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: Learning Pathways, Lessons, 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.
Type of Content Localization Contribution
- Translate Learning Pathways: Learn WordPress has many courses, and deciding where to start or what to learn next can sometimes be confusing. To make learning easier and more structured, Learn WordPress includes Learning Pathways—guided progressive learning courses designed to help learners gradually increase their skill level course by course.
When contributing to the Training Team through content translation, we recommend starting with a Learning Pathway. This helps ensure more learners can follow a clear path in their own language.
Please start by translating these Learning Pathways: - Translate Courses: Not all courses are part of a Learning Pathway, so you can also translate courses outside of the Learning Pathway. In that case, you can check the high-priority course list or choose any course that you think is important and worth translating.
Before starting, make sure the course you selected is not part of a Learning Pathway. You can search the Learn WordPress GitHub repository to check whether the course has already been translated, and review the available Learning Pathways to confirm whether the course is included in one.
Please start by translating these courses: - Translate Lessons: Courses are usually made up of multiple lessons, and translating an entire course alone can take a significant amount of time and effort. To make the workload more manageable, you can contribute by translating specific lessons from a course instead of translating the whole course.
- Translate Lesson or Online Workshop Video Subtitles: Learn WordPress video lessons and workshops are hosted on WordPress.tv and YouTube. Contributors can support content localisation by translating video subtitles.
Before translating, it is important to check whether subtitles are already available in the original language. If they are not available, the subtitles should first be submitted in the original language and then translated into other languages. - Re-record Lesson or Re-host Workshop in Your Language: When the text content of a course has already been translated, having lesson videos in English or another language may feel inconsistent for learners. To improve the learning experience, contributors can also remake course lessons in their own language.
By “remake,” this does not necessarily mean creating a new video from scratch. In many cases, adding a voiceover in your own language to the existing lesson video is enough. You can simply record the original lesson’s narration in your language and replace or overlay it in the video.
Start Translating
We organise content under a structure of Learning Pathways > Courses > Lessons.
While you can start with course translation, consider giving priority to courses that are listed on the Learning Pathway.
Translating a course
- Check the team’s Content Localization GitHub project board to see whether a translation issue has already been created for the specific course in your locale. There should be only one main issue for each course, while individual lessons should be tracked through sub-issues.
- If no course translation issue exists yet, create a new Content Translation issue. Make sure you are using the template – Course Translation.
- Provide your locale, course title, course link, and any other required details, then submit the issue to start tracking the translation work.
- 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.
- To track the progress, tick off the translated lesson in the 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ issue.
- Once all the lessons have been translated, inform the admins of the Training team. You can post on Training Team Slack by tagging
@tt-adminsto notify admins.
Translating a lesson
If you decide to translate a lesson, first make sure it has not already been translated or no one else is currently working on it.
- First check if this translation exists by reviewing the GitHub project board and searching your locale name + lesson title.
- You can also search by the course title to find the main course GitHub issue where the lesson belongs.
- Create a sub-issue under the main course translation issue for the lesson you want to translate. Make sure to use the Lesson Translation template.
- Create a separate Google Document for each lesson translation and link it in the corresponding lesson section of the GitHub issue.
- Translate all relevant lesson components in the Google Document. A lesson may include up to five components:
- Lesson title – Translate the title.
- Lesson transcript – Translate the transcript. In most cases, this matches the caption text but may be structured with headings.
- Quiz – If the lesson includes a quiz, translate the questions and answer options.
- ExcerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox. – If an excerpt is available, translate it as well.
- Thumbnail – Recreate the lesson thumbnail, host it online, and share the download link in the GitHub issue comments.
- When creating a Google doc to translate a lesson, use this template. Copy and create a doc in your own Google drive.
- Link the doc in GitHub issue, post it in the SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel to find a translation reviewer. Make sure your translation doc is public with comment access.
- Once it has been reviewed, notify the Training Team admin that your translation is done. You can post on #training Slack channel by tagging
@tt-adminsto notify admins of the training team.
Other type of localization contribution
Learn WordPress video educational content exists on wordpress.tv, and you can help make these videos more accessible to others by translating the subtitles.
Translating Video Subtitles
- Check Learn WordPress lessons and workshops and check whether the video subtitle is already available in your language.
- If there is no subtitle, you can add subtitles or if the subtitle is available, you can submit the translation.
- When translating or adding subtitles, use Lesson Translation GitHub template to create the issue.
- You can follow this general expectation, glossary and review guide.
- Once done, notify
@tt-adminsto approve the subtitle.
Record a lesson in your language
Only you can re-record a video in your language if the text content of the lesson is already translated. So, we already have an issue created on GitHub.
- If you have already translated the lesson text, you can begin recording the lesson in your language.
- If you want to contribute only by re-recording the lesson (without translating the text), leave a comment on the lesson’s GitHub issue to let others know you are working on the recording.
- Once the recording is complete, host the video online and share the link in the GitHub issue so contributors and reviewers can review it.
- After the review is completed and any required changes are made, upload the final high-quality video file as a ZIP attachment.
- Once everything is finalized, notify the
@tt-adminsso the content can be reviewed for publication.
