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To add a new language, follow these steps:
1. Copy all of the content of the raw `en.json`: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-translations/master/en.json
2. Paste into here: https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-translations/new/master
3. Translate some strings to your language
4. Find the language code of the language you're contributing: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes and name the new file `[language code].json`.
6. In the description of the pull request, or in a comment, please include the [endonym](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym#:~:text=An%20endonym%20(also%20known%20as,their%20homeland%2C%20or%20their%20language.>) of the language, this is how the language will be displayed in the app.
7. Submit your pull request.
Merge conflicts are nasty. They happen when you're translating an outdated version of the template, part of which might have been translated by someone else. To prevent this, try to fork our repository right before you translate.
If you want to do multiple translation pull requests, before doing work each time, use the "Compare" UI on your own fork to pull in all the newest changes from `obsidianmd:master` first by creating a pull request on your own repository and merge it in yourself, so that your own copy is up-to-update.
To translate, [fork this repo](https://guides.github.com/activities/forking/) and edit the JSON file of your language. After that, [submit a pull request](https://guides.github.com/activities/forking/).
Note that you don't have to clone your fork to make the edits; you can do everything on GitHub's web UI. Simply open a file in your own forked repo and click on the pencil icon to start editing.
The translation JSON file consists of key-value pairs. The key should give you a good idea of where the text is in the app.
To translate, simply edit the value. For example, let's say you see
```json
"plugin": "Plugin"
```
Simply change it to:
```json
"plugin": "pLU9IN"
```
where "pLU9IN" is the phrase "plugin" in the target language. I'm using leetspeak as an example here.
If you encounter something like
```json
"label-welcome": "Welcome, {{name}}!"
```
leave the `{{name}}` part alone and do not translate it. "name" is not part of the text and will be replaced by the appropriate value when the app runs.
### Translating an update
From time to time, we'll add new strings to all the language files. The new strings will be in English and ready to be translated to your language of choice.
Update commits usually have message in the format of "Update strings for 1.x.x" where "1.x.x" is the new version number. This is an example commit: [Update strings for 1.2.7](https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-translations/commit/8bff16a8b866604876d417bf7f322484b6090431).
By examining what happened to your language file, you can find the new strings to translate.
### Translate a missing phrase on the UI
If you spot a missing phrase while using Obsidian, here's what to do:
1. Figure out where the language file lives by looking up the language table in the README under the ["Existing languages" section](https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-translations#existing-languages).
2. Edit the language file, look for the exact English phrase.
3. Replace it with the appropriate translated phrase.
4. Submit your changes as a pull request.
### Testing translation
Once you have the JSON file, you can test it by opening up developer console and enter `selectLanguageFileLocation()`. The app will prompt you for a JSON file location. After that, the app will reboot itself with the selected translation JSON file applied.
To revert to using the default language pack, open developer console and enter `localStorage.removeItem('language')`.
Here is a table of language code to language name, in alphabetical order. These languages have their template files ready, but are not necessarily ready to be used in the app.
| `af` | Afrikaans | Afrikaans | 🚧 |
| `be` | Belarusian | беларуская мова | ✅ |
| `bg` | Bulgarian | български език | 🚧 |
| `cs` | Czech | čeština | 🚧 |
| `en-GB` | English (GB) | English (GB) | ✅ |
| `fa` | Persian | فارسی | 🚧 |
| `ne` | Nepali | नेपाली | ✅ |
| `pt` | Portuguese | Português | ✅ |
| `pt-BR` | Brazilian Portuguese | Portugues do Brasil | ✅ |
| `ro` | Romanian | Română | 🚧 |
| `sa` | Sanskrit | संस्कृतम् | 🚧 |
| `sr` | Serbian | српски језик | 🚧 |
| `tl` | Filipino (Tagalog) | Tagalog | 🚧 |
| `uk` | Ukrainian | Українська | ✅ |
| `zh` (see note below) | Chinese (Simplified) | 简体中文 | ✅ |
> Note: the Chinese translation is maintained by Obsidian.zh. If you want to discuss it, please come here: https://github.com/obsidianzh/obsidian-translations.
