Peter Westwood: WordPress in your language

In preparation for a presentation this week I went in search of a WordPress translation file for the Welsh language so that I could demonstrate how WordPress could still be easy to use even if you were not a native english speaker.  I was disappointed to find that the translation effort for the Welsh language has dropped off and so a large number of the strings are not translated so you do not get the cohesive user experience that you could

There is a thriving community of WordPress translators and there work has already been rewarded with the facility to set up localised versions of the WordPress.org website which host a WordPress download file which has already got the relevant translation file included and configured.  These international WordPress.org sites also come with the ability to have a localised set of support forums and are becoming increasingly important.  In fact the core updated that is included in WordPress 2.7 will automatically download a translated version of WordPress as an upgrade if your are using a translation file and the translation is hosted on a international WordPress.org site.

If you would like to get involved in translating WordPress into your language or find out more about translation techniques for your the themes or plugins your develope then I would recommend the following further reading:

• WordPress in Your Language on the codex.
• Translating WordPress on the codex.
• The wp-polyglots mailing list.