Odoo in Polish - what's the deal with the translation?
Odoo is an international tool, created in Belgium, and its main language is English. This is entirely natural - English has enormous reach, which ensures a broad audience. To make life easier for users around the world, the system has many language versions, including Polish. It's worth knowing that the Odoo translation is largely created and maintained by the community.
This means that alongside parts that are translated flawlessly, you can sometimes come across small errors or shortcomings. That's normal in such a large, partly open system.
Why is the Odoo translation so important to me?
For me, as someone who works with Odoo every day, language quality has practical significance. Using the system in Polish should feel natural - after all, companies mostly operate within Poland. So why would they use the English-language version of the software?
The Polish version of Odoo isn't yet polished to a hundred percent (although it's there for the vast majority of it!). It works very well and provides all the functionality, but sometimes you can run into various kinds of gaps, for example:
- Missing translation - despite using the Polish language version, we see text in English.
- Unnatural-sounding text - the original was translated in a way that sounds a bit artificial (or we've simply gotten used to a different name).
- Incorrect translation - the original was translated in a way that's hard to understand (e.g. "table" translated as "stół" [a piece of furniture] instead of "tabela" [a data table]).
There aren't many such errors, and they're usually hidden in less frequently used features, but they can still be a real eyesore.
That's why, as someone who values professionalism and a member of the Odoo community, I actively try to fix the errors I spot. I can share a few of my recent fixes, accepted by Odoo, in the html_editor and website_blog components:
- Github Odoo - translation of the 'html_editor' addon
- Github Odoo - translation of the 'website_blog' addon
- Github Odoo - translation of the 'crm' addon
- Github Odoo - translation of the 'spreadsheet' addon
- Github Odoo - translation of the 'marketing_card' addon
These are just two examples - more are on the way, and there will certainly be more over time. It's a small contribution, but every such fix makes the Polish version of Odoo better for all users.
How can you get involved yourself?
The translation process in Odoo is open. If you use the system and also come across something you'd like to fix, you can do it. It requires basic technical knowledge.
You can find more information on the official Odoo translation website. It's worth adding your own brick to the wall.