What I learned
When I started this project, I thought contributing to open source meant writing code. The Polyglots experience showed me that contributions can take many forms, and that language is infrastructure. Every string I translated is a small contribution I made; these strings are part of the interface that real users in Costa Rica interact with.
What surprised me
What really surprised me was that the translation required basic programming knowledge, such as handling variables and HTML tags. We also had to maintain consistency between related strings, which required a lot of precision. It wasn’t software development, but rather applying acquired programming knowledge and knowledge of other languages, something I hadn’t considered before starting this contribution. The translation I did wasn’t just about language; it was also about logic.
What I would do differently
What I would do differently is first watch tutorials to get a sense of the layout and how to navigate the different sections. This way, I could jump straight into the translation without wasting time on trial and error, as I did in my process. I would also spread the work out over more days, instead of doing large translations in just a few. I would work in shorter sessions.
How this connects to the bigger picture
WordPress powers more than 40% of the world’s websites. As we know, the software that makes this possible is maintained by thousands of volunteers working across all time zones. Being a part of this, even in a small way, changes your perspective on open source. It’s not an abstract concept. It’s people choosing to build something together.
What comes after this course
I plan to continue contributing to the es_CR locale beyond this course. The team needs more active translators, and the experience I’ve built over this project makes it easier to keep going. This won’t be the last time my username appears on translate.wordpress.org.
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