From @justcomplaining: It seems like the potential of the project for international users is greatly limited by the missing front end translation. I would gladly volunteer to help with German, if needed.

(below this point edited by @mekarpeles)

Goal

From @brad2014 in #2190:

This is an epic that covers sub-issues related to both

• moving the server onto a translation maintenance pipeline (Weblate? Pootle? Zanata?)
• refactoring the user interface so that foreign language users see the UI in their language
• creating and maintaining UI translations

The UI will be polylingual, presenting label elements in the user language and content elements in the content language. (With exceptions: e.g. if a data field of a work is its ISO-639 language, that datum would be presented in the user's language. FR would be presented as French or Français or Französich, etc).

How to Contribute

Adding a new language: https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/tree/master/openlibrary/i18n#adding-a-new-language

Language coverage:

• Add Spanish language #1855 + Update Spanish translation #2997 adds & updates Spanish
• 2936/fix/polish translation #3033 Polish translations
• German translation #2818 + Adding German translations #3711 German translations
• Start a French translation file #874 French translations
• Telugu Translations Done #887 Telugu translations (partial)
• Nepali Translation #1040 Nepali translations (help wanted)
• Adding more German translations and updating i18n Readme #3729 German translation updates (review needed)

Open Issues

• Client-side i18n support #2607
• Internationalize language labels #865
• Duplicate account messages in code and templates #872
• Original writing system and Romanization #151 is tangentially related

Related issues:

• Internationalizing the openlibrary UI #2190 (closed as duplicate: Internationalizing the openlibrary UI)
• Remove/migrate deprecated i18n method to current Babel/gettext method #871 deprecate old functions
• Identify UI elements that are not yet covered by i18n #973 audit of missing i18n pages
• Internationalize /stats/readinglog page #988 add i18n to /stats/readinglog page
• Internationalization Requirements missing from Front End Guide  #2353 improving i18n front-end guide

And #2417, #1146, #4042, #3907, #3834, #3834, #3811, #3725, #3723, #3557, #3511, #3354, #3351, #3034, #3173, #3171, #3169, #3067