Translate WordPress
The last post on WordCamp really reminded me just how many of our bloggers are overseas. As we’ve explored more and more ways to allow you to express yourself in your language of choice, the thundering request has always been for a way to translate the dashboard and static parts of your theme.
Well here we are.
I’ve taken a bit of code I worked on a few months ago with Cal Henderson from Flickr and Alex Russell of Dojo and made public a new tool that will allow you to do just what you’ve been asking for: translate.wordpress.com.
Here’s how it works. If you speak English and another language and go to the site and sign in, then it’ll ask you to pick your preferred language. Once you do, you’ll be able to start submitting translations for the different strings it shows you. The easiest way to dive in is to click “Random Translation” and it will bring up a random string for you to translate into your chosen language. If you’re not sure about it, or it has code you don’t understand, just click “skip” and it will give you another. (If you want to learn more about technical translation, check this page out.)
We’ve even made a cool ranking page so you can see which language is winning.
That’s it! We’ll review the translation and then periodically push it live to WordPress.com for everyone to enjoy. Everything is tied to your user account so we know who to thank and credit for different contributions.
I’d love to hear your ideas for how we can expand this in the comments. If you’re a translator and you run into any problems, be sure to let us know through support.
- July 14, 2006
- Localization, New Features
WordPress.com News 
Nice feature! Thumbs up! 🙂
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I hope I can help out with Bahasa Indonesia.
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Are ‘Clarification comments’ for you guys? If so, i assume thy should be in english, right?
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Yet another excellent and innovative development from you fine folks. Although I’m an English speaker, I still appreciate the effort you’re putting into this. It is, indeed, amazing at how many non-English blogs are out there — just about half of everything I stumble upon using the Next Blog button. Good job supporting everyone, not just us Englishers!
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Nice! Polish is first in the ranking. Yea 😀
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Good work Matt. However I’d ask that please do not present the translated interface based on the blog language selected. Instead allowing users to select the interface language would be much better. Like my WP.com blog’s language is Hindi but I’d like the backend interface in English since thats what I’m used to & can use it much faster than the translated one. 🙂
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I agree 100% with Amit. My blog’s in Spanish but I want my dashboard in english…
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Fantastic!
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Good Job Guys! Truly a step towards I18N & L10N :thumbsup:
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This is not working for me…I am selecting “telugu” and clicking on set language button but nothing happening…
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I have done the most part of traslation for italian language! 😉
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Keep the good work guys!
I translated some strings, but I think I prefer my dashboard in English… Just I am not sure at the moment…
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smu, Polish is definitely winning: 1421 of 1294 strings = 110%!
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not too sure how it works thought.. but! THUMBS UP! n UP! for a newly improved constantly updated platform as opposite to other hosts!
😛
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Great, i’m contributing of course, but have a few suggestions:
1. Show the context of what I translate – it creates better translations, as a word can have multiple translations with different meanings in other languages.
2. Translation of the themes would be more important IMO. While I am fine with english interfaces, probably some of my readers are not.
3. Create two german translations: One with the use of “Sie” and one with “Du”. Both words mean “you”, but Sie is formal, Du informal. Some people consider using “Du” offending, but others do so when “Sie” is used in the internet…
4. I am not sure what the optional clarification is good for – maybe you could explain it for everyone on the form.
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WOW! amazing feature..
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hmmm….
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llegué tarde, está todo traducido!
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Syabas (Good job)! 🙂
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No Turkish? Are you guys serious? The country that ranks 6th in the whole world in internet usage?
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hey where is Turkish?
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ok portuguese brazil , off course!
great idea!!!
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I logged in to contribute but see no Turkish. That’s shame.
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I logged in to contribute but there’s no Turkish option available. That’s shame. Please add it.
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“Purchase of product failed. Did you hit refresh after purchasing an item?”
I wonder, where is this string used in WP.com?
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“Credit Balance”
again, a store system in wordpress.com?
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Matt, this is really a great example of crowdsourcing … 😉
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Gr8 beginning guys! I too will begin to give my impact.
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no Macedonian too? the surprise is that i can choose Macedonian in my wordpress.com options pages, but i cannot translate into that language…
What i also wonder is: is there a way to include the translations from the previous wordpress versions? Then we’d need to only fix and complete the translation instead of starting anew.
Thanks for the initiative!
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Such a great idea. Nice job with this.
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Best wel cool 😛
Very cool 😛
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Some one who tries for a Telugu translation, pls contact me on http://madhoo.wordpress.com/
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A good feature, not useful to me though.
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I’d like to tranlate WordPress in to Vietnamese but I can’t see Vietnamese language in Tranlate Section.
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Really an amazing idea. I will make some translations in greek, I hope it will help.
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For people who want to change it to telugu.. take a look her how to do this… https://manavaaru.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/typing-telugu-into-pc-made-easy/
If you want to appreciate my work do that some where on http://madhoo.wordpress.com/
cheers!
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Gracias!
You guys a are great, by doing this you really make us feel that we are part of a big familly.
Y gracias a todos los que estan ayudando a traducir wp al español.
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I have started bangla translation, Hope I can finish it very soon. I have recently translated punBB, so I can manage it pretty fine.
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awesome feature!!
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I havent a clue what this is about. I dont understand it at all…
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what is that blank string at the bottom of http://translate.wordpress.com/
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good work, i will try to do some …
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I can help with Polish! I can help with Polish!
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If so, great! I want Japanese translation!
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Hi,
is there a way to review a translation? I was shocked when I opened my dashboard and found that some of what I read had no meaning on my language.
Examples: inconsistencies with blog/post translations (that is something that is not clear) but I’d like to see either site or sitio (portuguese- EU) across WP. Same for Post , postagem (plural from Brazil) and entrada (roughly entry, my favorite).
Many of the words are brazilian. I don’t mind taking a new term that comes from brazil (like the mentioned postagem) but I do have an issue with translation that have no meaning in standard portuguese and for which other words have been used for quite a while(like controle (br) and contrôlo (pt) or gerenciar/gerenciador and gerir/gestor).
Sorry if it feels like I am raining on your parade, but I do appreciate it, otherwise I’d have already switched back to english.:)
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We have separate pt and pt-br locales. Brazil specific translations should be done under pt-br. Visit translate to propose new translations.
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aNtónio: We maintain a separate language setting for Português do Brasil… I wonder if the translator doesn’t know that?
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Andy, I do think so, as I often find on my dashboard top blogs~s section sites from Brazil. There might also be some expats living in Portugal that might see PT_pt as their language or group.
Ryan, last night I visited the site and did localize a few strings. One of the problems I found was the lack of context [e.g. like update comes up as “actualização” (subs.,) when it should be, IMHO, “actualizar” (verb- infinitive).
I did not see any section to report mistakes or submit new translations but perharps there are strings being repeated.
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hey
I am probably th newest user here and really impressed with WP.
This feature is sounding pretty cool too, i can see that almost all Indian languages are available at th Translation page.
Good efforts
All the best
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Well I started translating few words to Hebrew.
But: 1. I know there is a ready made Hebrew version in which bloggers install independently, so why not using it >
2. Hebrew works RTL (right to left) as opposed to LTR latin. So complicated strings like “%s is your new blog name and %d is it id” (bad example) will make problem and mixup in the text order, in other words try to simplify your strings as much as possible.
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I’m slowly working through the Afrikaans translation.
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Keep on goin with your good work. It’s nice to see, how many people are helping each other.
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I’ve finished up the translation for Bahasa Indonesia this morning. The next step is to review and standardize the translated word variants made by other users, I think this one is gonna be tougher than filling out the untranslated words.
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