Getting Started with Translating WAI Resources

Have a look at our priorities

For suggestions on which to translate first, see Priorities for Translations.

Or pick a resource according to your preference

You are welcome to translate any current WAI resource that you think would be useful in your language.

The easiest way to find a resource to translate is to head over to the dedicated translations sitemap for your language.

Translations sitemaps display the structure of WAI website, and indicate for each page:

• If a translation in this language has been published, and its current status ( Up-to-date or Needs update);
• If a page has no translation available in this language, and therefore welcomes a volunteer translation.

When you have found a resource to translate, you must indicate your interest, and wait for a reply from WAI team. We’ll check that the file isn’t currently being translated by someone else, and that it isn’t about to be updated.

Please wait for reply from WAI team before starting a translation.

Recommended / quickest way

1. From the translations sitemap for your language, click on the “Volunteer to translate this page” link, displayed next to the resource you intend to translate.
2. It will automatically pre-fill a GitHub issue with some useful information.
3. Read and submit the issue.

Alternatives:

• Create an Issue in the dedicated “WAI Translations” repository.
• If you are not comfortable with GitHub, send e-mail to the publicly-archived WAI translations list using this e-mail template.

Initial setup

1. Log in to your existing GitHub account, or create one .
2. Get to the repository of the resource you will translate.
   • Near the bottom of each page on the WAI website, there is a “Help improve this page” box. The middle button is “Fork & Edit in GitHub”. That gets you to the repository.
   • If you have followed the recommended way to declare your intent, the link to the repository has been automatically added in the GitHub issue description.
3. You can directly work from there.

For further guidance on using GitHub to translate a WAI resource, follow the dedicated guide.

Translate the resource

• Refer to Creating a New Translation guide
• If the page you are translating has videos, also refer to Translating Video Subtitles and Descriptions
• Read the Translation Guidance.
• Commit your changes.

We have enabled a preview with Netlify so you can check your file and make edits.

1. Open a draft Pull Request in the GitHub repository of the resource, with [IN-PROGRESS] at the beginning of the title.

2. After you submit the pull request, a preview will be generated.
   • At first it will say “👷 Deploy Preview for wai-repo-name processing.”.
   • When done, it will say “✅ Deploy Preview for wai-repo-name ready!” and a “Deploy Preview” link will appear.
3. Click on the preview link:
   • Check everything listed in Reviewer Guidance
   • Eventually, commit some fixes.
   • At this point, if you encounter some technical problems, ask for help from WAI team.
4. When your auto-review is done, go to the next step.

Translations are reviewed before they are published.

1. Change the state of your pull request to “Ready for review” and change the beginning of your Pull Request title to [READY FOR REVIEW]
2. Communicate your Pull Request is ready for review in the GitHub issue created at step 2.
3. Review discussions take place directly in the GitHub Pull Request. Work together with reviewer(s) to:
   • fix issues;
   • accurately convey the meaning from the English version;
   • consider different dialects.

If you have any questions about the wording, please report them in the GitHub issue so that WAI team and other volunteers can help.

When the review is done, WAI team will:

• do some final checks;
• merge the Pull Request;
• publish the translation on WAI website;
• announce the publication in the publicly-archived public-wai-translations@w3.org mailing list.

Please note these steps may take some time depending on other ongoing priorities.

1. Explore the WAI Translations GitHub project
   • Look into the “Ready for review” column to find translations ready for review.
   • You can filter the view by clicking on your language in the “Language” column.
   • If you have trouble using this board view, you can look at the equivalent table view
2. Communicate you are volunteering to review, by leaving a comment in the corresponding issue.

Follow Reviewing translations step-by-step guide.