Sams-web

Introduction

Hello everyone! I’m Samuel Gallego Pintado, I’m excited to share my final report for the WP Credits course, which challenged me to make real contributions to the WordPress open-source community while also building my own personal website from scratch.

This report summarises the contributions I made, the resources I used, the challenges I faced, and everything I learned throughout this experience. I hope it helps anyone who is thinking about joining the WordPress community for the first time!

Teams and Projects I Contributed To

I joined the WordPress Polyglots team, which is responsible for translating WordPress themes, plugins, and the core into different languages. My contributions focused on Spanish (es_ES) translations, where i suggested a total of 805 strings.

My main goal was to make these themes fully accessible to Spanish-speaking users by providing accurate, natural translations that followed the official WordPress España style guide, including correct tone, terminology, and formatting conventions.

Learning Resources

WordPress Polyglots Handbook: the main guide for contributors who want to translate WordPress content.

WordPress España Glossary and Style Guide: essential for understanding the correct terminology and tone to use in Spanish translations.

GlotPress: the official platform used to submit and review translations.

WordPress Themes Trac: useful for finding the context behind specific strings, especially for technical or code-related ones.

Challenges and Solutions

– String context: Many strings had no visual context, so terms like «Preloader» or «Header Lean» were ambiguous. I solved this by checking the theme’s PHP files in WordPress Themes Trac and the live demo.
– Marketing copy: Phrases like «Unlock the mystery within now» lose their feel when translated literally. I focused on matching the tone in Spanish rather than translating word by word.
– Technical placeholders: Some strings contained variables like %s or %1$s that must not be translated. I followed GlotPress warnings and compared my translations with already approved strings in the same project.

My Contributions

I suggested a total of 805 strings to these themes:
Bold Photography Blocks, Escape Room Game, Kawaii-Chan, Nighspot, Personal CV Resume, Pool Services Lite, and Spectra One.

All translations were submitted through translate.wordpress.org and followed the WordPress España style guide conventions.

In addition to translation work, I have been developing my own personal website using WordPress, which served as a practical parallel project throughout the course. I built the homepage with sections including: an «About me» block and a skills section with programming language icons. I also created a blog page where i posted updates about my progress and a contact page.

Key Learnings from the WP Credits Course

This course taught me several things that I will carry forward in my career. Open-source contribution is more accessible than it looks. Before joining Polyglots, I thought contributing to WordPress required advanced coding skills. In reality, translation is a great entry point that anyone with language skills can do.

Context matters more than vocabulary, a good translation is not just a correct one, it has to feel natural and fit the visual and functional context of the product.

WordPress has a strong, welcoming community. The Polyglots community is collaborative and organised, with clear guidelines that make it easy to get started and improve over time.

New Skills Gained

Technical skills:

– Using GlotPress to submit and manage translations.
– Reading PHP files in WordPress Themes Trac to identify context.
– Building pages in WordPress with Gutenberg blocks (groups, columns, Query Loop, navigation).
– Applying custom CSS classes and additional CSS to WordPress blocks for hover effects.

Soft skills:

– Attention to detail in written communication.
– Researching context independently before making decisions.
– Following style guides and community standards consistently.

Personal Reflections and Next Steps

This has been a genuinely useful experience. What surprised me most was how practical and hands-on everything was, I was not just learning about WordPress, I was actually contributing to it and building with it at the same time.

Working on translations helped me develop a much deeper understanding of how WordPress themes are structured from a code perspective, which will be very valuable for my upcoming internship.

My next steps:

– Continue contributing to WordPress Polyglots, now with more confidence and a better understanding of the workflow.
– Keep improving my personal website, adding new posts and refining the design.
– Apply everything I’ve learned during my internship in a real professional WordPress environment.

If you are a student or beginner thinking about contributing to WordPress — start with Polyglots. It is one of the most beginner-friendly teams, and every string you translate makes a real difference for users around the world. Feel free to reach out!