Template:Welcome-foreign/doc

This welcome template may be used to welcome a user whose edits appear to show poor command of English (or whose edits are not in English at all) and who appear to be fluent in another language. It presents a brief welcome message in English, followed by an equivalent one in the other language, if a translation is available.

Usage

{{subst:Welcome-foreign|lang=xx}} # where 'xx' is a language code
{{subst:Welcome-foreign|xx}} # same as above

Parameters

There is one required parameter, the named param |lang= (alias: positional |1=):

• |lang= – a language code; e.g., 'fr' for French, or 'es' for Spanish (see language code table)
• |1= – same as above

Examples

1. Spanish

{{subst:Welcome-foreign|lang=es}} gives:

Welcome!

Hello, Welcome-foreign, and welcome to Wikipedia! While efforts to improve Wikipedia are always welcome, unfortunately your contributions are not written in an English that is good enough to be useful. You appear to be more familiar with Spanish; did you know there is a Wikipedia in Spanish? You may prefer to contribute there instead. In any case, welcome to the project, and thank you for your efforts! If you need help, please feel free to notify me on my talk page. User:Example (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

¡Bienvenido(a)!

¡Hola Welcome-foreign, bienvenido(a) a Wikipedia! Si bien todos los esfuerzos para mejorar la Wikipedia son bien recibidos, desdichadamente su nivel de inglés no parece idóneo para hacer contribuciones de utilidad, o las contribuciones no estan escritas en inglés. ¿Sabía que existe una Wikipedia en español? Quizás prefiera contribuir ahí. De cualquiera forma, reciba la más cordial bienvenida a Wikipedia y nuestro agradecimiento por esforzarse. Si necesita ayuda, puede notificármelo en mi página de discusión. User:Example (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

2. German

{{subst:Welcome-foreign|lang=de}} gives:

Welcome!

Hello, Welcome-foreign, and welcome to Wikipedia! While efforts to improve Wikipedia are always welcome, unfortunately your contributions are not written in an English that is good enough to be useful. You appear to be more familiar with Spanish; did you know there is a Wikipedia in Spanish? You may prefer to contribute there instead. In any case, welcome to the project, and thank you for your efforts! If you need help, please feel free to notify me on my talk page. User:Example (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Wilkommen!

Hallo Welcome-foreign und willkommen bei Wikipedia! Wir freuen uns zwar über alle Beiträge, aber leider sind deine Beiträge nicht in einem Englisch verfasst, das gut genug ist, um von Nutzen zu sein. Du scheinst dich besser mit Deutsch auszukennen; weißt du schon, dass es auch eine deutschsprachige Wikipedia gibt? Vielleicht möchtest du dich ja lieber dort beteiligen. Trotzdem herzlich willkommen und vielen Dank für deine Engagement! Wenn du Hilfe benötigst, kannst du mich gerne auf meiner Diskussionsseite benachrichtigen.

Languages

The welcome will be issued in two languages: English, and the user's language, if the lang code corresponds to any of the following: Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Latvian, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese. (See full, up-to-date list via prefixindex or pattern search.)

If the lang code corresponds to a language not currently supported, the welcome message is issued in English only. The template may be easily expanded to include any Wikipedia language. See § Adding a new language for instructions.

Adding a new language

This template will work for any language listed in the language code table. The welcome will be issued in two languages if the lang code corresponds to a language for which a template subpage exists for that language. For example: it displays a bilingual welcome for Albanian, Chinese, Dutch, and so on, because the subpages Albanian, Chinese, and Dutch exist. It gracefully degrades to a monolingual English welcome if no subpage exists for the language.

To add a new language, simply add a new subpage with the language name from the table. In particular, the language name should correspond to the value of {{#language:xx|en}} where 'xx' is the language code (so, chr → 'Cherokee', fa → 'Persian', and so on). Translate the content of Template:Welcome-foreign/English into the new language, and save it as Template:Welcome-foreign/NewLanguage. The template code does not need to be changed, and will pick it up automatically as soon as you publish the subpage.

Suggestion: save early versions of your translation as Template:Welcome-foreign/NewLanguage (draft) until you're sure it's right. As soon as the file exists under the correct language name, it immediately goes live and can seen by the template.

Gendered languages: languages that use gender agreement may be accommodated in new translations using the pattern given in the wikicode at Template:Welcome-foreign/English. For example: in Spanish, the adjective bienvenido agrees in gender with the user's gender, which may be set in their preferences. A user with masculine preference will be greeted with Bienvenido (with an '-o' at the end) and users with a feminine preference will be greeted with Bienvenida ('-a' at the end). Those without a preference are greeted with the '-o' version in Spanish. The wikicode for the word 'Welcome' at Template:Welcome-foreign/Spanish is this:

• {{gender:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|Bienvenido|Bienvenida|Bienvenido}}

If you are creating welcome text in a new language, you can follow the model above. If you are not comfortable with template code, just leave it out, use a neutral version (or combined version, like Bienvenido(a)) and leave an Edit request on the Template talk page asking for a template editor to adjust the content for gender agreement. Most of the messages generated using this template will handle gender issues automatically based on the gender preferences set by both users when needed.

Wrapper: Also consider creating a wrapper template for the new language; you can use Template:Welcomeen-fr as a model.

See also

• Wikipedia:Welcome templates – for welcoming registered and unregistered users
• {{uw-notenglish}} – a user warning template for users contributing content in other languages
• Template:Welcome-non-Latin/Translations – could be used to import some languages here

Notes

Wrapper templates exist for welcoming users who speak specific languages; see Category:Non-English welcome messages.

Find subst count and examples of this template on User talk pages using this advanced search.^{[2026; 2025; 2024]}