# Translating Audacity Audacity is translated into multiple languages by volunteers across the world. You can contribute either using Transifex, or by using a local translation editor. ## Using Transifex to translate Audacity You can find and join the Audacity project at [**https://explore.transifex.com/audacity/audacity/**](https://explore.transifex.com/audacity/audacity/) * Click the **JOIN THIS PROJECT** button on the right side. * Select the language you would like to contribute to from the dropdown. * Click **Join Project** (if the language is **Available to join)** or **Request Language** if the language you want to contribute to is not available yet.

Select the language you want to translate Audacity to and click Join Project or Request Language

Once you have been approved as a translator you will receive a notification by email. After that you will see the project in your Dashboard and you can start to contribute.

Audacity Project Dashboard in Transifex

* Click **Translate** at the top right side * Select **Audacity** from the **Resource Overview** panel to start editing * Select the string to translate and type the corresponding translation * Click **Save Translation** and select the next string to translate.

Use the Transifex Editor to translate strings

To speed up your workflow, various shortcuts are available, which you can see by pressing the overflow menu in the Transifex editor:
The most important one of these probably is `Tab`, which saves your string and automatically moves you onto the next. And that's it! Happy translating! ## Join the translator community The translator community exists in two places: * [On discord](https://discord.gg/UvNH4cFjVP) * [In the audacity-translation mailing list](https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/lists/audacity-translation) If you have any questions, or want to get notified of upcoming releases in need of translation you can do so here. ## Translate Audacity using a standalone application Audacity uses GitHub and you can explore the available translations at Each language translation is stored in a PO file. For example it.po is the Italian translation and ko.po is the Korean translation. {% hint style="info" %} To download a PO file from GitHub click on the link for the .po file for your language. On the page you come to, right-click the **Raw** button and then select then **Save target** or **Save link as**. Select the location to place the PO file. Use the wxWidgets [languageinfo.cpp](https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/WX_3_0_BRANCH/src/common/languageinfo.cpp) file as a reference to the list of translated languages. {% endhint %} These are some programs you can use to edit PO files: * [poEdit](https://poedit.net/) for Windows, macOS and Linux * [Lokalize](http://userbase.kde.org/Lokalize) for KDE4 * [Virtaal](http://virtaal.translatehouse.org/index.html) for Windows and macOS (beta version) * [GNU gettext](http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/) {% hint style="info" %} The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation {% endhint %} If there is no translation PO file for your language create a new one using the following steps: * Download the [audacity.pot](https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/locale/audacity.pot) file from Audacity GitHub * Open **poEdit** and select **Create new\... (Create new translation from POT Template)** * Select the **audacity.pot** file and click on Open * **poEdit** will ask you about the Translation Language. Select the language from the dropdown and click OK. * Select **Translation > Properties...** and verify that the Character option is set to UTF-8 otherwise poEdit will not save any translations with non-English characters. * Translate each one of the entries using the **Translation** textbox * Select **File > Save** to save as a PO file. Select a destination folder and type a name for the file. Click on **Save. poEdit** will save a .po file plus a .mo file for use in Audacity. ### Update an existing translation of Audacity {% hint style="info" %} The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation {% endhint %} If you want to update an existing translation * Download the PO file for your language, for example it.po or open a previously translated PO file from your computer. * Download the [audacity.pot](https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/locale/audacity.pot) file from Audacity GitHub * Open **poEdit** and select **Browse files (Open and edit translation files)** * Select the existing PO file for your language and click on Open * Select **Translation > Update from POT file...** and look for the audacity.pot file you downloaded previously. This will update your PO file with the latest strings from the downloaded POT file. * Translate each one of the entries using the **Translation** textbox * Select **File > Save** to save as a PO file. Select a destination folder and type a name for the file. Click on **Save. poEdit** will save a .po file plus a .mo file for use in Audacity. ### Submitting a translation * **To submit a translation**, please send the completed .po file to the audacity-translation mailing list. A member of Audacity Team will commit the file and send a message to the list confirming this. ### **Test a translation in Audacity** 1. You can get an up-to-date alpha version of Audacity, NOT suitable for production use, but good for checking translations on, in the nightly version: . From there, you’ll find there are choices of builds for different platforms. Download the right one for your platform. 2. On **Windows,** open the “Languages” directory inside the unzipped Audacity folder, then open the directory with the same name as your .po file. \ On **Mac OS X**, right-click or control-click over Audacity.app > Show Package Contents then open the relevant LPROJ directory inside the “Resources” directory. \ On **GNU/Linux**, open the relevant “locale” directory in usr/share/ or usr/local/share. 3. If creating a new translation, create a new directory for your language using the correct language code from the wxWidgets [languageinfo.cpp file](https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/WX_3_0_BRANCH/src/common/languageinfo.cpp). For example, the code for Punjabi is “pa”, so on Windows, create “Audacity\Languages\pa”. 4. Rename the saved **.mo** file to “Audacity.mo”, and paste it into the directory you opened or created. 5. Open Audacity and in **Preferences > Interface**, choose your language and click OK. You should now see your translations. ## **Further information** * Please read [Translating Audacity](http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=For_Translators) for more tips on translating the Audacity source code, and to learn how the Audacity software is translated. * [wxWidgets i18n](https://www.wxwidgets.org/about/translations/) --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://support.audacityteam.org/community/contributing/translating.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. 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