QGIS is natively developed in English, either for the user interface (GUI) or for its documentation and web site. However, all these components are available in many other languages since it is designed to be translated into any language quite easily. At this moment about forty languages are already available in the Desktop user interface and about eighty languages are available in transifex ready to be translated. Nearly the same apply for the web site and documentation.
The translation process is managed by the Translation Team and all the activities are done under the Transifex platform.
If you plan to contribute to an existing language or you want to translate QGIS into a not yet existing language, see Becoming a translator. For any other related questions, please contact the Translation Team Leader or subscribe to the QGIS Translation mailing list.
After subscribing to the mailing list you are able to send a mail directly to qgis-tr@lists.osgeo.org asking for help.
We strongly encourage anyone dealing with translations to join this list and promise that it is usually a very low traffic mailing list.
The other available mailing lists can be found at Mailing lists.
The QGIS interface is natively programmed in English. However, we do translate it into tens of languages and, at this moment over forty languages are already available in QGIS Desktop (the ones that reached 35% of translation for that specific release).
If you want to find out if your language is already present in QGIS Applications or who is currently working on your language you can take a look in the Box in the QGIS Desktop Application.
You will also find the progress of the translation there (but remember in every “stable” version it will always stay at the same level). For finding the current percentage of translation you will either have to install the nightly build of QGIS or checkout the source code of QGIS.
The entire interface contains over ten thousand pieces of text and a complete translation will take days if not weeks to be finished. Besides that, the rapid development of the application continuously causes new and edited texts to be translated. A huge effort and your help will be appreciated!
Note
To start QGIS with the appropriate localization, run
qgis --lang <language code> in command line or change localization in QGIS under
menu.
The QGIS project is always looking for people who are willing to invest some more time translating QGIS into a foreign language - even perhaps to coordinate the translation effort.
We are trying to improve our project management process and spread the load more evenly between people who each have a specific area of responsibility, so any contribution you have to make will be greatly appreciated.
If you would like to nominate yourself as a coordinator for a new language please go ahead. If more than one person nominate themselves as coordinator for the same language, please contact each other and resolve how you will manage your efforts.
Please contact the Translation team leader or Community Assistant to see your name entered in the About Box of QGIS Desktop.
The web-based translating platform Transifex is used for all QGIS translations; the desktop application itself (or GUI), the documentation and the web site. So the first thing you need is an account to login and get started.
You can explore available projects we translate, identify their target languages with various statistics:
QGIS Desktop for all the pieces of text available in QGIS apps (QGIS Desktop and QGIS Server),
QGIS Documentation for the official documentation,
QGIS Website to translate the current website.
Click on the project you would like to help translate
Click on JOIN THIS PROJECT on the right side. You will be prompted to sign up.
Create your account or connect using a third-party platform account. Verify your account by the link in the email you will receive.
Login
You then get a popup to select which language you want to help translate to.
Please, note that we try to make the process as simple as possible and only target languages,
regardless of the country parameter (e.g. French (fr) and NOT French (France) (fr_FR)).
Only if there are notable differences in the languages (e.g. portuguese in Portugal vs Brazil)
we may allow different versions.
Search your target language:
If it is marked as already added then select it and press Join Project.
If it is not marked as already added, select it and press Request language. Keep in mind that translating an entire project will take days of work, if not weeks!
Now you will need to wait for the language coordinator or the project maintainers to process your request. You will be notified by email when your request has been accepted. If your request has no answer for about a week, please consider writing to your language coordinator in Transifex or the QGIS Translators mailing list.
You can also join any of the other QGIS projects and help everywhere too.
Once your request is accepted, you are able to translate any text in the project(s) you’ve chosen. Simply click on your language, select the chapter you want to translate and click on Translate. Easy, right?
In order to help you make good translation, some instructions are provided in the QGIS Translation Guidelines. We strongly recommend you to read them.
Tip
Quick access to translatable files in Transifex
If you find a wrong or missing translation in the current documentation or web site,
you can use the Fix me link at the bottom of the page to reach it sources in
Transifex and perform any update you wish to.