David Williams

David Williams said:

How can my customer import the translation back into WordPress without overwriting the original German version of the site?

This is probably the first question to answer.  Your customer needs to make sure they have created a multilingual Wordpress site. This page may be a good starting point:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-easily-create-a-multilingual-wordpress-site/

David Williams said:

Can they check and/or correct the source file after exporting it from WP and before sending it to me?

I would suggest they make sure the source is correct in Wordpress and then when they export you are dealing with the corrected file.  I would not change the exported file as you risk trying to import a target file that won't import correctly.  I don't really have any experience to speak of here but this seems logical to me.  I did set up a multilngual wordpress site once some time ago just to play with itand it was quite straightforward.  The only problem was really the exported files which brings me onto the next point:

David Williams said:

Can I use the WordPress "wp_posts" table from the database, or which export file format is best (SQL, CVS, XML, etc.)?

WP does have an XLIFF export.  But their export is really poor.  However, you can deal with it quite (relatively speaking) easily using the Multilingual XML filetype rather than the XLIFF filetype as it will handle the large chunks of html WP stick into single CDATA sections much more comfortably.

I'd recommend you work with your client to set up the multilingual site in a test space on their server, learn how it works and what the options are, and test a few workflows.

Alternatively, if you have something like Trados Enterprise then you could use a connector, but you'd still need the multilingual wordpress site in the first place:

https://www.trados.com/solutions/connectors/

Someone with more experience here may be better to answer, but this would be my view.

Very many thanks, Paul! I would expect that the different language versions of the site would need to be in different subdirectories, but ideally with the pages in each language somehow interlinked, eventually.

Very many thanks, Paul! I would expect that the different language versions of the site would need to be in different subdirectories, but ideally with the pages in each language somehow interlinked, eventually.