A translated storefront that ends in an untranslated checkout or order email loses the customer's trust at the moment they pay. Shopify handles most of this for you once a language is published. This guide covers what switches automatically, what you can edit, and what to check before launch.
What switches on its own
Shopify's help center says that after you publish a language, your checkout and email notifications are displayed in the customer's language. You do not turn this on separately. The language has to be published first, which is covered in adding languages with Shopify Markets.
- Checkout: Shown in the customer's language once that language is published
- Email notifications: Sent in the customer's language once that language is published
- Fallback: Where a translation does not exist, Shopify shows your default language
Editing checkout wording
Shopify supplies the checkout wording, and you can change it. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Checkout. In the Checkout language section, click Edit checkout content, adjust the fields and save.
| You can | You cannot |
|---|---|
| Edit the wording of checkout fields | Edit the subscription disclosure wording |
| Create your own translations if a language is not available |
If you change your checkout's default language, Shopify says to update your translations to match.
Editing email notifications
Shopify says you can edit and preview email notification translations for each language. That matters most if you have customized your templates, because wording you wrote yourself needs checking in every language.
- Edit: Review the translated text of each notification, per language
- Preview: Check the email in each language before a customer receives it
- Custom text: Check anything you added to a template in each language
One related detail from Shopify's notification help page: if you have never edited your email templates, changing your theme's language also changes the template language. Once you edit a template, that stops being automatic for the part you edited.
Check these before launch
The parts that get missed are the ones Shopify did not write. Go through each published language once, as a customer would.
- ✅ Place a test order in each language and read the confirmation email
- ✅ Check any custom text you added to checkout or to notification templates
- ✅ Translate your legal policies by hand. Shopify says its automatic translation does not cover them
- ✅ Keep product names consistent between the storefront, checkout and emails
A glossary helps with the last one. See building a translation glossary, and translating your store safely for the storefront itself.
Doing this at scale
LinguaFlow drafts AI translations for each language you add and applies your brand glossary and tone rules, so wording stays consistent. You review and edit before anything is published, and it publishes through Shopify's native Translations API with no theme edits, with an audit log and rollback. See LinguaFlow.