Some sites actually store all language labels in a database or file, and get rendered on each page. Some are two completely different sites, The key to creating these solutions is to identify what's different, and what stays the same - and to separate content data + design. But here is what I think you're trying to achieve.

The 2 languages can be specified via differences in the url. Learn a bit about mod-rewrite and what it can do. The paths you see in an address bar don't always translate to folder hierarchy.

As for detecting the language chosen through a url > You can do this with php, and then check if the url contains a "/de" or a "lang=de" with a simple if statement....if you can detect that, then you can store the language setting in a global variable and render the correct language each time. This is probably not an answer for you, but just some insight as to how it can be done.

A quick solution for you might be to just have 2 different sets of website files (like you were doing), and link both to the same set of media files. No reason it can't be done that way...and that's the most straightforward path to take. Hope this helps.

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