Here at Joomla Community Magazine Headquarters we love it when someone comes up to us saying they wish to translate our articles in their own language. Maybe you’ve thought of this as well, but don’t know how and where to start. This article gets you going with three tips that might come in handy.

Tip 1: “translation” does not equal “throw in Google translate”

Maybe you think: duh, I knew that and I would never use Google translate for this! In that case, move over to Tip 2.

Google translate is great for a quick lookup when you don’t know what a word or even a sentence means. For translating complete articles… not so much. It is getting better, but it can still produce the strangest translations and the biggest nonsense. DeepL is a better instrument for translation, but seriously, nothing beats a human.

Blogs and articles aren’t one-on-one translatable. There’s style, tone, and every language has expressions that can’t be translated literally. So it’s often more about getting the meaning of words in their context, than just getting the meaning of the single word or string of words (that explains why ‘translator’ is an official profession). So to translate a text, you need to read it, understand it, and get your hands dirty.

If you don’t want to translate the text word for word, you could consider letting Google do the work (so throw it in) and after that, edit the text thoroughly.

Tip 2: let us know you’re translated the article and you might get a backlink at the JCM

Wouldn’t it be great to have a backlink to your translated article at the JCM? If you publish it on the website of your local Joomla community, we will happily share the link to your translation below the original article. If you publish it on a personal or business website, however, a backlink is not always guaranteed.

Whatever the situation, please let us know you’ve translated one (or even more) of our articles. You can do so by emailing us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tip 3: please credit us

The content on JCM is meant to be shared with the international Joomla Community. So even if the translation process has cost you liters of blood, sweat and tears, you can not pretend that this is your own text. If you re-publish content that has been published in the JCM, we request you to credit the magazine as the source. Needless to say that if you don’t credit us, there will not be a backlink to your website :). You can credit us by referencing the JCM URL of the article, and, if you wish, add some extra information (like the publishing date or the author’s name).