If you’re a blogger where English is not your first language – I’d love to get your participation in this discussion.
Recently I surveyed subscribers to my newsletter on the challenges that face them going into 2010. Quite a few of the responses to that question came from bloggers for whom English was not a first language.
The problems that this group of bloggers presented to me were numerous but two recurring challenges were:
- Not knowing which language that they should blog in – should they blog in their own first language and have a smaller potential readership or blog in English where their readership could be larger but where they had challenges in writing as well?
- Feeling isolated from other bloggers – a number reflected that at times they felt that they were not taken as seriously by bloggers in other parts of the world and found networking difficult.
As a blogger who speaks no other language but English I’m probably not the person to bring much wisdom to this topic – however I’d love to get the thoughts, experiences, tips and stories of bloggers who have been in this situation in comments below.
My hope is that this post will not only give bloggers struggling with these and other issues a place to tell of their challenges – but that some might also share how they approach the challenges and give some tips and advice for bloggers from a non English speaking background. I’d also love to hear stories of (and see examples of) your successes (and those of others) as I know that the blogosphere is alive and well in all corners of the globe.
If you’d like to share in your own language and/or English I’m happy for you to do so in any way that you feel comfortable.
I’m looking forward to reading what is shared below.
For me, this was a question of last year. I have started blogging in English because if 5 people know what about I writing in my language, then in English it is about 5k and more (example).
And blogging in English is for me practicing and improving my written skills (which are not good at all;)
I decided to blog in english, but it hasn’t been that big of a problem for me because my english is quite good.
I use a text program that checks both spelling and grammar, and find that very helpful.
My advice is that if your english is fluent enough, you should blog in english. If not, you are probably not getting many english reading visitors anyway (your bad grammar is only going to annoy them!) and then you’re better off blogging in your own language.
“a number reflected that at times they felt that they were not taken as seriously by bloggers in other parts of the world”
As an English speaker, this is puzzling to me. I’m impressed by someone who can master a subject area AND a foreign language. While some folks whose first language is not English may stumble with grammar and usage from time to time (often due to inconsistent rules within the English language), their English is most certainly more understandable than my Spanish, French, etc.
Don’t let this stand in your way, folks.
Hey, Darren,
I’m from Brazil. I had some blogs but all on my native language, but, I always have read non Pt-br blogs: English, spanish and french.
Indeed, I do prefer blog in y own language and gather my local audience AND, if it would be possible, gather some foreign readers!
Goos topic! Keep with this great work!
I am from India. English is literally my 4th language but since I have studied English from primary school (now I am in engineering college), its not much of a problem to blog in English. It is some times become difficult to express yourself but it will improve in time.
If you are from non English speaking country worried if you can blog in English, I will advice do a English course. It will take only a month or two. Not only it will help in blogging but when you visit other countries it will come handy.
For those who think that others might take you seriously – Its happens a lot but when you start giving good content to your readers they will respect you and take you seriously.
One thing is for sure, it will be difficult task, especially getting respect from the English Speaking People. Non English people will support you from the start. I have now many fellow bloggers who help me. They are friendly with me. Most are from non English speaking countries but few are from English speaking country as well.
My best advice/suggestion is just go and blog for a month or two. If you are not able to cope up just ask me, I will help you.
I am Bulgarian and my native tongue is Bulgarian. I started several blogs and I write in English and in Bulgarian. But my problem is not writing in a foreign language – I think I speak English well and I don’t have problems in expressing myself.
The problem is that I am nut sure that I can tell something new and important to the world if I write in English. It is much easier to write in Bulgarian because I feel that I can tell someting important to my fellow people because I know them better. I feel unsecure when I write in English because I don’t know for sure if the people all over the world would appreciate what I write.
I am a blogger from Malaysia & I have been blogging since 2007.
I totally understand what do you mean by “isolation”- No one was paying attention to my article because it was written with bad grammar, but instead of quitting I made it as my motivation to keep on learning English. It is not an easy task, but I knew that if I choose to stay in my comfort zone I would never ever get to improve my English.
This process takes months, if not years to see some progress. Problogger & Copyblogger are always there when you need a guide on how to be a better blogger- all for free :P
The best moment of my blogging career was when I finally got the chance to contribute my guest post on Hongkiat.com, one of the most prestigious blog in design niche. Here’s the link to it:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/marketing-your-blog-10-essential-tips-you-should-know/
My advice? Blog in English, dont be afraid of mistakes, keep trying harder & not only it will improve your English but you get to meet some wonderful people from all over the blogosphere too. It doesnt matter if you blog with bad English, as long as your content has the meat, then I am sure you are on the right path on becoming a better blogger.
My name is Wojciech Majda, I’m from Poland. I’m blogging in Polish, and I’m not even considering bloging in English. First of all I have a blog about permaculture. That is completly empty niche in Poland. That’s very cool, because I’m first who is blogging about that in Polish, so everything what I would write or translate from English blogs or books about permaculture is totaly unique content. If I wouuld blog in English I would have to be very creative, do tons of research and still I would be one of many…
I prefere to have 100% of smaller cake, than some scraps (if any) of a big one.
I’m a Malaysian with my native tongue being Chinese. As most of my friends or acquaintances can’t read Chinese, I blog in English. Also I blog in English in order to improve my English writing.
cool.actually um a newcomer in this blog..thanx man for sharing. gonna try it out for my own blog.
Darren, thank you for a great topic! Since I am Polish in my heart and mind, the matter is something I can easily relate to.
* * *
“Not knowing which language that they should blog in”
Although my mother tongue is easier for me to use, I try to keep numbers in mind. If we estimate there are 500 million English-speaking users out there (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm) and approx 15 million from Poland, my potential range of influence is more than 30 times smaller using Polish. Bear in mind that many of my fellow countrymen speak English. The same applies to users from other non-English countries. In other words, the reach of content written in English is probably much broader than 0.5 billion!
I practice thinking there’s no other language *but* English. At least on the Internet. I know it’s not easy when one uses German, French or Polish daily, but as always… practice makes perfect. There are many helpful resources available. One that comes to my mind instantly is The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White (http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html or http://www.bartleby.com/141/).
* * *
“Feeling isolated from other bloggers”
If we blog in a language different than English, this lack of connection is quite understandable.
One thing that is even more difficult to change than the language itself is how we think. For example, when a Swede, a Frenchman or a Chinese attempts to be funny *in English*, it is likely that an Australian, an Englishman or American won’t find it funny at all. This applies to emotional situations in particular. That’s where communication details kick in–in a way, you have to think & feel in a particular language, and not only be able to use its words. I believe this is an important reason why cross-cultural connections might be more difficult to create & maintain. (There are exceptions which prove it is possible nonetheless!)
Adding a touch of otherness has its benefits too–a different perspective, experiences, and ability to reach a distinct audience (locally). Many bilingual bloggers become the avant-garde of the “local Internet”–importing new ideas to national markets. Here’s a prominent role to play.
Greetings!
twitter.com/lech
Hi Darren. I am from Czech Republic and I write only in my native language, not in English, because I make a lot of grammar mistakes. :-)
Thank you for great posts.
Dear Darren,
First , am a big fan of your blog and thanks for all the resources. I am a professor of marketing who blogs about Indian brands and marketing practices. I have been blogging for the past five years and build one of the largest collection of analysis of Indian brands.
I blog in english and had no hesitation in choosing the language because my audience are able to understand the language better. India is a country with hundreds of language dialects and hence blogging in native language does not give much space for you to develop.
Another issue in blogging in non-english language is that adsense may not be able to give targeted ads since am seeing lot of public service ads in non-english language blogs.
thanks once again for all those insights you have been sharing through this blog
cheers
I am Indonesian Blogger and I have been blogging since 2009. I have several blogs written in Indonesian and English. Blog in Indonesian to branding myself and blog in English to make money.
Actually a lot of interesting topics are written by Indonesian bloggers, but they still write in Indonesian. Usually they are not confident to write in English, so that narrows their opportunities in monetize their blog.
Oh hey Darren.
This article applies for me as well, I am a guy from a Hungarian minority from Romania, I speak Hungarian on a native level, Romanian and English on a quite advanced one, and also some German. Blogging is only an option in English for me, I don’t feel like I could have reached a real audience on the Hungarian market.
I can see a whole bunch of not-native bloggers out there writing very good content!
Zoli
I’m living in Sweden but blogging in Finnish. My blog has grown quite a bit since its start in august 2008. Last month I had 12.000 visitors on my blog. Not bad for a blog which publishing language is only spoken by roughly 6 million people in the world.
The idea of blogging in English have crossed my mind several times, at least from a learning point of view. And, of course a bigger audience is not a disadvantage in that perspective.
Well, I’m from Holland and i’m only writing in dutch, mainly because i think my english isn’t good enough for writing. Reading is no problem.
In my opinion it’s the best approach to blog in your motherlanguage. It’s quite hard to keep it going on th long term to write in a language which you have to think about longer then normal. Thats for me with english the big problem.
There is also less competition in another language, In english it’s hard to succeed, to stand above the crowd.
My dutch website is succesfull i can say, but i think it hasn’t been this succesfull in english.
Hey Darren,
I´m from Brazil and this is a topic I have discussed frequently with friends during the past months.
For a while I have wanted to start a blog about cocktails of my own, since I’m pretty active in this niche and also work in the booze consulting industry.
Most of my booze blogger friends write in English and this would be pretty natural for me, both as a way to interact with them and to find more readers.
At the same time I feel like a lot of the information I have gathered and want to share will be much more relevant to the Brazilian market. Finding information about quality cocktails in Portuguese is not always easy and a big “evolutionary gap” occurs between cocktail trends around the world and in Brazil.
The solution to my dilemma was: Start two blogs, one in Portuguese and one in English.
The Whys:
– The content I want to write about might have been covered before in one language, but not in the other. Having two blogs allows me to decide to whom my content is more relevant and deliver the most relevant content to these people.
– Not all products used for cocktails around the world are available in Brazil. Separating content helps me write more in sync w/ the realities of bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts here.
– I feel like bilingual sites MUST have 100% of the content available in both languages. I´m not satisfied with the bilingual blogging plugins and tools available and I don’t want to HAVE to translate everything I write.
– I don’t like the idea of having comments in two languages in the same place as I’ve seen in some blogs. I feel like some people are left out of the discussion.
– Translation tool suck depending on the niche you write about, they are out of question in my case.
– If content is relevant to both languages all I have to do is include a link with the translation on the top of the posts.
– Having a .com.br domain for the Brazilian site might help a bit with local search traffic.
– I feel like the sites would be more searchable and better optimized for bots if languages are kept in different domains, but I might be wrong here.
– List goes on …
I´m a beginner and don’t want to bite more than I can swallow so I’m starting w/ just the Portuguese blog and will start the English blog once I get a bit more comfortable.
I´ve set up an RSS Feed for English posts for the Portuguese site. This way I can still interact with my blogger friends and they can keep updated with what I write without having to navigate a Portuguese site. This will be very useful for carnivals and blogging events quite frequent in my niche. Also they can be informed when the English site goes online.
I hope my 2 cents are helpful to someone and would love to hear opinions about my choices.
Cheers,
Tony Harion
I blog in spanish mostly. However, once I wrote a post called “Crossing Over”. It was about sales and I wrote it in english just as an experiment. Against my predictions, it turned out very well received. It got a lot of comments, specially from my LinkedIn network.
I find that my brain works strangely, and some topics I just feel more fluent if I write in english, and some others just come up naturally in my head in my native language.
I think this is a blessing and I have decided to open a second blog, just for my english written posts. This way, I can feel free to share my ideas in any other language, depending on how they seem better structured in my mind.
Thanks for asking for our opinion at ProBlogger. This is a great opportunity for Non enlish bloggers to participate in the “big leagues” of blogging, and also, it makes us feel more included inside the mainstream blogosphere,
Best regards from mexico
Aureliano Garcia
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
My name is Wojciech Majda, I’m from Poland. I’m blogging in Polish, and I’m not even considering bloging in English. First of all I have a blog about permaculture. That is completly empty niche in Poland. That’s very cool, because I’m first who is blogging about that in Polish, so everything what I would write or translate from English blogs or books about permaculture is totaly unique content. If I would blog in English I would have to be very creative, do tons of research and still I would be one of many…
I prefere to have 100% of smaller cake, than some scraps (if any) of a big one.
Hello :)
I am Egyptian/American. I love writing since I was a child. I started writing in poetry and short stories in Arabic and in English when I became comfortable enough to do so, I was a teenager by then. I speak read, write, and understand both languages fluently. At times, after speaking Egyptian Arabic for a while on the phone with my family, I find myself making some grammar mistakes (in both languages) for a few minutes, but eventually I manage to get a grip and better process my sentences. I think it is only because, your brain needs a minute (hypothetically speaking) to adjust, just like your computer, you need to give it time before you switch from one language to another or it will give you technical error messages.
Your words reflect your style, your emotions, thoughts, and your take on what’s going on around you. Your readers should take the time to understand and perceive your message instead of picking on your grammar mistakes. Stay true to yourself, and do not compare your writings to other writers, because they are not you.
My personal advise is to write in whichever language you more comfortable with first, then take your time to translate it into English. Besides, there are so many affordable, even free, software or links to check your spelling and grammar after you are have finished your writing. This way you will reach a bigger audience, but the only trick is to know your audience, what some cultures/readers are interested in might be a whole a lot different from the rest. Then again, knowledge is an endless mine and anyone can pick and choose what they like!
I hope this helps :)
Sincerely,
YZ
PS: When someone picks on your grammar mistakes for whatever reason they may have, you can always turn it into another topic and laugh about it ;)
I’m from Québec and I blog almost exclusively in french, and I also have a blog in spanish. On one of my blog I sometime translate some of my posts in english, but I’ve found that the posts I’m writing in french bring me (a lot) more traffic.
I’m doing this since almost 4 years, and now I live from blogging, I’m not rich but I can still live from blogging. That’s my job while studying. I would say I’m one of the very few people who can live of blogging in Québec, but I feel writing in french (my native language) is something necessary for the heritage of my country. Also, the subject of my blogs force me to write in french, because it would make no sense to speak about Québec society, economy, politics, etc., in another language…
I’ve found that writing in french (and also in spanish) can bring me more traffic, because the market is not over-saturated like in english. I have traffic from Québec, from France, from french speaking country in Africa and also from US. For the same niches, in english, I feel I would not add any value since almost everything already exists in english.
Just to tell to everybody that it’s possible to be successful and live of blogging even if it’s not in english. Who know, writing in your native language could make you more popular locally, then you’ll be able to drive more traffic internationally.
Am from Nigeria quite alright we speak english but not polished english. English launguage might have a negative effect on your business especially if your clients comes from the western world and if you must write in your local dialect you can setup as many blogs as your wish and outsource the english article writing aspect to an english man.
Personally, i don’t do any of that. I write my articles my self and i make a decent amount of money every month. Maybe am not bad in english as i thought.
John Benjamin
Earn Money.
Hi Darren,
nice idea and post.
I’m italian and, yes, I don’t know, actually, which language I should blog.
And, obviously, it’s very difficult to get a networking with foreign bloggers due to different languages.
My idea for 2010- and my purpose and challenge too- is improving my English, and beginning to run a blog- or 2, maybe- in English.
My language is limitated to Italy. English is understandable all over the world.
I agree with other bloggers in these comments that it’s difficult to write in English, due to a lot of grammar mistakes :)
I read every day in english, and I think excercise is the only secret to write in a good english.
I’m from Estonia but I only blog in English. So far as I remember I’ve always been fascinated with the language.
Since I haven’t used it for already about 5 years – in spoken language I mean – some grammar mistakes tend to appear much often and my sentences also might not be that perfectly put to English. But thanks to several wonderful plugins that make corrections the end result shouldn’t be that bad.
Why I decided to blog in English? Mainly because I love the language and want to practice it in any way possible.
Secondly to have a much bigger readership. If I’d blog in Estonian my success would be close to a bit fat zero.
Thank you Darren for creating this discussion. It was definitely interesting to read about other bloggers.
Keep up the good work!
Hello Darren,
I’m a Mexican blogger writing a technology blog in Spanish.
I’ve found most of the same problems previous commenters had like difficulty finding ways to promote my blog since most of the “blog networks” or “blog carnivals” are in English.
I wouldn’t adventure to write a blog in English due to grammar and spelling errors. It’s already hard work to do it right in Spanish!
[fair warning just in case: my blog is not safe for work]
My first language is Russian, but I’ve lived in England for the last 8 years. When I started blogging in 2006, I knew that I *wanted* to blog in English, but I was embarrassed of making mistakes. Up until then, I’d had every piece of writing I did for my university work checked before it went anywhere. There were always mistakes.
However, I couldn’t expect my friends and family to proofread every blog post: it’s one thing to read a university paper every few weeks, but having them read a blog post every day would be taking advantage.
So I thought I’d just put up a disclaimer about being a non-native-speaker, and plunge ahead as best as I could.
Guess what: I’m celebrating my 4th bloggerversary in a month, and I haven’t had a single complaint about an occasional grammatical glitch. There’s moaning about content sometimes (post more of that! post less of this!), but nobody has ever been rude about my grammar.
So there you go :)
Hi Darren! Great question!
I’m from Norway and have blogs both in my mother tounge (Norwegian) and in English. I’ve been blogging for years in Norwegian (since 99, actually). I started my first English blog in 2005: http://mylifeinbudo.blogspot.com/ It’s a personal project, detailing my discoveries in japanese martial arts.
For my first serious try as a blogger I started a Joomla CMS blog: http://www.joomlablogger.net/
I decided to write in English. It was obvious that I would reach a lot more people that way. It’s been a great experience – and I think my English has improved by writing regularly.
I use a spell checker and have a blog buddy (also Norwegian) read through some of the posts. I also have a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms which I consult to get some variation into my language. It’s been a great help and a nice learning tool.
To be a better writer, I try to read as much as I can in English, both blogs, novels, inspirational writing and technical stuff. I also have Flash cards from http://www.vis-ed.com to improve my vocabulary.
To be honest, I have not experienced any difficulties this far. The Joomla community is very international, so I think people are quite are quite forgiving when it comes to language mistakes.
It might be an issue for other blogs I plan for the future, though. Nice to read other people’s experience on this.
Thank you so much for writing such an inspiring blog, Darren. I’m here every day :)
Take care!
Hello Darren,
I’m ukrainian blogger and I blog in ukrainan. I still have a plan to start slow translation of my few posts in english, but looks like I’m too lazy for this.
But sometimes I’ll do this. I’m sure :)
Hi all,
My name is Jørn and I’m Norwegian. For me it was never an issue. It was English all the way and although I make a few mistakes along the way, I haven’t been bothered much by spelling mistake sticklers. I started my blog Soundtrack Geek in December 2007 as a spur of the moment kind of thing. I’ve always been interested in film music and so I just started it without any plan whatsoever. Perhaps not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but here I am in January 2010 and I am proud of my blog that is now the world’s biggest in my niche.
Recently I’ve been pondering whether to start a blog in Norwegian as well, but the funny thing is that I don’t know if I can write in my native language anymore. I’ve been writing in English for so long I guess I’ve forgotten how to write in Norwegian.
I could probably write lengthy posts about this subject, but here’s a few tips from one non English speaker/writer to another:a
1. Just start.
Even if your English skills aren’t that great, you have to start somewhere. I didn’t know what I was doing when I created my blog. My first posts where quite terrible as well, but I kept writing. Every single day for 90 days I wrote English posts and guess what, I didn’t get comments about my English, instead I got comments because the posts were interesting. Occasionally, there will be people trying to break you down by telling you that your grammar sucks etc. Don’t let them get to you, keep going and you will be successful.
2. Forget grammar, think content
Some of the most interesting blog posts I’ve read online have been written with many grammar and spelling mistakes. I feel sorry for the people who lose out on the great content out there if they decide to concentrate on spelling mistakes instead. Yes it is said too much, but it’s true. Content will ultimately be the pillar of your blog. Write interesting posts, write everyday (at least in the beginning) and you will witness your blog growing day by day.
3. Be yourself
Whatever you do, don’t try to be Shakespeare or some famous newspaper columnist. If you do, then you will fail and people will not enjoy what they read. Be yourself, make mistakes, but most of all have fun writing about what you love.
Already mentioned this, but have fun!
Thanks Darren for bringing it up. It’s an important and interesting topic.
I am from Taiwan, but I’ve already lived in the U.S. for 11 years. I write about puppetry and use my online presence to connect with other puppeteers and puppet-builders, so everything is in English. My background allows me to provide information about Taiwanese puppetry that nobody else can really provide, so I guess that’s sort of my niche.
Since I only started in blogging, and yet to make my first WordPress blog, I really don’t have a definitive answer.
However, some things can be harder for us than for you. For me personally, English is not a problem, maybe just a little, but nothing significant.
My mother is an English teacher, so I’ve had quite a rough childhood learning English – however, now I am glad she pushed me because I see how much potential I have now when I can write in English almost as well as I can in my mother tongue.
When you mentioned isolation, I think there is something in there, because in my situation I am from Croatia, a country with less than 4.5 million citizens, and in a group of transition countries with a lot of problems in economy, living standards and political stability. So, maybe, a word of advice from me, who originates from a small country with small and weak economy, might not be taken as seriously as from someone who is from UK, USA or Australia, which have big economies.
However, those are the barriers and the boundaries that we, bloggers from that type of countries and states, will have to crush and overcome.
Hi everyone I’m from Poland, and also a beginer in blogging world.
I have 1 blog about earning money from blogging where i write in polish.
The market is full nad i do not have much profit ftom that, so I’m considering about start to write in english bot i’m still undecided.
Whatever language you want to post in it’s very important to have your software also be in that language so readers can leave comments.
Since the icons are all in the same place it is possible but it can be a little intimidating.
I know a person who does not know anything about English Language but he is on 6 figure income per month and from that what we understand that if he can do it why not we.
Your articles are awesome and very interesting..
Thanks
Make Money Online
Hello
I’m a moroccan guy, i’m not starting yet blogging in english, because i’m afraid that my blog doesn’t succed, but i’beggin learning writing in english, so i need some tips :)
Hi!
I am Spanish and I write my blog in Spanish.
When I started writing I thought about doing it in English or in Spanish, but I was more comfortable with the second option.
My English is not very fluent, and I realised that I did not need to have a wide audence but only write the articles that were more interesting for me.
Is English the best language to have more readers? Yes.
IS English the best language to write blogs? It depends on the goals you have.
Clever!
This is very inetersting post. Speaking Slovak is nice and the language is beautiful for speaking for me. On the other side for writing it’s more dificult to use. It’s simply more complex.
I read 70/30 – (English/Slovak) and write 70/30 (Slovak/English).
You can imagine now Darren.
Great post Darren! I started my first blog in english language, because I think is understandable all over the world. However, there’s a lot of blog out there that make 6 figure income per month without having a blog in english language.
Hi, I’m from Austria and I blog in English. I’ve a rather pragmatic approach to the issue of language: how large do you want your potential target audience to be? The effort of writing is the same, whether I write in German or in English. Writing in German would automatically limit the total number of readers, however. By writing in English, I can address people across the globe.
In many of your previous posts you mentioned correctly that the building of a community is extremely important. The topic of my blog relates to amateur microscopy. This topic is so specific, that there are only few German language blogs with a similar content. I think that it would be very difficult to build a community – on whose blog should I post comments? For this reason it was clear from the beginning that my blog should be in English.
I’ve tried some automatic translation packages to broaden the reader base, but was not satisfied with the result. My blog contains simply too many technical terms. Does anyone know of a good automatic translation plugin for WordPress?
My first language is Russian, but my blog pl8s.org is mostly in English. Actually, it is a photoblog and it consists mostly of the pictures. Language barrier? I don’t know, my visitors are probably too nice to punch me in the face.
My other blog, or rather mirror blogs, may be of more interest as a case of bilingual project – hammeredandsickled.com for English readers and the mirror blog sickledandhammered.com for Russian readers. Both are still on a start up stage, but since you’ve asked…
By saying “If you’re a blogger where English is not your first language”, you’re obviously assuming the person has an accent, has bad grammer, and doesn’t live in a country that frequently speaks English.
English is my third language, but after 7 years of living in Canada, I have no accent, I can speak it fluently, I write in it really well (I’d like to think) — I even think in it!
If I was still living in my mother country (which is who your post is really directed to, even though you failed to mention it), I would not even attempt to blog since I (would’ve) made many spelling mistakes and bad grammar — I wouldn’t blame all the people who would cringe at my blog posts and walk away, since I do the same thing now seven years later.
The question posed here is relevant, since blogs usually have two different dimensions, inform and connect.
Spansh being my mother Languange, and Chile being a very small country with a still low english literacy, if I want to inform locally and connect witn the relevant actors in the subjects of my interest, it cannot be done in one language.
My particular choice has therefore been to blog in english.
I started writting in Spanish, but then I created a new blog-website in english that is going pretty better, they are in the same niche.
The advantage with english language is that there are more social media tools, or at least they are more powerful in english.
The stumbleupon for example, sometimes gives me 300 visitors in a day,most of them people from india and indonesia. And when I try in Spanish, I receive 20 at most.
With this blog in English ( The Web Tycoon) I developed many social media tricks that I’m using in a Spanish website about blogs I recently created ( http://www.juegosylibros.com ).
The advantageof writting in Spanish is that there Isn’t as much competition in SEO and although having smaller niches, I receive more traffic from Google.
Hi, I’m from Spain. I launched my blog on psychology and productivity 2 months ago, after endless arrangements. My initial intention was making it bilingual, but the tech problems were finally too hard for a rookie like me, so I finally chose English, because most of the blogs I read are written in English, and I think the English blogsphere is more mature, more focused on providing good content and solving problems.
Yes! Blogging in other languages and have it made easy would be very much welcomed. I would love to start blogging in Spanish. My interest is a blog where people could communicate and share their stories of losing weight, staying healthy and overall just being happy!
I welcome any commentaries on this.
I’m from IRAN so we speak in Farsi known as Persian too. At the time which i decided to start i was thinking about the language, which i want to write. there is some advantages with local language as you write, readers will start to recognize you as an expert in the field so you may get new job opportunities. as here in iran none of the money blog making services exists (no adwords, minor local pay/click plans only, no affiliation) so this can help us make money. Also there is less competition when you write in your own language, So less reader. But as there is a good potential in English language market I was thinking about starting a blog in English but in another niche. As I’m blogging in IT niche I have very powerful potential competitor in this field so i decided to choose a niche which is strongly depends on my geological situation, this way there would be no competitors. By starting my local blog also i got good skills, now i can start my English blog much more strongly.
Hello, I am blogging about autism in french and english. The french blog is more successful because a lot of people are participating, and it is my first language. You can check them at http://autismeinfantile.com/ [fr] and http://autismandchildren.com/ [en].
We have quite a community over there, sharing tips about autism and how to live and help a child with PDD. I wish the english blog will find a readership in 2010, as well as some bloggers to write articles.
Hello Darren,
Thank you for adressing this issue, as it’s been one for me. My first language is french.
I’ve been blogging on and off since 2005. At first, I did it in french and, as I was taking blogging more seriously, I started to wonder what to do.
The first thing I did was to try an “english & french” written blog. But a social media expert told me not to do this as my blog wouldn’t be reffered as well by the search engines.
So, exactly like a business, I had to ask myself WHO my market was. I realized that I wanted to connect with people who spoke and english & reach a larger audience in a niche. So I did it in english.
Now, the thing is that, I read many blogs in french as well and there is a community I would like to join. So, to reach this different market, I’m thinking about opening a second blog in french.
One of the greatest thing about blogging in english is that, not only do you reach the anglophone community, but you also reach most communities of the world. I discovered many wonderful artists because they blogged in english.
(Oops, I hit the “submit” button too quickly!)
Thanks again for asking, it is a -very- interesting question. :-)