Why I’m Contributing to WordPress Polyglots
As part of my WordPress contribution project, I had to make a decision: of all the teams that keep WordPress running, which one would I join, and what would I actually build? This post explains that choice before I get into the work itself.
The team I chose: Polyglots
I decided to contribute to the Polyglots team, the group responsible for translating WordPress — its core, themes, and plugins — into languages around the world. The choice was an easy one for me. I’m from Costa Rica and I work in Spanish every day, so I’m in a good position to help make WordPress feel native to Spanish-speaking users here rather than translated at a distance. Localization is also close to my studies in computer science and my interest in the WordPress ecosystem, so it’s contribution I can keep doing long after this project ends.
My project
I chose to translate the Automation Web Platform plugin — a tool that handles WooCommerce order and account notifications — into Costa Rican Spanish (es_CR). I deliberately picked the es_CR locale over generic Spanish so the wording matches how people actually speak and write here, following a consistent set of terminology rules to keep the notifications clear and natural.
The concrete deliverable: 106 translated strings submitted and accepted for the es_CR locale of the plugin.
Why it matters
This project supports the Polyglots goal of full language coverage. Every accepted string makes the plugin more usable for Spanish-speaking store owners and customers in Costa Rica, and small, specific contributions like this one are how the whole WordPress ecosystem becomes more accessible, one locale at a time.
Next, I’ll share how the translation work actually went — the tools, the terminology decisions, and what I learned along the way.
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