diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index af93687..ca1666f 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -98,10 +98,18 @@ Example: use `home_section = "blog"` to feature the blog/ section on the homepag
 If your website sources are published somewhere, you can display a URL (currently only in the footer) to each page's source, by configuring a `[extra.forge]` block in the config file. This block should contain a single `browse` field containing the baseURL to which the page/section path will be added to form the entire link to the source. As trailing slashes are trimmed in the template itself, the URL may end with a `/`. For example:
 
 ```
-[forge]
+[extra.forge]
 browse = "https://lab.example/foo/bar/src/branch/main"
 ```
 
+## Missing translations
+
+The `extra.missing_translations` setting configures what to do when a translation string is missing. It can have the following values:
+
+- `error` (default) will fail the build with an error message, as is default zola behavior
+- `placeholder` will output the requested translation key (eg. `source`) instead of an actual translation
+- any other value is interpreted as a fallback language to query translations from when a specific string is missing
+
 # Customization
 
 ## Extending templates
diff --git a/templates/widgets.html b/templates/widgets.html
index 7f60881..90c2acc 100644
--- a/templates/widgets.html
+++ b/templates/widgets.html
@@ -135,5 +135,7 @@ Separate entries with a thematic break:
 up a key in the config.extra.translations.lang. These translation
 strings extend (and potentially replace) those of the theme. #}
 {%- macro t(key) -%}
-{{ config.extra.translations[lang][key] }}
+{%- if config.extra.missing_translations|default(value="error") == "error" -%}{{ config.extra.translations[lang][key] }}
+{%- elif config.extra.missing_translations == "placeholder" -%}{{ config.extra.translations[lang][key]|default(value=key) }}
+{%- else -%}{{ config.extra.translations[lang][key]|default(value=config.extra.translations[config.extra.missing_translations][key]) }}{%- endif -%}
 {%- endmacro t -%}