ukCyrillic scriptHow to translate WordPress to Ukrainian
Ukrainian (Українська) reaches roughly ~40 millionspeakers. Here's what's actually involved in translating a WordPress site into it — the technical setup, the Ukrainian-specific gotchas, and the SEO.
What's specific to Ukrainian
Most of translating WordPress is the same in any language, but each language has quirks that break layouts or SEO if you ignore them. For Ukrainian:
- Cyrillic, but distinct from Russian — it has unique letters (ї, є, ґ, і). Don't reuse Russian translations.
- Confirm fonts cover the full Ukrainian Cyrillic set.
- Formality: ти (informal) vs. ви (formal).
Step by step
1. Add Ukrainian as a target language
Set your source language, then add Ukrainian (uk) as a target. With an automatic plugin you don't create a translated copy of every page by hand — it translates on the fly.
2. Translate — automatically or by hand
Machine and AI translation get you Ukrainian coverage in minutes; review the strings that matter (navigation, calls to action, legal) for the right register. Estimate the cost with the translation cost calculator.
3. Serve it under a clean URL
Publish Ukrainian under a language-prefixed path like /uk/. Give pages readable slugs with the slug generator — important for Ukrainian, since Cyrillic characters otherwise become percent-encoded in URLs.
4. Get the Ukrainian SEO right
Add reciprocal hreflang pointing at your uk version (with x-default), set <html lang="uk">, and translate titles and meta descriptions. Build the tags with the hreflang generator and verify with the hreflang checker.
Doing it the easy way
Gloty translates your whole site into Ukrainian automatically — with no API key to set up — stores it in your own database, and emits the correct hreflang and lang/dir attributes for you. See how it stacks up against Weglot and WPML, or read the pillar guide on making WordPress multilingual.
Ukrainian translation FAQ
- What is the hreflang code for Ukrainian?
- The hreflang / BCP-47 code for Ukrainian is "uk". Use it in hreflang tags and the <html lang> attribute.
- Does translating to Ukrainian change my layout?
- Ukrainian text is +10–15% longer than English. Leave room in buttons and menus so translated text doesn't clip.
- How many people speak Ukrainian?
- Ukrainian (Українська) has ~40 million speakers and is written in the Cyrillic script, left to right.
Add Ukrainian to your WordPress site in minutes — automatic AI translation, stored in your own database.