When I came onboard a little over a year ago (happy Caldera Labs birthday to me), Caldera Forms had 30,000 users. It is wild to me that we are now at 80,000 and climbing. In that time, one of my most powerful feelings of belonging to the WordPress community was when I became a contributor to Translate WordPress.
I went to Contributor Day at WordCamp US 2015. I didn’t believe it at first when they said that anyone could contribute to WordPress, even if you weren’t a developer. I wasn’t sure what I would have to offer. But then, under the watchful guidance of Taco from Team Yoast, I started cautiously translating strings to my native Spanish. It felt so good: knowing that I had a unique skill that could help this project be better.
That was the first moment I got it: that feeling of community in WordPress.
Josh was always encouraging me to do the same for Caldera Forms. However, with all of the hats that we wear (#startuplife?), I haven’t really found the time. This summer, one of my personal and professional projects was to get Caldera Forms available in the languages I know (little known fact: I’m a language freak. My native language is Spanish, and I learned English when my family immigrated to the United States. I then daily French courses in junior high school, daily Japanese courses in senior high school, and taught myself Portuguese after college).
The other project I’ve been working is really driving Caldera Forms from “best kept secret” status into a loved product with an active community. If you were recently invited to a Caldera Forms Facebook Group, you’ve seen the product of this work. The translation party is the overlap between these two projects.
On July 27th, 2017, I’m sitting with our summer interns Tyler, Effy and Ariella, and we’re putting our heads together to translate Caldera Forms into all of the languages that sit among us: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, German and Japanese. I hope to loop in multilingual Caldera Forms fans to do this with us from around the world, and we’re getting some sweet incentives for you to do this with us. If you’re interested, here are some solid thoughts on why you should join us.
1. For better worldwide communication
The most essential goals for translation is for people to communicate easily and for information to be delivered smoothly. I think this especially matters in our particularly turbulent geopolitical climate, too. The general purpose of our translation party is to create a better communication environment and tear down the language barriers – start with WordPress, move on to the world.
2. Internationalization
Although English may still be the dominant language online, translating websites into other languages can definitely increase its owner’s international presence. For whatever purposes you’re using WordPress – whether you’re selling your products or writing your blog post – translation is one of the most important steps that you can take to attract potential customers. Translation also allows you to get feedback from people with different nationalities and different cultural backgrounds.
3. Make the internet more accessible
Awesome shouldn’t be restricted to English speakers. Where I come from, English is taught in school from the moment you start school because awesome is de facto (mostly) restricted to English speakers. Let’s change that. If you have a nice experience using WordPress or Caldera Forms or both, you can contribute to spreading awesome. With your help, user experience for people who speak other languages will be much better.
4. Challenge your language skills!
I like languages. The way I got good at languages was by being bad at them first. Maybe you can speak more than two languages, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you know them perfectly, so you think this isn’t for you. I disagree! Give it a shot, and if it’s a total mess, no harm done – the translation editors are there for that reason. You know the time when you translate a sentence word by word and it ends up making no sense at all? Caldera Forms Translation Party offers you the opportunity to challenge your language skills as you translate our products into different languages without the need to be totally fluent. A little heads up: terminology can be a real pain. But guess what: you can Google whatever you want at this translation party. So if you think you know “just enough” English/Spanish/German/Chinese… come and test it out!
5. Meet new friends and have fun!
Caldera Labs is all about fun. We want to do what we do because it’s fun, and we’re calling this translation project a party because it’s fun. Throughout the day, we’ll be tweeting out pictures from our hangout in New York City as we eat donuts, interact with people and translate strings. We would love for you to be a part of this, virtually or otherwise – so maybe consider doing it for the laughs.
In? Drop us a line at the Caldera Forms Translation Party Invitation page. I can’t wait to work with you.