I’m Thomas, and this is my final report for the WP Credits program. Over the past 4 weeks, I contributed to the Polyglots team by translating the Automation Web Platform plugin into Costa Rican Spanish (es_CR). This report summarizes what I worked on, the resources I used, the challenges I ran into, and how the experience shaped me as a contributor.
Teams and projects I contributed to
I contributed to the Polyglots team, the group responsible for translating WordPress core, themes, and plugins into languages around the world. My focus was localizing the Automation Web Platform plugin a tool that sends WooCommerce order and account notifications —into the Costa Rican Spanish (es_CR) locale.
Learning resources
I relied on the WordPress translation platform and the Polyglots documentation throughout the project:
The Translating WordPress platform, where all the translation and review work happens.
The Polyglots Handbook, for the translation workflow, roles (GTE/PTE), and style expectations.
The Automation Web Platform es_CR project page, where I tracked my strings through review.
My mentor, Dayanna Vindas, helped me understand the review process and clarified how strings move from suggested to approved.
Challenges and solutions
Terminology consistency. Notification strings reuse the same core terms order, account, status, notification over and over. Translating them inconsistently would have made the plugin feel disjointed. I solved this by defining a small set of terminology rules at the start and applying them across all 106 strings, so the same concept always reads the same way.
As a computer science student, fitting contribution work into a full course load was a challenge. I handled it by treating the translation as an ongoing task in small, consistent sessions rather than trying to finish everything at once, which kept the quality steady across all 106 strings.
My contributions
Automation Web Platform — es_CR translation set: 106 strings translated, submitted, and approved into the plugin’s Costa Rican Spanish locale.
Key learnings from the WP Credits program
The program taught me that open source contribution isn’t only about producing work it’s about doing it in a way that fits into a shared, community-maintained system. Translation in particular showed me that consistency and clear conventions matter as much as raw output; a single well-chosen term reused correctly is worth more than a clever one-off.
I also learned that small, specific contributions are how large projects actually grow. I didn’t translate all of WordPress I translated one plugin, into one locale, well. That focus is exactly how the Polyglots effort achieves full language coverage: one complete piece at a time.
New skills gained
Technical: WordPress translation workflow on translate.wordpress.org, working with translation strings and the suggested/approved review states.
Soft skills: Consistency and attention to detail across a large set of items, time management, and working within the standards of an established open source community rather than my own preferences.
Personal reflections and next steps
After WP Credits, I plan to keep contributing to Polyglots — maintaining this plugin’s es_CR translation as it adds new strings, and taking on other plugins that need Costa Rican Spanish.
Thomas 's Site 