What I learned
When I started this project, I thought contributing to open source meant writing code. The Polyglots experience showed me that contribution takes many forms — and that language is infrastructure. Every string I translated is a small piece of the interface that a real user in Costa Rica will interact with.
What surprised me
I didn’t expect translation to require technical thinking. Managing variables, preserving HTML tags, maintaining consistency across related strings — these are skills that overlap with software development in ways I hadn’t considered before. Translation is not just language; it’s also logic.
What I would do differently
I would start earlier and spread the work across more sessions instead of doing larger batches in fewer days. Working in shorter sessions with more focus on a specific section of the theme produces more consistent translations. I would also join the #polyglots channel on Make WordPress Slack earlier to connect with the es_CR team from the beginning.
How this connects to the bigger picture
WordPress powers more than 40% of the world’s websites. The software that makes that possible is maintained by thousands of volunteers — developers, designers, translators, support contributors — working across every timezone. Being part of that, even in a small way, changes how you see 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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