Before we begin, thank you for joining the Lingua project at Global Voices! As a volunteer translator for the Lingua project, you are contributing to the Global Voices mission of telling stories that build understanding across borders. We are very grateful for your participation.

What follows is an overview of the process of translating stories at Global Voices. You can also view this guide as a slide deck online by clicking this link or browse the embedded version above.

Joining a Lingua language community

In order to start translating Global Voices stories, a Translation Manager must invite you to join their language team.

Usually, this happens after you have submitted an application to join as a volunteer translator. A Translation Manager will evaluate your application, welcome you to the team and encourage you to read our translation guides so that you learn how to properly translate a Global Voices story.

If you haven’t applied to become a volunteer translator or you haven’t otherwise been in touch with a Translation Manager, please submit an application and await contact from a Translation Manager. Once you are accepted into the team, you can revisit this guide to prepare yourself for undertaking your first translation.

Completing your WordPress account

Global Voices stories are published using WordPress. WordPress is a content management system that we use to manage all of the Global Voices websites. It can be intimidating to use at first, but with a little practice and patience, you’ll soon be an experienced user.

Before you can start translating, you need an account. The Translation Manager for your language site will make a WordPress account for you. Log in using the following URL, replacing [language code] with your language site’s code:

https://[language code].globalvoices.org/wp-admin

For example, es is the language code for Spanish, so to log into the Spanish language site, you would use the URL: https://es.globalvoices.org/wp-admin

If you are translating into English, you would simply use the URL: https://globalvoices.org/wp-admin

Complete your WordPress account information. When you log into your WordPress account, you’ll be taken to the Dashboard. Click on the Edit Your Profile button and change your password to something strong.

Additionally, fill in your personal details: a photo, a bio, and any social media profiles or websites you’d like to share with readers.

Let readers know who you are. These personal details are presented as part of your credit line on translations as well as your public profile on the Global Voices website, where all of your translations will be listed.

Preparing a story for translation

Find a story you want to translate. The most popular source of stories for translation is Global Voices in English, where most of our articles are originally published. But you can also translate stories from any of the other language sites, from the Advox and Rising Voices sites, or from the Community Blog.

If the Translation Manager for your language site hasn’t assigned you a story to translate, then browse the Global Voices site to find one that interests you. See the guide Where Can I Find Global Voices Stories to Translate? for more information.

Set the story aside for a moment. Before you can start translating, you need to do a few technical steps first, but keep the story URL handy because you’re going to need it in a moment.

Go to your language site and add a new post. Navigate back to the Dashboard of your language site. You can do so by using the same URL as before: https://[language code].globalvoices.org/wp-admin

There are three ways to add a new post:

1. In the Dashboard, click on the button Add a new post.
2. In the black WordPress sidebar, hover over Posts and click the option Add New.
3. In the top black WordPress menu, hover over New and click the option Post.

Your new post will be empty. Once you add a new post, you will be taken to an empty template that looks like this. Don’t worry! In the next step, we’ll populate it with the original story.

“Fetch” the story that you want to translate. Scroll down the page until you see a section called GV Lingua Translation. In the field labeled Source Post URL, paste the URL of the story that you want to translate and click Fetch Post Data. This will bring all of the content from the original story into your new post automatically.

Only “fetch” stories that haven’t yet been translated. If, after you click Fetch Post Data, you see a TRANSLATION ERROR message at the top of the screen and [translation_placeholder] in the title, it means someone has already started translating this story on your language site, so you’ll need to pick a different one.

Get in the habit of saving your work periodically. Although WordPress has an autosave feature, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Plenty of Global Voices contributors have tales to tell about the time that they lost all of their progress because something unexpected happened and they hadn’t saved in a while. So make sure that every so often, you click the Save Draft button found at the top of the page.

Translating the headline, tagline and excerpt

Translate the headline of the story. Now that your new post has been populated with the original content of the story, you can start translating.

The first thing you will see that you can translate is the story headline. Simply replace the original text with your translated text.

Translate the story’s tagline. Taglines, also known as a subheads, straplines, or deks, are a line of text that appears below a story's headline but above the body of the story. Their purpose is to entice readers to continue on with a story.

Scroll down the page until you see a section labeled Tagline and simply replace the original text with your translated text.

Translate the story’s excerpt. An excerpt is a summary of a story that appears in the various places where the story is promoted, such as on the homepage or when it is shared on social media.

Scroll down the page until you see a section labeled Excerpt and simply replace the original text with your translated text.

Translating the body of the story

Below the headline, you’ll see a box that contains the main contents of the story. This text editor features a toolbar along the top with various formatting options, which will become useful depending upon the elements of the specific story that you’re translating. (More on that later.)

It is recommended that you work in the Visual tab because it's more user-friendly than the Text tab, which displays the story's HTML.

Translate the text of the story. When it comes to text without any special formatting in the body of the story, you can simply replace it with your translated text.

Be mindful of the translation tools that you use. Global Voices is proud to publish translations created by people, for people, and we expect our contributors to uphold that standard. We recognize that writers, translators and illustrators have long used various tools to support their work, such as dictionaries, and some of the applications referred to as “AI” work in a similar way. However, in keeping with our mission and values, we will not publish translations that are produced entirely or mainly through large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI tools.

Bottom line: Your translation should be a product of your human creativity, knowledge and problem-solving skills. Learn more about Global Voices’ policy on AI.

Take care with image captions, hyperlinks, blockquotes and tweets. Most Global Voices stories are not just text. They also contain elements that require special formatting to render them correctly. This means that we must also apply special formatting to our translations of these elements. (More on that next.)

Translating image captions and alternative text

Get to know the text elements of an image. One of the first elements you are likely to see in the story body is an image accompanied by a caption: a line of text that includes a description of the image, its source and its usage license.

The image should also contain something called alternative text, which you can’t immediately see. This “alt text” describes an image’s content or function in the story and is read aloud by screen readers, which are programs used by people with vision impairment.

Translate the image caption and alternative text. We must translate both the caption and alternative text. To do so, click anywhere on the image itself, then click on the pencil icon that appears.

A screen will pop up with fields for the caption and alternative text. Replace the text with your translated versions, then click the blue Update button.

If necessary, add additional information to the caption. Ideally, any prominent text located inside an image itself will already be transcribed in the caption, which you will translate. However, if it isn’t, and the text inside the image isn’t in your target language, you should add a translation of it to the caption so that readers understand what is being said.

Working with hyperlinks

Preserve any hyperlinks in the story text. Certain words or phrases in the original story text may contain hyperlinks in blue to other websites. You must preserve these hyperlinks in your translation.

There are two ways to go about this.

1. Click on the hyperlinked word or phrase in the original story text, then click on the pencil icon that appears. Copy the URL. Next, navigate to your translated text. Highlight the corresponding word or phrase, then click the hyperlink icon in the toolbar. Paste the URL in the empty field, then click on the blue return symbol to save the hyperlink.

2. Translate the story text up until the hyperlinked word or phrase. Next, place your cursor in the middle of the hyperlinked word or phrase and type in your translation of it. Finally, delete the original hyperlinked story text on either side of your translation.

Have you saved your draft translation recently? Make sure you develop a habit of hitting the Save Draft button to avoid the risk of losing your work.

Translating blockquotes

Preserve and translate blockquotes in the story text. In certain instances, a Global Voices story will feature a blockquote, which is a special grey box that highlights a long or especially notable quote. When used with translation formatting, blockquotes allow the reader to toggle back and forth between the original language of a quote and its translated version.

Translating blockquotes requires special care. In order to properly translate a blockquote, leave the original-language blockquote as is. Do not erase or modify the original-language blockquote. Simply add your translation below it as regular text.

Next, highlight your translated text, then navigate to the Formats dropdown menu in the toolbar. Select .translation.

Note: If you are translating into a right-to-left language such as Arabic, you should also apply the <—.rtl format to your translated text.

The translated blockquote follows the original one. When the .translation format is properly applied, your translated text will be rendered in a grey blockquote with a watermark that reads TRANSLATION, and it will display immediately below the original blockquote.

Always preserve the original-language blockquote. Sometimes, a story already contains translated blockquotes. For example, imagine an English-language story which includes a quote that was originally spoken in Spanish, and the story offers both the original quote and the English-language translation.

You should always preserve the original quote and replace any translation with a translation in your own language.

Translating embedded tweets and other social media posts

Preserve and translate tweets and other social media posts embedded in the story text. Global Voices stories often feature embedded tweets and other social media posts. We can translate them using the same formatting as a translated blockquote, which allows the reader to see both the original and the translation.

Translating social media posts requires special care. In order to properly translate tweets and other social media posts, leave the original embed as is. Do not erase or modify the original-language tweet. Simply add your translation below it as regular text.

Next, highlight your translated text, then navigate to the Formats dropdown menu in the toolbar. Select .translation.

Note: If you are translating into a right-to-left language such as Arabic, you should also apply the <—.rtl format to your translated text.

The translated post follows the original post. Like with normal blockquotes, if the .translation format is properly applied, your translated text will be show right after the embed with the TRANSLATION watermark.

Always preserve the original-language social media post. Sometimes, a story already contains translated tweets or other social media posts. For example, imagine an English-language story which includes a tweet that was originally posted in Portuguese, and the story offers both the original and the English-language translation.

You should always preserve the original tweet and replace any translation with a translation in your own language.

Resolving doubts and finishing up your translation

Ask for help if you have questions about the story. In order to produce a quality translation, you must have a good understanding of the original story. And in order to produce a properly formatted story, you must have a good understanding of WordPress as described above.

Don’t hesitate to seek clarification about any questions you may have. Depending on the specifics of your question, you can:

• Ask the Translation Manager for your language
• Ask the Lingua Director
• Get in touch with the original author of the story or the relevant regional Newsroom editor for clarification
• Consult one of the Lingua guides

Notify the team about any errors in the story. If you notice an error in the story that you are translating, please correct it in your translation and let your Translation Manager know that you’ve done so.

You should also let the Newsroom and Lingua teams know about the error so they can correct it in the original story and in any translations that have already been published. You can do so by using the Edit Request Form found on the Community Blog.

Review your translation. Now that you’ve completed your translation, it’s important to check your work for accuracy and ensure that it will display properly once it’s published.

Click the Preview button at the top of the page, located next to the Save Draft button. A new tab will open in your browser showing a preview of your translated story. Read through it carefully to make sure everything is correct. If you have a big enough screen or more than one screen, pull up the original story and conduct a side-by-side comparison with your translation. Sometimes, it’s even a good idea to walk away from your translation for a few hours in order to be able to see it with fresh eyes and more easily catch any mistakes.

Don’t forget to save your work. If you haven't clicked the Save Draft button in a while, now would be a good time to do so.

Submitting your translation for review

Submit your translation to the Translation Manager. Before your translation can be published, it must be edited by your language site’s Translation Manager. Different managers have different preferences for communication, so be sure to follow their instructions on how to notify them that your work is ready for review.

One way that some Translation Managers prefer to communicate is through the Edit Flow feature within WordPress.

Get to know how Edit Flow works. Edit Flow is a collaborative tool that allows you to send internal notifications to others on the team about the status of your translation. It also allows you and others to leave comments on your translation. These comments appear at the bottom of the post editor — below the fields for the translated story’s headline, body, tagline and excerpt — and are only visible internally.

Choose who you want to notify in Edit Flow. To use Edit Flow, first you must select who your status change or comment is addressed to. Who should be notified by the system?

Scroll down the page until you see a section labeled Notifications. Under the User Groups column, locate the user group called “Translation Manager” or “Editor.” (The exact name will depend on the language site.) Tick the box.

Change the status of your translation. Now that you’ve selected who should be notified, scroll up to the top of the page. Click the blue Submit for Review button, located below the Save Draft and Preview buttons.

The Translation Manager will receive an email alerting them to the fact that your translation has changed its status from “Draft” to “Pending Review.”

Leave internal comments about your translation. You can also leave a comment in Edit Flow explaining your translation choices, requesting advice or simply thanking the Translation Manager. Scroll down the page until you see a section labeled Editorial Comments. Click the Respond to this Post button, type your comment in the text box, then click Submit Response.

The system will send you an email notification when the Translation Manager leaves a comment in reply.

Publishing and promoting your translation

Address any queries from the Translation Manager. After the Translation Manager reviews your translation, they will give you feedback and let you know if you need to make any changes.

Once all edits have been addressed, they will publish your translation. It will then be listed on your public profile, and your name will appear next to the author’s name at the top of the translated story.

Promote your translation in your networks. Congratulations! All your hard work has paid off. The story that you translated is published on your language site and available for the whole world to read.

Be sure to share your translation on your social media profiles and, as appropriate, with any mailing lists or messaging groups that you belong to. On social media, you can tag the main Global Voices profile and the profile of your particular language site, when available.

Connect with the original story’s author. When a story translation is published, the author receives an email notification, but you can always reach out to them personally by leaving a comment on their story.

You can also write to them using the Email button on their public profile.

Connect with the Global Voices community. You are now a member of the Global Voices community. Welcome! Be sure to join to community mailing list on Google Groups, where important news and announcements are shared. To do so, click on this link and then click on the “Ask to Join Group” button or the “Contact Owners and Managers” button, depending on whichever appears for you. In your message, please include:

• an explanation of who you are
• a link to your Global Voices profile
• the name of your Translation Manager

Your Translation Manager may also add you to other mailing lists and to the Global Voices Slack workspace.

Translating another story and another and another…

The more you translate Global Voices stories, the more you improve your skills, learn about the world, make connections with other community members, and contribute to our mission of building understanding across borders.

After you’ve built of a body of work with Global Voices, you can request certificates of participation or letters of recognition from the Lingua team to officially commemorate all of your efforts. Get in touch with the Translation Manager of your language site to learn more.

Test your knowledge with a quiz

Now that you've read through this Beginner's Guide to Translating Global Voices Stories, test what you've learned with a quiz. It shouldn't take you more than 5-10 minutes. Feel free to forward your results to your Translation Manager to show off your knowledge!