World Translation Month 2022: Bringing Code Education to the World

For the millions of people worldwide who dream of learning to code, language can be one of the steepest barriers to getting started. Technical education resources, online platforms, and coding communities are often English-dominant, leaving non-native speakers at a frustrating disadvantage.

But each September, the freeCodeCamp community rallies together to tackle this issue head-on. World Translation Month is an open call for bilingual coders to help translate freeCodeCamp‘s vast library of coding lessons and tutorials into as many world languages as possible. The goal: to make high-quality code education truly accessible on a global scale.

The Mission and Momentum of World Translation Month

freeCodeCamp already reaches a massive audience, with over 8,000 tutorials and an extensive curriculum that teaches full-stack development skills like responsive web design, JavaScript algorithms, data structures, back-end APIs, and quality assurance.

But for the billions of people worldwide who don‘t speak English fluently, this wealth of knowledge remains frustratingly out of reach. That‘s where World Translation Month comes in, harnessing the passion and skills of multilingual developers to break down language barriers.

Since the inaugural World Translation Month in 2021, volunteer translators have made major progress. The core curriculum is now fully available in Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, Ukrainian, Japanese, and more. Meanwhile, the freeCodeCamp publication‘s 8,000+ tutorials are being rapidly translated, with key milestones like:

Language	Translated Articles
Spanish	475+
Chinese	1000+
Portuguese	350+
Italian	200+

Table 1: Translation progress of freeCodeCamp tutorials by language as of September 2022

With every translated lesson, freeCodeCamp‘s reach expands exponentially. A Spanish translation makes the curriculum accessible to 400+ million native speakers worldwide. A Chinese translation opens doors for over a billion people. Each language represents a huge opportunity to empower more learners.

The impact is already clear. freeCodeCamp‘s Spanish publication receives over 1 million page views per month, while the Chinese publication gets over 500,000. As more content is translated into more languages, those numbers will only keep growing.

Why Multilingual Education Matters

From a professional coder‘s perspective, I can‘t overstate the importance of making technical learning resources available in multiple languages. When you‘re trying to grasp tricky programming concepts, doing it in a non-native language adds a whole other layer of difficulty.

Research backs this up. Studies consistently show that learning in one‘s mother tongue leads to better comprehension, retention, and application of knowledge. A UNESCO report argues that "education in the mother tongue is essential for initial instruction and literacy and should be extended to as late a stage in education as possible."

When it comes to coding, where precise understanding of syntax and logic is so crucial, trying to learn in an unfamiliar language can be incredibly daunting. It creates an unnecessary extra hurdle, especially for adult learners who are already stretching themselves to pick up new technical skills.

By contrast, when you can learn to code in your primary language, your mental energy can fully focus on mastering the concepts. You can more easily map new knowledge onto your existing mental models. The learning journey feels more natural and achievable.

This is why multilingual code education is so vital. It‘s not just about convenience—it‘s about genuinely expanding access to life-changing knowledge and skills. Someone with minimal English might be initially discouraged from trying to learn web development. But when they discover a full coding curriculum available in their native language, it can be game-changing.

The Compounding Power of Crowdsourced Translation

Of course, translating a complex technical curriculum into multiple languages is no small feat. That‘s where the power of crowdsourcing comes in. By rallying a global community of volunteer translators, freeCodeCamp is able to tackle this mammoth mission collaboratively.

And freeCodeCamp is hardly alone in this approach. Crowdsourced translation has been a major trend for online education and global platforms for well over a decade:

• Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is available in a staggering 300+ languages thanks to volunteer translators and editors worldwide. This collaborative model has made Wikipedia the largest and most widely-read reference work in history.

• TED, the popular conference series, offers subtitles in over 100 languages for its library of educational talks, powered by volunteer translators. To date, TED videos have been viewed over 1 billion times worldwide.

• Twitter launched its own crowdsourced Translation Center in 2011, enabling bilingual users to help translate the platform‘s interface and messages. By 2013, Twitter was available in 48 languages thanks to the efforts of 350,000+ volunteers.

• Facebook has relied on user translations to expand its interface into over 100 languages since 2007. As of 2020, more than 300,000 members of the Facebook community had contributed translations.

Table 2: Examples of large-scale online crowdsourced translation initiatives

The common thread is clear: when you empower a passionate global community to chip in their language skills, you can collectively shatter language barriers at a massive scale. Each individual contribution might seem small, but they compound into an incredible force for accessibility and inclusivity.

What‘s especially powerful is that contributors often have a personal stake in the mission. They‘re not just dispassionate translators—they‘re community members who directly benefit from seeing their language represented and empowered.

For freeCodeCamp‘s translator community, this rings true. Many volunteers are coders themselves who discovered freeCodeCamp through a translation and now want to pay it forward. Others are passionate about making tech careers accessible to more people in their home countries.

Kushal Jayswal, a freeCodeCamp translator for Hindi, shared his motivation: "I personally know many friends and students whose skills are limited because of the language barrier. I want to help them and many others who can grow their knowledge and skills by providing freeCodeCamp‘s content in their native language."

Getting Involved and Giving Credit

As World Translation Month 2022 kicks off, freeCodeCamp is doubling down on efforts to make contributing translations as easy and rewarding as possible. The recent move to centralize translator communication on Discord has been a game-changer, giving volunteers a dedicated space to collaborate, ask questions, and support each other.

Equally important is recognizing translators for their vital work. Volunteers who contribute during World Translation Month will receive special badges on their freeCodeCamp profiles, with top contributors earning "Top Translator" badges. It‘s a way of showcasing their impact and giving credit where it‘s due.

But beyond virtual badges, freeCodeCamp wants translators to know that their efforts are genuinely changing lives. Each translation has the potential to be the spark that ignites someone‘s journey into tech—the chance to build in-demand skills, launch an exciting new career, and tap into a world of opportunity.

That‘s incredibly powerful stuff. And it all starts with the generosity and passion of multilingual coders around the world.

So if you‘re reading this with a gift for languages and a desire to make a difference, I encourage you to join the translator community this World Translation Month. Whether you contribute a single article or an entire certification, your efforts will ripple out in ways you can hardly imagine.

As a professional coder, I know firsthand how transformative it is to discover a love for programming. It‘s not just a fun hobby or a lucrative career path—it‘s a toolkit for solving problems, expressing creativity, and shaping the future.

By breaking down language barriers to code education, we can empower so many more people worldwide to tap into that toolkit. We can build a more vibrant, diverse, and innovative global tech community. And we can all play a part.

So as World Translation Month unfolds, let‘s celebrate the incredible work of the translator community thus far—and let‘s dream even bigger. Together, we can make code education a genuine right for all, regardless of language or location.

One translation at a time, we can change the world.