Unlock the power of language with the TWB Learning Center

Discover our free online translator training courses: launching TWB’s new-look Learning Center! 

Introducing the new TWB Learning Center – a place for community members to gain experience in humanitarian translation and learn in-demand language industry skills. 

Part of CLEAR Global, TWB brings together over 100,000 language volunteers globally, helping people get vital information and be heard, whatever language they speak. Together, we’re dedicated to translating and localizing important information to support the world’s most marginalized people. Our community members work to help our nonprofit partners worldwide provide lifesaving multilingual messages, ensuring everyone can understand. Now we’re launching our new-look Learning Center and brand-new, self-paced online translation courses! The TWB Learning Center is a great way for newcomers and language professionals alike to continue to develop their skills and stay ahead in the industry. So, dive in and get ready to learn something new!

Photo: All community members who successfully complete a course will attain a downloadable certificate. Here are our TWB Nigeria team members with their certificates. 

Explore new translator training opportunities exclusive to TWB Community members

Available courses: 

Every contribution matters – in every language: making translator training accessible 

Our team of experts has revamped the existing e-learning platform for translators to provide our community members with free, high-quality courses. These courses are designed to be accessible to both experienced localization professionals and those of you who speak marginalized languages. Even if you’re starting from scratch. Perhaps you speak a language that lacks useful translation training resources? Whether you are looking to refresh yourself on the basics, or learn about machine translation and translating for humanitarian contexts, TWB’s Learning Center courses allow you to develop and apply your language skills. So you can make a bigger impact professionally, and personally. 

Our community members help us make vital material accessible to more people around the world. The work you do matters. You’re helping some of the world’s most vulnerable people get answers to their questions in times of crisis, know their rights, and how to stay safe when forcibly displaced. You’re helping people get accurate and reliable health information. And you’re helping those who are most impacted by climate change protect themselves and our planet. 

Grow your skills and translate for good

The TWB Learning Center offers community members a variety of interactive, self-paced online courses to learn and grow professionally and acquire new skills. Our courses empower linguists and non-professional bilinguals to participate in humanitarian and development translation tasks on the TWB Platform and initiatives for making their languages part of global conversations. These courses cater to everyone, from newcomers to the language industry with no previous experience, to professional translators who are looking to keep up to date with the latest innovations. In the TWB Learning Center, TWB Community members can choose to improve and build their capabilities in areas of their choice, such as translation, machine translation post-editing (MT PE), our computer-assisted translation tool (Phrase TMS), target terminology development and glossaries, desktop publishing, and more to come.

New to TWB, translation, or the humanitarian field?

Everyone is welcome. Our courses are designed to be accessible by speakers of low-resourced and well-resourced languages alike. If you’ve not yet joined the TWB Community, you can sign up today. Learn more about the community and join here. If you’re new to translation and the humanitarian field, complete the TWB Learning Center courses to learn about our translation tools and get practice using your new skills on impactful projects. 

Work towards your professional goals with TWB:

  • Learn about key translation concepts and tools
  • Get familiar with the tools and skills you need to start working on translation tasks with TWB and in your career
  • Develop the experience and capability to take on more complex translator training and explore more specialized topics
Photo: a sneak peek of our Learning Center. Ibrahim, left, with a participant testing out a device powered by community members’ translations. It enables displaced people in Bakassi camp, Nigeria, to give feedback to camp staff in their own language. It lets people listen to vital information that matters to them, like how food distribution works.

Don’t miss out – course certification 

Once you successfully complete a course on the TWB Learning Center, you can download a certificate. Showcase your skills, share certificates with your network, and enhance your resume. We love to see our global community learning and growing – here are some posts people have shared after completing their courses – why not join them? 

Our language volunteers shared their experience

We spoke to Yuriy Kovalenko, English, Ukrainian and Russian translator  who shares our love for learning on the TWB Platform

“I have been working with TWB for almost two years, but more actively since the full-scale war in Ukraine started. Now, for almost a year, the flood of information, manuals, and reports was overwhelming and this required faster rendering of diverse texts into the target language. Faster, but maintaining a high quality of translation, meeting deadlines, sustaining attention to detail, localization, and consistency, to name a few. TWB has a user-friendly platform, comradely and supportive staff, detailed and easy-to-follow Translator’s Toolkit for newbies, a Guide for TWB Community members, and Language Quality Inspection/Assessment.”

Photo: Yuriy at work.

“When I was invited by TWB to attend their online course on MT PE (machine translation post-editing), without hesitation, I signed up and learned how to apply my skills in a more efficient way. Now, this experience allowed me to understand better how machine translation works, and how AI (artificial intelligence) can be helpful in many respects. I now find it easier to translate more accurately using other different platforms and CAT (computer-assisted translation). I definitely recommend these TWB courses to any aspiring professional. The knowledge, skills and experience you acquire and hone will be invaluable. In my case, working with and learning from the TWB made me feel more accomplished.” 

Yuriy Kovalenko, TWB Community member.

Mirriam Kitaka joined TWB as a young Swahili translator:

“I joined TWB in 2019 after a thorough Google search for a translation website that could give me an opportunity to grow as a young translator, and this was two years after my mentor introduced me to the field. When I found TWB, I joined as a Swahili Translator Volunteer (TWB Community member). I have since translated, reviewed, and proofread a lot of tasks on the TWB platform. Under the community recognition program, I have been awarded a Certificate of Volunteer Activity and a Reference Letter as a Translator, not to forget a phone top-up for attaining the minimum threshold designed by the organization.” 

“TWB has given me the opportunity to take courses which have scaled my translation, proofreading, editing, and reviewing skills. For me, they offered specific content and information, especially in the humanitarian field. They are very nice and rich courses that I would recommend current and upcoming translators to study through elearn.translatorswb.org. As I write this, I have donated 42,870 words already. I am also working on a very huge revision project. And I can also confirm that I am now a “TWB Traveller!” Thank you Translators without Borders and CLEAR Global for the opportunity to save lives through my native language.”

Mirriam Kitaka, TWB Community member.

Your invitation to join us

Go ahead and explore the Learning Center’s free translation courses today at elearn.translatorswb.org 

If you’re new to TWB – sign up here. 

Our goal is to make our training resources multilingual, with a special focus on low-resource languages. We are starting by translating our Basic Translator Training course with the support of our community! Our team hopes to make it available in at least ten languages this year. By March, we will upload module two of the Basic translator training course, plus a brand-new course on how to use CAT tools including Phrase TMS. Behind the scenes, are also working on making new training courses available on language quality, developing glossaries, and more. 

Watch this space as we learn and grow together!

We thank Microsoft for their kind Azure donation which hosts much of our language technology resources.