Translating Content

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Translating content

If you are new to translating resources for WordPress, then we recommend you first read through the General Expectations for Translators. Most of the concepts listed there will apply to translating content for Learn, too.

Once you have familiarized yourself with those expectations, then you can follow the steps below to translate each content type: Lesson Plans, Tutorials, Online Workshops and Courses.

The Translation Consistency tool is a great tool for translators to bookmark! If you come across a word or phrase you’re not sure how to translate, then you can search for it in that tool to see how other people have translated it in the past.

If you are looking for something to translate, but are not sure what to start on, then check out High priority content to translate for ideas.

You can also watch this Online Workshop recording that guides you through the content translation process:

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Lesson Plans

  1. Choose an existing Lesson Plan that you’d like to translate.
  2. Create a new GitHub issue using the “Content Translation” template.
    • Creating a 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/ issue at the beginning of the process allows the team to track localized content currently being created, and offer any support you need throughout the process.
  3. Translate the content in the application of your choice. (Google Docs is a good choice, as it allows easy sharing with others.)
  4. Update the GitHub issue with a link to your translation, and request a translation review.
    • If you are using Google Docs to draft your translation, make sure the document sharing settings are set to public so that others can see your work.
  5. Once reviewed, request a Translation Coordinator to create a new post on Learn WordPress for the content. Then, copy-and-paste the translated content into that new post.
  6. Once done, notify the Translation Coordinator to publish the content.

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Tutorials

For Tutorials, you can either rerecord the Tutorial in your own language, or just translate the subtitles and other text shown on the Tutorial page.

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(a) Add subtitles to the English video

  1. Choose an existing Tutorial that you’d like to translate.
  2. Open a new GitHub issue using the “Content Translation” template.
    • Creating a GitHub issue at the beginning of the process allows the team to track localized content currently being created, and offer any support you need throughout the process.
  3. In the application of your choice, translate the text shown on a Tutorial page under the video, such as “Learning outcomes”, “Comprehension questions” and “Transcript”.
  4. Update the GitHub issue with links to your translated resources, and request a translation review.
  5. Once reviewed, request a Translation Coordinator to create a new post on Learn WordPress for the content. Then, copy-and-paste the translated content into that new post.
  6. Then, follow Translating Subtitles to download an English subtitle file, transfer the translated transcript into this file, and upload it back to WordPress.tv.
  7. Once done, notify a Translation Coordinator to approve the subtitles.

GitHub doesn’t allow .ttml file uploads. If you need to upload a subtitle file to GitHub, you can do one of the following:

  • Upload the file to https://gist.github.com/ and share that link
  • Change the extension of the file to .txt or .xml (Note, once downloaded, this will need to be changed back to .ttml for it to be uploaded to WordPress.tv)
  • Compress the file and upload the compressed .zip file

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(b) Rerecord the Tutorial in your language

  1. Choose an existing Tutorial that you’d like to translate.
  2. Open a new GitHub issue using the “Content Translation” template.
    • Creating a GitHub issue at the beginning of the process allows the team to track localized content currently being created, and offer any support you need throughout the process.
  3. Translate the content in the application of your choice. Content that needs translation will include:
    • Slides presented in the video
    • Video script
    • Text listed on the Tutorial page under the video, such as “Learning outcomes” and “Comprehension questions”
  4. Update the GitHub issue with links to your translated resources, and request a translation review.
  5. Once reviewed, record the tutorial video.
  6. Update the GitHub issue with the recording, and request a second review.
  7. Once reviewed, request a Translation Coordinator to create a new post on Learn WordPress for the content. Then, follow steps 1-3 of Publishing a Tutorial.
    • These steps will include uploading your video to WordPress.tv, generating subtitles, and creating the actual Tutorial post.
  8. Once done, notify the Translation Coordinator to publish the content.

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Online Workshop Subtitles

  1. Choose an existing Online Workshop that you’d like to translate the subtitles for.
  2. Open a new GitHub issue using the “Content Translation” template.
    • Creating a GitHub issue at the beginning of the process allows the team to track localized content currently being created, and offer any support you need throughout the process.
  3. Follow Translating Subtitles to download and translate the subtitles.
  4. Update the GitHub issue with links to your translated .ttml file, and request a translation review.
  5. Once reviewed, Upload the translated subtitle file to WordPress.tv.
  6. Once done, notify a Translation Coordinator to approve the subtitles.

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Courses

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(a) Learning Pathway Courses

The Training Team is in the process of installing and testing a translation management 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 on Learn WordPress. (Progress can be tracked in this GitHub issue.) The current goal of translating Learning Pathway Courses is to prepare translations the team can copy-paste into the translation plugin once it is ready, allowing the team to test the plugin functionality right away. Once the plugin has been activated, future translations will be managed within the Learn website, and this section of the handbook will be updated.

Please start by translating these two Learning Pathways:

  1. Check the team’s Content Localization GitHub project board and see if a GitHub issue has been created for the Learning Pathway in your locale. There should only be one issue for the entire course, and not one issue per lesson.
    • If no issue has been created yet, create a new Content Translation issue.
    • If an issue has already been created, do not create a new issue. Instead, look through the issue that has already been created and see what translations you can contribute to the work that has already been started there.
  2. Translate each of the lessons in a separate Google Document. Link each document to the corresponding text (Link to translation document) in the body of the issue.
  3. Each lesson will have up to 5 components that need translating. Include all these in the Google Document from step 2.
    • The lesson title – This needs translating
    • The captions on the video – YouTube automatically translates video captions, so there should be no need to translate captions.
    • The transcript in the lesson – Download the automatically translated video captions from YouTube using free tools such as DownSub or YouTube Subtitle Download Helper. Clean these up as necessary.
    • The headers throughout the transcript – Add translated headers to match the English transcript
    • The quiz – Some lessons will have a quiz. Translate the questions and options in the same Google Document as above.
  4. Once the document has been linked in the GitHub issue, find a translation reviewer to review the translation.
  5. Once it has been reviewed, tick off the reviewed lesson in the GitHub issue.

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(b) All other Courses

  1. Choose an existing Course that you’d like to translate.
  2. Open a new GitHub issue using the “Content Translation” template.
    • Creating a GitHub issue at the beginning of the process allows the team to track localized content currently being created, and offer any support you need throughout the process.
  3. Reach out to a Translation Coordinator in the #training Slack channel with a link to your GitHub issue. The Faculty Member will discuss next steps towards translating the course.

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Creating a Content Localization GitHub Issue

Note that you will require a GitHub account in order to create an issue on the Learn WordPress GitHub repository.

  1. Navigate to the Learn WordPress GitHub Repository
  2. Click on Issues
  3. Click on Add New
  4. Click on Get Started next to the Content Translation template
  5. Fill out the information in the Details section and the right-hand 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.
  6. Click on Submit New Issue
  7. Contact Translation Coordinators using @faculty-translation-coordinators in the Make WordPress #training Slack Channel for assistance with assigning the GitHub issue and giving Contributor access on the Learn WordPress site (if applicable)

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