEFAULT_LOCALE

  // Redirect to appropriate language path if needed
  if (preferredLanguage !== req.nextUrl.locale) {
    const response = NextResponse.redirect(new URL(`/${preferredLanguage}${req.nextUrl.pathname}${req.nextUrl.search}`, req.url))
    response.cookies.set('NEXT_LOCALE', `${COOKIE_FINGERPRINT}---${preferredLanguage}`)
    return response
  }

  return NextResponse.next()
}

Important Notes:

Update SUPPORTED_LOCALES with your project's supported languages

Increment the COOKIE_FINGERPRINT when updating cookie logic to invalidate old preferences

Note that this fingerprint may be referenced in other components like LanguageSwitcher

For more information, read about Cookie Versioning

Adjust the locale detection logic based on your needs

Consider adding language fallbacks for regional variants (e.g., 'en-US' → 'en')

Adding i18n to your project​

Next.js configuration​

Adding i18n to your project

Next.js configuration