Set up Immersion Mode
- Bridget Chase (Unlicensed)
- Evangaline
- Clarissa Forbes (Unlicensed)
What is Immersion Mode?
Immersion Mode allows you to translate navigation headers on FirstVoices, giving learners the option to navigate through your site in your language. You can add translations as well as audio pronunciation clips through the Edit Immersion Labels section of your dashboard. Then, when Immersion Mode is turned on, a lot of the English on FirstVoices will disappear.
How to prepare your translations for Immersion Mode
While some of the labels on FirstVoices may be easily translatable into your language, others might pose a challenge. As an example, you may have a direct translation for the word "Welcome", but no existing translation for "Keyboards." The FirstVoices team is here to help, and has developed an easy spreadsheet to use when working with your language speakers to translate the labels.
Download the Immersion Mode spreadsheet
Click here to download the Immersion Mode spreadsheet
Translation tips from language teams
Here are some tips for translating the Immersion Mode labels from language teams who have gone through the process:
Don't be afraid to translate the label into something that makes sense for your language or community. We don't need a direct translation if it doesn't make sense!
Example: The Halq'eméylem team translated "Language Resources" to "It's good for learning"
If you are interested in creating a new word to describe something, try using an existing word as the base for it.
Example: The Halq'eméylem team translated "Our Keyboards" by using the word that means 'something to write with' as a base
The ḥiškʷiiʔatḥ team recommended looking back through records and other language materials to find suitable translations or to get ideas.
How to set up Immersion Mode
Once you have contacted hello@firstvoices.com and the FirstVoices Development Team has enabled Immersion Mode on your language site, it is ready to set up. To set up Immersion Mode, login to FirstVoices as a Language Admin and go to your Dashboard. Click on Edit and you will see Edit Immersion Labels:
On the Immersion labels page, there is an editable list of all of the existing Immersion Mode labels. These labels are buttons, headers, navigation links and other areas of FirstVoices that can be translated into your language.
To add a translation, click on the pencil icon next to the label. Here, you can select a dictionary entry that you have uploaded to your language site.
Choose a dictionary entry and Click Add Related entries. Then Click Save Changes.
Only public words or phrases will appear in the list. So, if your word or phrases visibility is set to “team only” or “members only” it will not appear. Simply make sure the visibility is set to “public” then it will appear.
You can also remove the label by clicking on the X on the label and save changes.
How to turn on Immersion Mode as a learner
Click here to learn more about how to turn on Immersion Mode as a learner.