The managed metadata features in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 allow you to define and use managed metadata in multiple languages. This is convenient if your organization has multi-lingual sites because you can allow site users to work with managed metadata in their preferred language.
For more information about the managed metadata features in SharePoint Server 2010, see Introduction to managed metadata in SharePoint Server 2010.
In this article
How multi-lingual term sets work
It is possible to have multi-lingual term sets because each term in a term set has a unique ID and each term can have multiple labels. You can designate a default label for a term in each language available for a term store. A term can then have multiple synonyms in each of these languages, as well as labels and synonyms in other languages.
For site users, multi-lingual term sets offer the following benefits:
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Site users can tag content in the language in which they are viewing a site (if terms have been translated into that language).
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Users will also see managed terms displayed in their preferred language, regardless of the actual default language of the term store.
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Tag clouds will also reflect the site usage of a term, regardless of the language in which a term was applied.
Add multiple working languages to the term store
Before you can create or configure multi-lingual term sets, you will need to confirm with your farm administrator that SharePoint Server language packs have been installed for all of the languages that you need to support. For more information about installing language packs, see Deploy language packs for SharePoint Server 2010.
You must be a farm administrator to add languages to the term store.
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On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.
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Under Site Administration, click Term store management.
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In the Properties pane, select the Managed Metadata service application for which you want to update the languages.
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In the Working Languages section, select the language(s) on the left that you want to use for terms, and then click Add.
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Click Save.
If you add a new working language to a term store, do so during a period when your SharePoint site is not heavily used, such as at night. When you add a new working language, a timer job updates each site collection’s cache and adds the text to display in the new language to every term in the cache. This may affect performance temporarily.
Set the default language for the term store
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Go to the site where you want to update the languages for a term set.
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On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.
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Under Site Administration, click Term store management.
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In the Properties pane, select the Managed Metadata service application for which you want to update the default language.
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In the Default Language section, select the language you want to designate as the default language for the terms in this service application.
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Click Save.
If no labels are specified for terms in the language in which a user is viewing a term, then the default label for the term in the default language of the term store will be displayed to users.
Specify a label for a term in another language
Terms are not automatically translated into different languages if you add languages to the term store. You must manually specify labels in the other languages. If no labels are specified for a term, then the default label for the term in the default language for the term store will be displayed to site users.
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Go to the site where you want to specify multi-lingual values for terms in a term set (if you are updating a local term set).
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On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.
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Under Site Administration, click Term store management.
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In the Properties pane, select the Managed Metadata service application for which you want to specify labels in other languages.
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In the tree view pane on the left, expand the groups and term sets to find the term you want to translate. Select the term.
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In the Properties pane, in the Language section, select the language for which you want to specify a label.
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In the Default Label section, enter one word or phrase that you want to use as the default label for this term in the selected language.
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In the Other Labels section, type the word or phrase you want to use as a synonym for this term in this language (this is optional).
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To add additional synonyms, press ENTER to create additional lines where you can type more synonyms.
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When you finish adding all of the synonyms you want, click Save.
