I want to contribute with Hacktoberfest but i'm a beginner in programming: what can i do?
Tags: hacktoberfest, opensource, contributorswanted, translations
Published: 2020-10-16 17:07:43

* The HacktoberFest is an open-source developer event where everyone is encouraged to contribute for the global community through Pull Requests made in any public repositories/projects that contains "hacktoberfest" label in GitHub.

* The event started October 1 and the Pull Requests can be realized anytime between this date until October 31.

The event site says _"if you're a developer, student, event host or an company of any size, you can help",_ but a lot people are inhibited because they believe it's hard to contribute since they don't have "enough" knowledge in programming to help in the growth in any repository.

That was my case, but I decided not to make this a problem. I entered in HacktoberFest community in Discord (where I was very well received by EVERYBODY) and I searched for projects with minimal HTML, CSS or Bootstrap things where I could make some difference, since I'm beginning in front-end and I was so sad because I didn't find ANYTHING for my profile...

I was very frustrated but, some days passed and I decided to contact some people in the Discord community again, that posted their repositories before with names like "Libraries to help you in your studies", and it occurred to me that I could make some translations in these libraries for Brazillian Portuguese (it's a fact that Brazillian programmers don't have enough quality material translated for our language to study).

Well, I got in contact with them and could you imagine my happiness when they said that I could do it? Most people agreed with this idea and allowed me to make these translations in the repos, so I made some Pull Requests and in a conversation with one of the members of the community, he suggested for me a first try to translate the strings variables in some softwares, in another words, he wants me to create a brazilian version of some specific software.

I was very surprised with this suggestion, but I've accepted because I think that was a nice form to contribute, and my test with this new mode was with their own repo. I made the translations in all front-end software and he not only accepted my Pull Request, but also said that he will look for me to make other translations in some softwares he needs.

After that, I realized how the issues (issues are like permissions to do something in some repo) that I had opened before were growing with a lot of people that wanted to translate that repository for their language.

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/26s2qto4rplrkldkayas.jpg)

>**Okay, but what message do you want to get across with this history?**

Do you want to help the open-source global community? Then you can! No matter your knowledge level, when you decide to help, talk with the community, contact some friends, explore your skills the most you can! There is no better feeling than contributing to someone else’s project somehow.

Besides being good for repo owners, it's a big advantage for you too! Contributing is an extremely valued attitude in the programming world!

Don't limit yourself thinking you don't have enough talent, try your best and do whatever you know. I'm sure that the open-source community will be very welcoming and help you the most they can!

> And I'll be too! If you want some help with this, send me a message and I'll do my best to help you!