The Waze Community, aka the everyday heroes behind the app, have helped build Waze into the real-time, social navigation tool that saves you time whenever you hit the road. And today, their dedication has helped usher in another milestone moment: Waze is now available in more than 50 languages, including all-new additions Azerbaijani and Uzbek.
Thanks to the commitment of more than 700 passionate translators over the last 9 years, Waze has gone from one language (not even a voice prompt!) to representing nearly every corner of the Earth. With each new voice and language added, the app has become more open and more accessible to new groups across the world, helping us grow to 100M users strong. And as our data shows, our community is as diverse as our voices:
Our journey to reach 51 languages has been anything but dull. Along the way, we’ve learned a lot — improving the process to make collaboration easier (and quicker!), and revisiting old voices to make sure we’re giving Wazers the best experience we can. But enough from us — we think the folks from our community tell the story best…
Hungarian translator and Map Editor, Wazer Marcedli shares his early experiences with the Waze Community:
“Coming from a country where most of the people only speak one language, the key to making Waze popular was to translate it. And not only the application, but all the features too…in the early days, when it was easier to edit on Android devices, we even had another Hungarian Wazer get creative, and create voices packs for R2D2 and Chewbacca. Even though it was hard to understand any guidance, laughing and satisfaction were both guaranteed while driving.”
A first-time translator, Wazer Calandraca, helped bring Galician (a romance language spoken primarily by people in the northwest region of Spain) to the world of navigation apps for the first time. She shares:
“It was a challenge for me. It was my first translation experience for a mobile application and my first collaborator didn’t actually know the language. But with help from another Wazer, we did it all: translating, recording the voice, and beta testing. I do it because Waze is full of lovely people!”
Community member Dewitg explains why he decided to join the Waze Community as part of the team that translated Waze into Spanish and Catalan:
To help Waze, and people speaking my language get places easier. Waze is a good navigation app, but the magic of Waze is really behind the screen. Waze has an amazing community of fantastic people, and I feel lucky to have met so many of them.
Greek translator Enfant_Terrible describes what motivated him as he translated (and recorded!) his very own Waze Voice:
“I actually recorded my own demo of Greek voice prompts, before even knowing about the international community behind Waze’s localization. My inspiration was Stephen Colbert and his hilarious celeb guest voice prompts. I just loved every minute of driving with them on!”
Big and small, each interaction a Wazer has with the app makes an impact. If you’re interested in going big and doing your part to make Waze more accessible to people around the world, join our Localization Community. And for up-to-date information from the world of Waze, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
