After choosing my plugin and my locale, it was time to actually do the work. This post is about what translating in WordPress’s Polyglots platform looks like in practice — including the parts that weren’t immediately obvious.

Getting Set Up

Everything happens at translate.wordpress.org. You log in with your WordPress.org account, find your plugin, select your locale (es_CR), and you’re looking at a table of strings: the original English on the left, the translation field on the right.

The most critical rule: never translate or move placeholders. Variables like %s, %d, or {variable} must stay exactly as they appear in the original string. They’re replaced by dynamic content at runtime, and if you mess with them, the plugin breaks.

Sample Translations

English	Spanish (es_CR)
Select a rank	Seleccionar un rango
Award points to the user	Otorgar puntos al usuario
Revoke an achievement from the user	Revocar un logro al usuario
Achievement Type	Tipo de logro
Select the achievement type	Seleccionar el tipo de logro
Award a rank to the user	Otorgar un rango al usuario

The Waiting Game

After submitting, every translation gets the status «Suggested» and waits for a Translation Editor to review it. You can translate 30 strings in a day, and then wait weeks for them to be approved. That’s just how open source volunteer review works.

I joined the #polyglots channel on Slack and mentioned I was a WPCredits student contributing to es_CR. The community was welcoming, and that introduction helps Translation Editors know there’s someone actively working on a locale.

30 Strings In

I translated 30 strings total. They’re all submitted and pending review. The process was more engaging than I expected — it’s surprisingly satisfying to take something that was in English and make it feel right in Spanish.

---

Derek Joel Castillo Quirós · WPCredits Program · Universidad Fidélitas · Costa Rica