diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6174f19
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+help:
+	@echo 'Makefile for localization'
+	@echo ''
+	@echo 'Usage:'
+	@echo '  make extract             Extract translatable strings from templates'
+	@echo '  make init lang=lang      Initialize the message catalogs with a new language (e.g make init lang=ja)'
+	@echo '  make compile             Compile the message catalogs'
+	@echo '  make update              Update the catalogs when templates change'
+
+extract:
+	pybabel extract --mapping babel.cfg --output messages.pot ./
+
+init:
+	pybabel init --input-file messages.pot --output-dir translations/ --locale $$lang --domain messages
+
+compile:
+	pybabel compile --directory translations/ --domain messages
+
+update:
+	pybabel update --input-file messages.pot --output-dir translations/ --domain messages
+
diff --git a/babel.cfg b/babel.cfg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2274808
--- /dev/null
+++ b/babel.cfg
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+[jinja2: templates/**.html]
diff --git a/messages.pot b/messages.pot
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..191ff8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/messages.pot
@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+# Translations template for PROJECT.
+# Copyright (C) 2017 ORGANIZATION
+# This file is distributed under the same license as the PROJECT project.
+# FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, 2017.
+#
+#, fuzzy
+msgid ""
+msgstr ""
+"Project-Id-Version: PROJECT VERSION\n"
+"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: EMAIL@ADDRESS\n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2017-04-06 06:29+0100\n"
+"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
+"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
+"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
+"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
+"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8\n"
+"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
+"Generated-By: Babel 2.3.4\n"
+
+#: templates/archives.html:3
+msgid "Archives"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/archives.html:18
+#, python-format
+msgid "Archives for %(name)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/article.html:108 templates/index.html:61
+msgid "Posted by"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/article.html:112 templates/index.html:65
+msgid "on"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/article.html:115
+#, python-format
+msgid "Updated on %(moddate)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/article.html:134
+msgid "tags"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/article.html:155
+msgid "Please enable JavaScript to view the comments."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/author.html:3 templates/author.html:7 templates/author.html:27
+#: templates/authors.html:18
+#, python-format
+msgid "Articles by %(name)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/authors.html:3
+msgid "Authors"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/categories.html:3 templates/categories.html:18
+msgid "Categories"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/category.html:3 templates/category.html:18
+#, python-format
+msgid "Articles in the %(category)s category"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/pagination.html:7
+msgid "Older Posts"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/pagination.html:10
+msgid "Newest Posts"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/period_archives.html:3 templates/period_archives.html:18
+#, python-format
+msgid "Archives for %(period)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/tag.html:2
+#, python-format
+msgid "Tag %(tag)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/tags.html:3 templates/tags.html:18
+msgid "Tags"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: templates/tags.html:27
+#, python-format
+msgid "Tags for %(sitename)s"
+msgstr ""
+