This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Accessibility
When do foreign-language words on a website need to be tagged?
Foreign-language words must be tagged as soon as whole sentences, quotes, or sections are in a different language than the rest of the page. The tag is an invisible note in the source code that tells a screen reader: please switch pronunciation here. Naturalised individual words such as "newsletter" or "update" need no tag. WCAG criterion 3.1.2 governs this.
What tagging foreign-language passages does
Picture a German page with an English customer quote: "The best service we ever had." A screen reader that treats the whole page as German reads this sentence using German pronunciation rules — the blind visitor hears a distorted jumble of sounds and doesn't understand the praise. If the quote carries its own language tag in the source code, the screen reader switches to English pronunciation for that passage and then switches back. The line is easy to draw in practice: individual words that have become part of everyday German stay unmarked. Whole sentences, quotes, foreign-language product descriptions, or an English info box get the tag. For sighted visitors, nothing about the appearance changes.
How the audit service checks the language of passages
The automated check with axe-core reviews all passages that already carry a tag: every language tag within the page must carry a valid code, such as "en" or "fr" — a made-up or mistyped code counts as a violation. The harder question is one no machine can reliably decide: are there foreign-language passages with no tag at all? That would require a program to reliably identify the language of arbitrary pieces of text and distinguish it from naturalised loanwords. That's why our report openly marks this part as a manual check point, and at the Gold Standard level a human reads through the page and judges whether foreign-language sections are correctly tagged.
- Collect every spot on your website with foreign-language sentences: customer quotes, slogans, product texts, embedded reviews.
- Ask your agency to add the matching language tag to these passages in the source code, such as lang="en" for English.
- Leave naturalised individual words such as "team", "service", or "newsletter" untagged — they're part of everyday German usage.
- Set a rule for your editorial team that new foreign-language quotes are always added with a tag.
FAQ
Do English terms on a German website need to be tagged?
Individual terms that have become part of everyday German — "newsletter", "online shop", "team" — need no tag. A screen reader pronounces them understandably within the German flow of speech. Whole sentences, quotes, and sections in a foreign language must be tagged, such as an English customer quote. There, a language tag must be present in the source code so the pronunciation switches.
How do you tag foreign-language text in the source code?
The element enclosing the passage gets a language tag with the valid code for that language, such as lang="en" for English or lang="fr" for French. Your agency or editorial team does this directly in the website's editing tool. Nothing changes visibly — only screen readers and translation tools read the tag and treat the passage in the correct language.
How is the language of passages checked automatically?
What can be checked automatically is the validity of existing tags: our measurement engine uses axe-core to check whether every language tag within the page carries a correct code. Whether foreign-language passages occur with no tag at all is something a machine can barely decide reliably. Our report marks this part as a manual check point; at the Gold Standard level, a human judges it.