Polyglots Monthly Newsletter: December 2021

Welcome to the December 2021 edition of the Polyglots monthly newsletter! It is a recap of news related to the WordPress Polyglots teamPolyglots Team Polyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/.. 

If you have any feedback or suggestions for future editions, please share them in the polyglots channel in the Make WordPress Slack. Or join us for one of our weekly chats, at the times listed in the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. of the Make/Polyglots blog.

📰 News from Make/Polyglots

WordPress 5.9 Beta 3 was released on December 14, 2021. For translators, we are now entering a soft string freezeString freeze The term "string freeze" is used by the core team to mark the end of changes to the strings of an upcoming release. A string freeze also means that there will be no more strings added to the core project. Sometimes a string freeze has two phases a soft freeze and a hard freeze. A string freeze is announced on the Polyglots blog by the current release lead. for WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. translation, which means that most of the new stringsString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings. have become available for translation. After the soft string freeze, there may be minor changes or new items in later phases of the release, such as strings for the About page. 

With Release CandidateRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. 1, scheduled for January 4, 2022, we will enter the hard string freeze, which typically means that there will be few to no changes to the strings. You can follow WordPress 5.9 via the Development Cycle or the Make/Core blog.

A few other exciting updates involving the Polyglots team: 

• Polyglots team representatives for 2022 have been announced!
  Each WordPress contributor team has at least two team representatives, who help to coordinate and represent the team across the project. For the next year, @amieiro, @vladytimy, and @evarlese will be the Polyglots Team representatives.
  A big thank you to the previous team representatives: @ocean90, @nao, @casiepa, @petya, and @tobifjellner!
• The Polyglots team held its first Polyglots Coffee Break (Americas) on December 9, 2021, and will repeat on January 13, 2022 at 22:00 UTC. For those in the Americas, or other timezones, interested in organizing an informal hangout, drop a note in the polyglots channel.
• A local environment for translate.wordpress.org development is now available for testing. The tool itself can be downloaded via GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, where you can also share feedback or issues. Note that the environment currently requires a Docker installation.
• State of the Word took place on December 14, 2021. 26 meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. groups around the world hosted in-person and virtual watch parties for the annual event. If you missed it live, catch the replay on WordPress.tv. (Interested in subtitling the video for your localeLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/? Learn more about how to help.)
• Polyglot @devinmaeztri, General Translation EditorGeneral Translation Editor A General Translation Editor (often referred to as GTE) is a person, who has global access to validate strings on all projects for a specific locale. for the id_ID locale, was highlighted in the latest People of WordPress series. Read on to learn more about her contributor story, or watch her talk about why she loves translating!

📈 Latest stats

Via https://wp-info.org/polyglots-stats/

The latest statistics are from December 15, 2021. You can view the monthly difference in the number between the parentheses.

Releases	205 (+/- 0) localesLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/, 72 (+1) up to date, 0 (+/-0) behind by minor versions.
Translators	There are 723 (-1) General Translation Editors, 5,634 (+50) Project Translation Editors, and 56,678 (+354) translation contributors.
Site Language	55.56% (+0.04%) of WordPress sites are running a translated WordPress site.

🌏 Locale News and Resources

pt_PT GTEGeneral Translation Editor A General Translation Editor (often referred to as GTE) is a person, who has global access to validate strings on all projects for a specific locale. @pedromendonca has created a new pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to automatically convert strings from any root language to a variant: Automatic Variants for GlotPress. Other locales with variants that could benefit from this kind of automated conversion are welcome to test and contribute to the plugin.

🏆 Get Involved

Are you looking for more ways to get started? If you’re translating or want to translate WordPress and any related projects into a specific language, there are some helpful resources.

• View the list of currently defined locales to find your language community.
• Review your locale’s Glossary and/or style guide before you get started submitting translations.
• Request a review of your translation through your locale’s Slack or on the Make/Polyglots blog by following these examples.

If you need any help, ask in polyglots channel in the Make WordPress Slack at any time. We’re a global team, so there’s almost always someone around!

Did you miss last month’s version of this newsletter? Browse the archives to catch up on any news and updates.

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Thank you to everyone who contributed to this month’s newsletter: @evarlese, @tobifjellner, @nekojonez, @psmits1567, @webcommsat, @meher, @nao

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