Can you translate? 翻訳できますか？
September 9, 2018
Hey everyone! This is Jake here with another site update.
In the course of developing the site, I've been building multiple language support into it from the start. Over the course of my years teaching junior high, I remember seeing some of my Japanese counterpart teachers use sites like Englipedia to find activities and games. I always thought that if the site had a Japanese version, it would be able to get a lot more contributions from experienced English teachers who might find it a bit difficult to navigate a site that was written entirely in English.
There's already a Japanese version of the site right now, but all of the translation was done by myself, and to be honest, it's probably not very good. It's incomplete and waiting for someone who can do a better job. Maybe that someone is you!
Here's how you can potentially help:
Check out a site called LocaleData and make a free account. Once you've made it, go over to our Contact page and e-mail me. I'll have to add you to the project manually, but once I do, you can translate the text of the web site in your browser. You'll get credit, of course!
If you don't want to sign up for a site, you can get the same file at ALTopedia's GitHub page and download it directly. You'll have to translate the file in-place, replacing the English text with translated text. Unlike LocaleData, it might mess up the file if you change the formatting, so take care! Once that's done, you can e-mail me the file directly (see my e-mail address on the Contact page).
I should mention that it doesn't need to be Japanese - since the machinery is all in place, it could be just about any language! If it's a right-to-left language like Arabic or Hebrew, it might require some more tinkering on my end, but we hope that the site will be a resource to English teachers all over the world.
Also, I should say that the translations apply to the site's interface text. Things like tag names or the descriptions of activities are dynamic database content, so unfortunately they would require a different technical strategy to translate. That's a longer-term goal for the site, but in the meantime, we're hoping that we can make the site easier to use for people whose native language isn't English. We hope you can help!