Have you ever wondered who’s hiding behind a Crowdin username? It’s time to find out! Contributor interviews are a great way of getting to know the people who participate in the PrestaShop project.

For the first interview of 2023, I interviewed Amirhossein Rezazadeh, aka AmirRzd.

Ranked 31st on the top translator page, Amirhossein is a translator and proofreader on the Persian project.

Hello AmirRzd! :-) Can you tell us more about yourself?

Hello! I’m Amirhossein Rezazadeh. I was born in 1987 in Tehran, Iran. I studied Electronics and left the MS program at the University of Tehran. After studying, I started full-time jobs, and I co-founded two businesses. The first one is called Gruccia, and the second one is Fasleaval.

I am currently CEO [Chief Executive Officer] at Gruccia. We are 18 people and we have more than 27000 SKUs [Stock Keeping Units]. Gruccia is an ecommerce company specializing in underwear, socks, and some other related categories, and it uses PrestaShop.

Fasleaval, on the other hand, is an agency specializing in PrestaShop products and services. We have provided tens of hours of free training videos from downloading PrestaShop up to some more advanced configurations. We also offer some themes and modules.

When I co-founded Gruccia in 2015, there was little to no training available to work with PrestaShop (at least in Persian). I remember that it was very difficult for me to get to know PrestaShop and start using it. From there, I promised myself that I would provide training for others – I was, myself, learning to work with PrestaShop at the same time.

And that’s how, less than a year later, Fasleaval was founded. We started uploading free PrestaShop training videos and I guess many people have used those videos so far to start their own ecommerce by PrestaShop.

A bit later, I signed up for the Ambassador Program. Since then, I have been the Ambassador of PrestaShop in Iran.

There are some other areas in PrestaShop in which I have volunteered:

I have also helped to teach PrestaShop in high schools in Iran. There’s one chapter in textbooks dedicated to PrestaShop and tens of thousands of students learn how to use PrestaShop every year since 2018.

I think PrestaShop is a proper platform to start and grow an ecommerce business. It has helped me create one and I try my best to let other people know PrestaShop is one of the best options for small-to-medium companies to take their business online.

How many languages do you speak?

I speak Persian as my native language and English as my second language. I also know German. I love learning as many languages as I can, so I also started to learn French but did not continue. I hope that I can soon follow up on that. I would also very much love to learn Chinese.

When and how did you get involved in translating the PrestaShop project?

I do not remember the time exactly, but I felt that the Persian translation needed some help and decided to sign up and help my fellow Persian translators. After a while, I asked to be a proofreader. Since then, I’ve done my best to get the Persian translation to reach 100% as soon as possible and keep it there.

What motivates you?

The main motivation in my life is making other people’s lives easier.

Whenever I can do something to help people tackle a problem I don’t hesitate to do so. I mostly do this for large groups of people rather than just one person. That’s the reason why I’ve created free training videos, started a group chat dedicated to PrestaShop with more than 1,000 subscribers, and also why I’ve gathered several developers and service providers among merchants to help them solve day-to-day problems.

What are your previous experiences in translation?

I am not a translator in that sense. I know English and Persian and I know PrestaShop and what most settings and options do. I also happen to know not to translate word by word, as sometimes English sentences are easy to understand but make no sense when translated word by word into Persian.

So, I try to keep the meaning and consider that not all merchants are tech-savvy people. I try my best to follow Persian grammar and keep all translations consistent. So to answer your question, I have never been a translator, unless I had to. I’ve been translating some other free open-source projects as well, from time to time.

Do you have any advice for new translators or proofreaders?

Before translating any string, make sure you know what it really does and what the message is: where, when, and how the user is going to see that string. Context is essential. Try to keep your translations consistent: add some repeated word translations to your translation memory to make it easier for you. If the translation of the original English string does not make sense in your language, try to rephrase it but still keep the original message.

Finally, as we enter a new year, how do you hope to see the PrestaShop project evolve in 2023?

I hope PrestaShop helps grow the number of developers and service providers worldwide. I know some merchants who migrate from PrestaShop solely because there are very few available developers. There are some of them, but most are overwhelmed by their current projects.

I tried to do something about this in Iran and kept contacting via email with different people at PrestaShop SA for more than 2 years but they just kept telling me “Next month”, so I gave up on them. But I am still trying to fight this on my own in Iran. It’s hard, but not impossible.

Is there anything else you want to add?

I want to thank everyone who has been involved in making PrestaShop what it is today. You are all awesome.

And a special thanks to Alex Even and iPresta for their work to make PrestaShop a fully RTL-ready platform at its core.

Thank you so much for your help! Keep up the great work 🙌

Are you interested in becoming a translator? Everything you need to know is available in our new translation guide. You can join us on the PrestaShop project, available on Crowdin.