Get Involved/translation

Get Involved with KDE Translation

Are you fluent in multiple languages? Having our software interfaces and documentation available in multiple languages is important to enable more people to be able to comfortably use our software, and you can help make this happen.

The KDE Translation team takes fragments of text from KDE software as well as sections of Documentation, all of which are primarily written in English, and converts them into other languages. These are fed back into the software, and the end result is that a user can use an application entirely in their native language. And that, of course, means you too — instead of translating messages and menu items and button text in your head every time you use an application, you can do it just once, and then have it in your own language whenever you use it.

Communicating with the team

There are several ways to get in contact with the translation team. The two most important are:

• the IRC channel #kde-i18n on the freenode network (learn more about IRC) is where translators chat to each other in real time
• the primary mailing list for talking about translations is the kde-i18n-doc list (learn more about mailing lists), although there are other lists for specific languages which you can find on the list of KDE mailing lists

First steps

KDE uses custom tools to internationalize the GUI and documentation of programs. You will want to review The Translation Howto to learn the process. To dive in and start translating, head to KDE Localization Home Page and choose your language. From there, you can contact the specific team for your language and download the translation files.

There is also a scoreboard showing progress of current teams.

Mentor program

Getting started in a big project can be hard. Here are some people that can answer your questions and help you get started.

• Albert Astals Cid (aacid at kde dot org)
  KDE development and translation
• Kevin Scannell (kscanne at gmail dot com)
  linguistics, particularly interested in African languages
• Marta Rybczyńska (kde-i18n at rybczynska dot net)
  coordinator of the Polish translation team (kde-i18n-pl)
• Your name here!
  Volunteer to be a mentor -> kde dot org at phor dot net