Start participating in project

Hello!
I want to start participating in OO projects. Would like to write own
code to help OO and to get necessary experience in programming. I am a
student so don't have much experience. Can you tell me how i can start
developing. I saw about translating snippets to different languages. I
can get java snippet and rewrite it on c++ for example? Am I correct?
Why it is necessary? Is there other ways to start for beginners (i am
interested only in programming)?
Thank you!
Vitaliy Kiselev.