In plain English
Your page has a main language (set by 3.1.1). But sometimes a chunk is in another
language, a French product description, a Spanish testimonial. A screen reader
still tries to read it with the main language’s pronunciation, and it comes out as
nonsense. This rule says: wrap those parts with their own lang so the screen
reader switches voices for them.
You do not need to mark stray foreign words that are common in English, just real phrases or passages in another language.
Who this is for
- Screen-reader users, who otherwise hear foreign-language passages mispronounced into gibberish.
- Multilingual shoppers, who benefit when your site handles languages properly.
How to check and fix it yourself
Find any passage in a language different from your page’s main one and mark it:
<p>Our bestseller, the <span lang="fr">manteau d'hiver</span>, is back in stock.</p>
<blockquote lang="es">Me encanta esta tienda.</blockquote>Where we can help
Mixed-language content is easy to forget to mark, especially on international or translated stores. We flag foreign-language passages missing their lang attribute. It is a small but real item on the common failures list.