Welcome to the case study with Ethereum.org, a website that provides information and resources about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. The translation team employs a strategy of translation by community volunteers and proofreading by a translation agency.
Let’s delve deeper into how with the help of this approach, Ethereum.org were able to add 48 languages to their website, with over 3,800 translators participating in the effort and translating more than 2.9 million words in 2021 and 1.9 million words in 2022 (as of September).
TRANSLATION APPROACH
- Translation by Community
- Proofreading by a Translation Agency
FUNCTIONALITY USED
- Translation Memory
- Glossary
- Video Preview app
- Translation agency
- Crowdsourcing
KEY RESULTS
- 48 languages added
- 5 localization projects
- 3,800 + translators
- 2.9 million words translated in 2021
- 1.9 million words translated in 2022 so far (as of September)
Localized Content
- Website
- Educational Videos
- Ethereum Foundation Blog
- Ethereum Staking Launchpad
Ethereum: A Decentralized, Open-Source Blockchain
Ethereum.org is an open source, a distributed software platform that is based on blockchain technology. It has its own native cryptocurrency called Ethereum and a programming language called Solidity.
Ethereum’s website is not what you imagine when you think about the classic website. Most of its content is educational, often technical and aimed both at professionals and complete beginners, so the support of native language is super important for its visitors.
“We understood that we needed a localization tool that is easy to use, easy to get onboarded to and has an advanced functionality like translation memory and glossary, so we chose Crowdin.” Luka Kropec, Translation Project Lead at Ethereum.org
Who And How Translates Ethereum.org Content
Ethereum’s visitors and users are the people who do the translations, as the team chooses to combine translation by volunteers and proofreading by the agency in their translation strategy.
“We add new languages to Crowdin whenever there is a request. Now we enabled 87 target languages and 48 of them are live on our website.” Luka Kropec, Translation Project Lead at Ethereum.org
The new language goes live as soon as all the content is translated. To prioritize certain pages and make it easier to manage the localization, Ethereum.org created 19 folders, so community translators can work with them gradually, starting from the most important ones like the home page, site navigation, and other essential information.
As the Ethereum.org website is open source, the content there changes often. Thus, the team chooses to update sources every month. Their workflow looks like this:
- At the beginning of the month, they update sources at Crowdin.
- Run the pre-translation by translation memory.
- The translators have time to translate new content. And whenever a folder is fully translated, the team orders proofreading from the translation agency.
- The team pulls all approved translations back to their website.
“The crowdsourcing and easy collaboration functionality that Crowdin offers is one of the main reasons we prefer Crowdin over other professional tools.” Luka Kropec, Translation Project Lead at Ethereum.org
Localize your product with Crowdin
Video Localization with the Help of Video Preview App
Context is important to receive high-quality localization results. The screenshots, live previews and comments play an essential role for your translation team, saving their and managers’ time as well.
What if you need to localize video subtitles? The best decision would be to have this video open right in front of a translator. I hope you don’t think that we advise you to open your video in a separate browser tab and constantly click from tab to tab. The best option would be to do just like the Ethereum.org team does – use our Video Preview app. The app allows you to specify the video URL for every file with subtitles and lets your translators preview the video during translation.
Localize your product with Crowdin
How Ethereum.org Collaborates and Ensures Quality of Community Translations at Crowdin
Now, around 4000 people participate in the localization of Ethereum.org content. Many companies probably dream of having so many people willing to help them localize their products. However, it’s important to keep in mind how hard it can be to manage such a number of people properly. The Ethereum team handle it with a bang. And all thanks to a few things:
Translation guides and terminology base
Besides general information that Ethereum.org includes in the description of every translation project they have, the team also has a list of resources to help people jump into their translation workflow faster. They include the following:
- Translation program
- How to translate guide (visual and written)
- Translation program playbook
- Translation Style Guide
The important part of their translation program is the project glossary. The team collected essential terms often found in the content and their translations from a few native speakers. Then they chose one variant of translations of the most frequent ones. Now, when translating Ethereum.org content, users can use pre-selected translations for specific terms from the glossary.
Translation agency
To ensure the high quality of the content that appears on the website and other Ethereum.org resources, the team does proofreading by a professional translation agency.
“We love Crowdin for the user management and ability to manage access levels, so everyone can do their job, and we won’t worry about problems with permissions.”
They onboarded a few managers from the agency to their translation projects, and that’s it. Managers simply invited their colleagues to projects as proofreaders, so they could start working on the tasks.
The right tool to collaborate
Crowdin allows you to translate online with all the benefits of a desktop CAT tool and be sure that you’re working on the latest file version. Translate, review, and manage your work in the cloud. Invite your colleagues to help and set up different permissions.
“Crowdin is the best on collaboration. If you need hundreds and thousands of people to collaborate on a project, you can choose Crowdin Besides it, we really like content management options, translation memory, and glossary features.”
Ethereum.org Expands Globally with the Help of Crowdin
Crowdin eases the localization management for the Ethereum.org team and ensures fast time to market, which is essential for the company.
Today Ethereum.org has 5 localization projects, 3,800 + translators and 5+ million words translated so far, supporting 48 different language versions in many countries worldwide. Thanks to the right combination of software and people, the localization process is smooth and streamlined.
