Helping to Translate WordPress — Dortmund Translation Day

One of the main features that brings WordPress its popularity is the international and interlingual approach of the platform. WordPress is meant to be accessible and simple for people all over the world. It means, that it should be translated to all known and used languages. The task is very ambitious and there is still no company that could make it in a full volume. On the other hand, WordPress might be closer to this goal than any other company or project. And the key is the community.

WordPress can not be translated to each of the existing languages just by one team, no matter how big it is. Only an international community can deal with the task. Fortunately, WordPress has such a community. People from all over the world make WordPress better each day. Translation is one of the numerous features being done by this community.

You can also become a part of this community and its great work. One of the opportunities to join the team is to visit one of the meetups organized by dedicated WordPress users and administrators. We will share an interesting experience of visiting such event and tell you the basics of WordPress platform`s translation any member of the community should know.

How to Help with WordPress Translation?

Actually, you do not need much to join the translation project: just a WordPress.org account and the connection with other project members via Slack. It is pretty simple to create an account on WordPress.org. Moreover, it is highly possible that you already have one, if you are interested in the topic. That is why we would not stop our attention at this point.

The next step is bit more complicated — you need to join the translators community via Slack to get the connection with other translators and which is more important with editors who check and approve all translation you will suggest. So, after creating a WordPress.org account and logging into it you need to visit the invitation page. You need to find the following header and follow the instructions below:

After receiving the mentioned email you will be invited to create your Slack account. Then you can join the dedicated translator channels in Slack. There are different communities for various languages, so you need to find the one that speaks your native language or the language you know and will work with during the translation.

What Are the First Steps for a Translator?

There is actually much to learn before you start your translation work. Fortunately, there was a great work done to guide each translator. There are special guides for the first steps in translation in English which you can find in the Translator`s Handbook. These handbooks are also available on other languages, for example — on German.

There are lots of useful tips and tricks on translation. For instance, you can get acquainted with additional GlotPress tools or look inside the Glossary in your language to English.

What Can I Translate?

After visiting the main page of the translation project you can choose one language and see which translations are needed for it. For example, if you visit the German translation page, you will see, that the WordPress core is already fully translated into German, including the WordPress versions which are yet in the development process.

However, it does not mean that the work is done completely. Along with WordPress core there are numerous themes, plugins, applications and meta data, which also need to be translated. Enter one of the categories to see the list of items with the quick overview of strings left for the translation to the chosen language. You can sort the project by the number of remaining untranslated strings, overall competence percentage and other parameters.

Here you are free to choose a plugin, theme, application or meta data you want to translate. The choice is all up to you, but the meetup members would advise you to pick the most popular projects without a complete translation. Otherwise your work could be useless as far as a theme or plugin would not be used by WordPress community.

Why Should I Visit Translation Meetups?

Translation Days do serve as a motivation and inspiration tools for each dedicated WordPress translator. You can learn much during the events at any level of a translator`s experience. Moreover, you can bring your own experience and share it with newcomers. It will serve the general goal of spreading the idea and connecting more people to the translation process.

During the meetups you could participate into very interesting conversations related to translation, WordPress development or just people working on different spheres connected with WordPress. For example, Dortmund Translation Day had an important and interesting conversation about the gender-neutral translation which is crucial for a number of languages, including German.

There is also lots of interesting information about events related to WordPress community which were mentioned within the Dortmund Translation Day. The participants told the newcomers how the main WordPress events are organized and how can anyone help in this process. A big event is coming to Europe this year — international WordPress Workup. It will take place in Berlin, so lots of WordPress users, administrators and developers from Germany are happy to visit it within their home country.

Conclusion

Helping to translate WordPress is easy and very important for the whole platform. If you know more than one language, then there should be no problem in participating on the translation project. The process constantly evolves and motivates more and more people to make WordPress better every day.