How can I have a URL like www.example.com/about?language=ja to set Japanese for the page? I've enabled the Locale and Content Translation module but am having trouble understanding how to do something that it seems should be working.

Basically I have a page, we'll say '/about' and it's in English.

I click translate, I have a few languages enabled, so I click to add translation for Japanese. It brings up the interface for making a new page. I change some stuff to Japanese, and set the URL alias to be /about ('about') like the english page.

I've setup my language options to use the "Session" detection method.

The result I'm wanting to achieve, but not getting is to have:

www.example.com/about -- to go to english (this works)
www.example.com/about?language=ja -- to go to the Japanese translation, this does not work, it just loads up the English page.


It seems like this would be the normal functionality so I feel like I'm missing something here.
just to be sure:
at admin/config/regional/language/admin_language, enable "Session" Detection method
make sure request/get parameter set to language
make sure you have about page in 'ja' language

try to visit yoursite.com/?language=japanese, it should be translating interface/etc - this way you can check translation is working.