Site News

Hoi! You Can Now Translate iFixit into Dutch!

We want to spread the word about the repair revolution globally! While English is the most common language in the world, we want everyone to get involved in the repair revolution, so we offer our repair guides in more languages. We already have 12 active languages on iFixit: English, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian are available for translation, while we also have content in Turkish, Portuguese, Korean, and Russian. Today, we’re pleased to add another language to the list: Dutch, and it’s available for translation!

The vanguard of the repair revolution!

The Netherlands are the homeland of the Repair Café Foundation, founded by our dear friend Martine Postma, whom we have known for almost a decade. We value her role in spreading and facilitating the repair revolution and, as such, the Dutch language has always been dear to our hearts. Now, thanks to the help of some wonderful volunteers and translators, iFixit’s user interface has been entirely translated, and we can finally invite everyone to translate our repair guides into Dutch. We’re very excited that many of you have joined us on our translation quest!

Repair is an important milestone of sustainable development. While it may be easier than it seems, that doesn’t mean a Dutch first-time tinkerer will feel comfortable relying on a guide in a foreign language. We wanted to create and share enough information in Dutch to make sure every potential Dutch fixer finds a solution to their hardware problem. Our platform contains thousands of repair and troubleshooting guides that we’d like to share with our Dutch friends.

Here’s a list of guides and wikis that need translations. Please read the translator guidelines before you start, and use your (human) brain, not online or computer tools—our proofreaders will reject machine translations.

Gain reputation or grant reputation to others!

Your talent is needed! Don’t know how to troubleshoot a washing machine? No problem. You might be an ace in transcribing our modern and informal style in your mother tongue, and catching any grammatical error at a glance. If you’ve always dreamed of earning our badges for “Taalkundige”,  “Verkenner” or “Schriftgeleerde”, then your moment has come!

Community members will acknowledge your effort by liking your translated guides. But the greatest reward will be when they successfully repair their stuff with the help of your translated guide! This is not only worth the most reputation points, but also when you know for sure you’ve helped someone fix their device and kept it out of a landfill! If you want to know more about how to gain reputation points yourself or grant reputation points to others, then check out our reputation page!

Some tips for beginners

If you want to start translating iFixit’s content into Dutch, but you have never done anything like this before, here are some of our tips and tricks! First of all, make sure you are not translating every word literally into your language. Oftentimes our proofreaders notice that guides and wikis are being translated word for word, without any consideration for what most helps a fixer. To prevent an all-too-literal translation, make sure that

1) You read the whole text before translating, so that you know the intent and primary purpose of the text before hand,

2) You read your translations out loud to yourself, to check if it sounds strange or on-point, and

3) You check your translation after finishing it, and ask yourself if you have conveyed the message in a concise, clear, and accessible way.

Second, we urge you all to realize that your ability to speak a language and know a culture through knowing the language is a priceless skill. Don’t be afraid to translate texts into your own words, as you are the one that knows your language. For example, you will encounter many word-plays, expressions, or sayings in translating guides and wikis. However, some of these expressions are bound to a very specific cultural context. Try to figure out how you can communicate the same message in different, relatable words, and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty by being creative! Our guides are collaborative, community efforts, not perfect products.

For more tips and tricks, visit https://nl.ifixit.com/Wiki/translator. If you have any problems, questions, or feedback about our translations project, please contact us at translate@ifixit.com.