---
title: Languages
description: Preview a site's languages and look over its words.
sidebar:
  order: 6
---

The Languages screen appears when your site serves more than one language. It
shows each language and the address where you can preview it.

The default language uses ordinary paths such as `/services`. Other languages
use a prefix such as `/uk/services`. All versions belong to the same page, so
changing a page does not create a separate copy for every language. A site
written in vzk can instead give every page one address that answers in each
visitor's own language. The screen then says so, and lists the languages
without an address or a preview for each.

## Shared words

A site keeps its words in its files: each file's words in another language
are a file of their own, listed under **Languages** on
[Pages](/dashboard/pages/#a-site-written-in-vzk). A header's and footer's
links are words of the layout or component that draws them.

A change to a language file waits on a branch like every other change to your
site's code, and the screen shows the branch you picked on
[Pages](/dashboard/pages/). Words that belong to only one page are in that
page's own file and in its language files.

## Words on a site written in vzk

A site written in vzk has no dictionary. It is written once, in its default
language, and what it says in another language is kept in files of words, one
for each page, layout or component that is translated. The screen lists them
under **Words in each language**, language by language, with a **Draft** or
**Not published** pill on a file the branch has changed or added. Each opens
on its card on [Pages](/dashboard/pages/#a-site-written-in-vzk), where you
read it, see its history, and discard a change to it. A language with no
words yet says so, and its visitors read your pages in the default language
until it has some.

Adding or removing a language is a coding-agent task. A new language also
needs its words and links, so Vizitka does not offer a dashboard switch that
could leave half the site untranslated.