Two weeks back I wrote a post asking whether readers Use American English, British English or do you Swing like the Canadians? – the resulting conversation was a great one with a variety of opinions offered.
It’s time for a new but related question – this time it’s directed at bloggers for whom English is a second language.
Which language do you blog in?
This question is a real one and one that I get asked quite a bit by people looking to start blogs. Here’s one question that arrived in my inbox today from Alonso (no URL as he’s yet to start his blog).
“Hi Darren, thank you for your blog. It has helped me greatly in preparing to launch my own blog. I do have one question thought that I am stuck on. I am from Argentina and speak Spanish as my mother tongue but in researching the topic for my blog have been wondering if I should write it in English to make my potential of greater size. Spanish is spoken by many people but it seems that blogs are read more by those speaking English. What would your advice be Darren?”
Alonso’s question is not isolated – in fact I get asked it every week. I’d be interested to hear what ProBlogger readers think and do? I’m particularly looking for the feedback of those who have English as a second language and who have been confronted with this choice.
I’m Dutch but choose to blog in English since there’s much more of an audience that can understand me in English. Having an Aussie girlfriend might actually have something to do with it :)
No matter your choice, you will be annoyed, angry and always doubting yourself about why not the other one ;)
I started blogging in German as my English at that point still was too bad, and today I am more likely not to blog at all because I can’t decide between my German and my English blog.
In case of the person asking the question it is a bit easier since spanish is much more spoken than German, but basically I can say that I have different audiences on both blogs.
For the nature of my writings, it makes more sense to write in english and try and get my german readers over; but this is more to the reason of having a personal blog.
For a topical blog I actually would look at the numbers competing with you. Yes there are more readers in english, but also more competition, and writing in your native language is most likely to be easier.
On the other side you can start with the native language and just copy it to the other language as well.
All in all – it is not going to be easy and as I said, there is always this feeling “i should have written it in the other language” ;)
I am German, live in Switzerland — and I do blog in German. This from my point of view gives a much more personal note towards ma main audience… German speaking part of Europe.
I’m Canadian, so I guess I “swing”, but primarily English for me.
I know German but never blog with it. :-)
I’m blogging essentially in Portuguese, but it’s very hard to get any money when writing in Portuguese. Well, maybe if I can reach a Brazilian audience, but then we get the problem of the differences from the Portuguese spoken on Europe and the one spoken on Brazil.
Does it have to be either/or? Why not both/and? The same post in two languages would work. Or even some topics in one language, some topics in another.
Here’s an example of a colleague who blogs in English and Italian:
http://mariogastaldi.com/category/english/?len=english
I’d say if Alonso has the skill and the time, perhaps he can post in both languages. There’s something to be said for serving the under-represented Spanish market, but most of the internet accessing world speaks at least some English. If you want to make money off your blog, having it available in English is probably wise.
Well this have been a conflict I have had with myself for a long time. My second language is English and I speak spanish, after long time of not being able to choose between one of them I have started preparing content in spanish and if I decide later that I’m going to start a blog in enlgish i’ll just translate it.
Is easier to translater it later that to write it all in English from the start.
I’m French but I blog in English. Greater audience and I live in Australia so it makes sens ;) Also to blog in English is a way to practice and improve my writing skills.
English is the top language in the Internet. 2,042,963,129 people understand English in the World and 30% of internet users are able to comprehend English. But Japanese has the highest Internet penetration.
I’m bloggin in Spanish. I think my English isn’t good enougth to have a decent English blog.
A disadvantage of english bloggin’ is that there are a lot of similar blogs (in my case I’m bloggin about geek culture and Linux). I’m confortable now with my blogging language.
Sergio and ChrisB are rigth, is a little harder make money not wirting in English
For a while, I kept a bi-lingual blog (Portuguese and English), but gradually it started turning into two different websites, as even within the same theme, the same content is not always relevant for both audiences. Now I keep two separate blogs, one in Portuguese (which is more for professional stuff) and one in English, just for fun. As a consequence, I find that I end up posting less on both of them… But the focus I can get on each of them is worth it.
I’m Chinese and normally use Chinese or dialect with friends, but my first language is actually English due to the education policies implemented in Singapore. I guess to me the answer is really direct – what is the target audience you are looking and writing for? Mine is predominantly English speaking.
deciding on the language to blog can be quite conflicting for us that speak more than one language, I would love to blog in my own Spanish language but then again I run the risk of not being understood the way I want to for I don;t know the technical terms or jargons of what I write of in Spanish. it’s really hard to explain something which you have learned with another language.
I’d say it depends on the audience. I am originally from Taiwan but have been in the United States for 9 years. I write one blog in Chinese and another in English, and it wasn’t difficult to decide on what language since the two sites have very different audiences.
The blog in Chinese is about professional baseball in Taiwan. I write parody / fake news articles that’s inspired by what’s going on in the baseball world. I use a lot of cultural references and spoof a lot of current events so it’s obvious that that kind of humor will not carried over. Besides, I write strictly about the Taiwanese baseball league, so you not only have to know Chinese, you also need to know the language of baseball to fully appreciate (or even understand it).
The blog in English is my puppetry blog. This site started out as a way of sharing my puppet videos with family and friends who are in the United States, so of course it’s going to be in English. I’ve also connected with some people that are in Canada, Australia, etc. in the process.
So yeah, I guess it all comes down to who your audience is. It’s actually similar to finding a niche. Deciding to talk in the language of English or French is much like deciding to talk in the language of marketing or crafting. =)
I’m French Canadian, and I blog in english.. Most of my traffic comes from english speaking countries anyways, so if I would have bloggued in another language, my audience would have been much, much smaller…
I’m an IT guy anyways, and IT only has one language: english.
I started blogging in english (http://www.tikidum.blogspot.com), but I am from Brazil, speaking portuguese.
So I have had one idea: to start another blog (http://www.tikidum.com/blog) where I could write in english and portuguese. It is working.
Now, I have one another blog (http://www.soprando.net) totally in portuguese, where I use to talk about my university cultural education experience.
I hope it can bring me some money and experience of blogging.
I am Malaysia Chinese. My primary language is Chinese(Mandarin). Secondary language is Malay Language. But I blog in English because I speak more and write more in English now. Almost 80% of internet users using/reading English. It’s a global language. I see no reason we don’t select it for blogging. :D
Hello There!
I’m a Filipino and our second language here in our country is American English. My blog is written in English to attract more readers worldwide that’s my way to promote and introduce our Island to the world.
You can install a Google translator plugin on your blog so if you want to blog in Spanish, all an English person has to do is click on the English flag and read it in English. It is that simple.
Granted, the translator may not be the best but considering google is used worldwide, it is doing something right.
What I would love to see is a blog in sign language for the hearing impaired.
English. Mainly because it’s my first language (I also know French), but also because there’s a larger audience.
I have one blog in Chinese and the other in English but I did not write a lot in my English one since that is for Chinese Tattoo Flash for Non Chinese speakers. I write more in my Chinese blog but contents ideas mainly are from news I heard here in USA.
French is my mother tongue and english is my second language. I chose to blog in BOTH languages at once. I translate everything I publish. Well, almost everything, sometimes it’s useless since only people from one or the other language will understand.
The drawback is that blogging is not as spontaneous than when you don’t have to translate everything.
I live in Mexico and I speak spanish (except when I am mad, I like to yell in aramaic) I am bloggin in spanish because I think this is the public that needs me the most. You have enough bloggers to keep you posted, so I have less visitors but it is worth It.
Keep the good work.
I recently attended the Cambodian Bloggers Summit. On the agenda was a debate “Is it better to blog in Khmer or English?”
I’ve summarized the points here:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/09/if-english-is-y.html
My summary of coverage of the conference is here:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/non-profits_and_web_20_real_world.php
I am Russian/Canadian and blog in English the way I have learnt (or learned?) it at school and brushed up later in Canada. I know some Russians who don’t speak English and blog solely in Russian at http://www.livejournal.ru/. Apparently they don’t read your blog, so I am responding on their behalf as well.
i’m a Chinese and study in singapore now. i blog in Chinese, i am thinking about when to start a English blog ~
I’m blogging in Polish. As Koki, I think my English is not so good to express my thoughts clearly.
And if there is someone who understand Polish, I’ve written post on “10 reason why to blog in Polish” recently: http://bloggerpl.com/2007/08/05/10-powodow-by-blogowac-po-polsku/
And I absolutely agree with preceding writers: there’s not much competition in other languages than in English but it’s difficult to earn money from blogging in other language.
The question is vital. I am from India and my mother language is Punjabi. Though Hindi is the language which is used mostly by the Indians. When I was to start my blog http://famefire.com I want to deal with Indian viewers. But when I came to know in order to get world-wide presence I must have to consider ENGLISH. As english is being spoken in almost every country.
I was thinking about starting a blog recently, but I can’t choose between French (I’m Canadian) and English.
– I think that my English is not good enough and I’m afraid that I wont be able to express my ideas in English
– I’m also afraid about my writing style that could be “bad” in English or at least not really enjoyable
– There is not a lot of French ppl on the Internet, but if I blog in English I feel that I’ll miss the part about giving French “one more blog” at least.
Also, I have some questions :
Should I try to write in both languages to improve my English at the same time ?
How can I improve my English ? Is there any tool (free or not) that can “spell check” . I got a lot of problems with verbs and where to put “S” and where not to…
Thanks for the post :)
I’m Dutch and I chose to blog in English as well. The reasoning behind it was mainly to reach a greater audience. If I would be blogging in Dutch, I would reach at max 25 million people in this world (Netherlands, Flemish part of Belgium, part of South Africa and all the expats in the world). English simply has a far bigger audience.
For Alonso this may not be so much of a case, as there are 22 countries in the world that speak Spanish (at least there were when I had Spanish classes).
Blogging in English isn’t really that hard for me, as we learn English fairly early in our lives in the Netherlands. Only when I do sketchcasts, I really notice that it’s my second language. While talking I get myself stuck in a sentence, and don’t have the proficiency yet to smooth talk myself out of it (like you would do in your mothertongue).
English is not my native language but i have to write blog in english. If i write blog in my native language then i’ll get readers only they belong to my region only. Blogging in English give you more oppertunities to get readers from all over the world.
My first language is spanish, and I’d love make all my posts bilingual (right now I only have one), but in my 8 months of blogging experience I’ve noticed some possible issues:
Time and effort. It would seem that once you have the post written in one language you just have to translate it to the other, but it’s not that easy. There are some expressions that don’t translate quite right or could make the wrong sense, so you have to rephrase them entirely.
Differentiation. It’s hard to be different when all bases are covered. For example, in my niches (I have a geology blog and a spelling one, both in spanish) there are several well-written blogs in english. However in spanish there are virtually no geology or spelling blogs.
Competition. Same as before. In my case I feel that it would be hard to compete with geology phD’s and my english spelling skills are not as good as my spanish skills.
Priorities. Should I write both languages in the same post or separately? Which one should I put first? How do I make the translation text to get noticed when the first thing you read is in another language? (a link? would people be willing to make an extra click?)
Subjects. This depends on the blog. When you start writing in another language you’re aiming to different cultures and interests, so you may have to rethink your post subjects.
Translators. Useless in my opinion. You still have a hard time trying to figure out words that don’t have a proper translation or don’t have a single translation or didn’t get translated at all.
My recomendation would be to start blogging in your own language for several months. In the meantime check as many english blogs in your niche as you can (comment! it’s very important as you’ll notice in my example). When you have established a decent audience start with one or two posts in english gradually (try to choose a general subject). That way you’ll be able to analyze the reaction of your existing audience and at the same time the response of your new english readers properly. For example, in my case I was invited to be part of a blog carnival. I didn’t get a lot of visits, but I was happy with the overall response, so I think I’ll keep going slowly.
Good question, I have the same problem with a site that I’m intending to build.
I am from the Netherlands so Dutch would be my first choice.
But than again, the thing that I love most about blogging is the interaction with other cultures.
So I decided to build my next blog with a .com and a .nl URL. I was reading in SEO book by Aaron Wall that this also has many SEO advantages (fantastic book BTW).
If my time (and my girl ;)) lets me I might even try to make a copy of it in the German language with a .de URL.
Hi. I’m a Japanese living in Singapore.
Since I spent my last 10 over years overseas, I have both English-speaking and Japanese-speaking friends and families.
I have blogged for about 5 years now – and I have been doing so predominantely in Japanese. All the while, my English-speaking friends and families have been nagging me to start a blog in English, too. ;-)
So now, I blog in both languages.
It may take double time to just finish blogging one article, but that’s the world I am living in: Bilingual World. And I’m quite happy with my choice.
I am so torn by this question. There is so much cultural value and knowledge embodied in blogging in one’s native language. There is such a large, diverse audience of potential readers who *do not* have adequate English to enjoy everybody’s ideas expressed in English, but of course English is often delivers the biggest audience most immediately. I strongly feel that bloggers who have some sort of ‘local’ focus should write in their native tongue where possible, translating to English if they have that skill (or vice versa, if appropriate). Maybe it would encourage all those horrendously monolingual English speakers to diversify a little;)
I’m Korean, and I speak Korean, so I’m blogging Korean :-)
I think if I use English for my blogging, more people can read my blog.
I am a Bengali (Indian), but English comes naturally to most of the educated class. In India, though English is a second language, still it is widely practised. In early times, British English was the preferred one but now the new generation speaks and writes American way. Regarding blogging and writing, English remains the first automatic choice for most of the Indians.
I’m from Quebec, so I speak french. I can speak spanish as well as english, but I’m writing almost 99% of my content in french.
I need more than juste beeing read by a lot of people, I want to be read by people from my country so it’s better for me to write in french. Also, the french market is big, and it’s easier ’cause there are less people writing in french than english.
I could eventually start a blog in spanish because I know very well latinoamerica and I think there will be lot more spanish readers in the next years, in a maket under-exploited.
I think it depends on the society and culture in the country you live in. In a country like ours (India), where there are a hundred languages spoken across every state, English is the medium of instruction that is used to communicate with people across different states. Blogging in English really makes sense.
Having said that, I recall reading about the resurgence of blogging in local Indian languages like Tamil and Hindi (which is incidentally our national language).
I guess the choice is also about the niche you blog for. If you mean blogging seriously, it’s important to think about the readers. And since not many of my colleagues speak English, my choice of mother tongue became quite clear and indisputable.
I blog in Thai because my english is limited. I can’t write all I want to expose in English, or the topic interests only Thai people. Sometimes I microblog in english. I rarely blog long post in english.
Being Welsh, it’s quite interesting.
Basically, whilst I blog in English, I have in the past blogged in Welsh, usually if I want to hide something (though not for over 3 years now), that blog is still getting found in search engines quite highly, and have gained a few new readers from it, even though my blog is usually in English (most Welsh speakers speak English anyway).
I was quite surprised as well when through my job we had to translate a site from English to French. The site in question translated fine and featured Google Ads on them. The google ads were in French, and never seen them before! Recieved quite a high CTR as well on them :)
My blog, http://www.internetling.com is dealing with the same topic as ProBlogger, but it’s in Slovenian. Although I am rather good in English I prefer to write in Slovenian. The market is extremely small, btu at teh same time, I became quite well-known in just 3 weeks!
I’m italian and I’m blogging in italian, ’cause my english is not so good :-(
I think if my blog were in english, I would have a bigger audience…
So, dear italian bloggers, let’s improve our english, if we want more readers (and more money, of course! :-D )
I am German, but having lived overseas and working in a job where most of the daily communication is in English, I write in English. Also due to the topic area I blog in and my work in forums.
i am hungarian, living in france. i started my blog back in hungary, and in hungarian, as at first i only thought about filling a hole in the hungarian blogosphere.
but then i soon realised the disadvantages of not writing in english, so i switched to bilangual, that i keep up still. it was a great decision, my traffic grew 9875634 times (exaggarating a bit :P) but i can still fill that hole for which i have started.
and i got great responses from both hungarians and outside the country, so it is definitely worth to spend 5 more minutes on each post translating it.
Although, I’m pretty accustomed to writing and speaking in english (most Greeks are), I made the conscious decision to use Greek as my blogging “language”. It’s really a “no go” – I mean, I feel obligated to use my language, to preserve it. Do you think we write correctly or speak correctly; We make grammatical and structural mistakes everyday. I see another valuable contribution of the blogosphere, and that is a new way for people to learn to make a better use of their native language, to enrich it and to preserve it in its ideal form.
Hi Darren,
Surely this is an obvious one:
Write For Your Target Market
To figure out your market you might need to think about your blogging goals, and that’s never a bad thing!
– Alastair.
Posted from a train on the way to BarcampGalway
I am Italian. In my first blog, which was about computer programming and is no longer active, I used English.
In my current blog, which is about science communication but is intentionally written for a local audience, I use Italian.