At the Repair Café where I volunteer, I welcome people and their devices while they wait for a technician. Sometimes, I’ll quickly look something up on iFixit and show them that a guide already exists for their problem.
The reaction is almost always the same:
“I hadn’t even thought about looking this up!”
That moment only works when the guide is in their language.
If I provide them with English results and offer to translate on the fly, the magic is gone. Repair becomes something that requires an expert. A language expert is still an expert. For DIY repair, for that spark, you need to be able to do it yourself.
We recently launched FixBot to bridge that gap. FixBot will respond to questions in many different languages, but it’s only one part of the solution. If it points a German speaker to guides in English, they might give up. For people who don’t instinctively search in English or don’t know the technical terms, having repair content available in their native language is still the most reliable way to make repair feel accessible.
Knowing English ≠ Searching in English
If you’re reading this in English, especially from the US, it’s easy to assume that language isn’t really part of the repair problem. After all, English dominates the internet, and a lot of technical content is written with English-speaking readers in mind. Just as I’m writing this article in English first right now, although I’m neither a native speaker nor living in an English-speaking country.
But that perspective is shaped by privilege. Even for Europeans working in international companies, like me, it’s easy to fall into this bubble. We might be comfortable navigating unfamiliar interfaces, but that’s often not the case for the people around us.
In Germany, for example, English is taught in school to a degree that ensures most younger people have a basic understanding of it. But most people don’t use the internet the way international tech workers do. They don’t use English when they search for things online. English is for interfacing with something foreign, outside yourself. A native speaker is going to seek knowledge in their native language. Search engines will then serve information matching terms in that native language. Think of yourself for example. Maybe you love Chinese food, and you’re looking for a noodle recipe. Will you be searching in Mandarin or your native language? Which language would better serve your needs?
When non-native-speakers are attempting something they’ve never done before, they’re far less likely to trust instructions that only come in English-only. There’s now a barrier of learning the unknown thing, and the barrier of a less-comfortable language. That ups the risk of even a simple task, and first-time repairs are a perfect example. Using your native language doesn’t just make instructions easier to read; it lowers the perceived risk of trying at all.
iFixit was built in English first. A repair guide that only exists in English is still a kind of lock. The language determines who finds it, recognizes repair as an option, and feels confident enough to try. The core ethos of iFixit is repair for everyone. We’re actively working to fix, well, fixing. Countless hours of localization effort and hundreds of volunteer translators have helped, but keeping up with the pace of new instructions published every day is still a challenge.
Adding to the challenge, although a lot of the electronics world is global, there are still devices that are only or mostly made in one region. For instance, the German television brand Metz sells millions of units per year in Germany, but we don’t yet have any guides covering their products.
So, how do we fix it?
You Can Help Lower the Barrier
This International Mother Language Day, you can help change who gets to discover repair, by translating an already existing guide or creating localized content for devices popular in your region.
Participation is how languages—and communities—earn a lasting place on the platform.
Let’s fix more than devices. Let’s fix who gets to discover that repair is even an option.
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