I’ve been thinking about the languages we see on the web, not least after seeing “Multilingualism in a Global Web” and realised that something I really want out of the web is more languages. I have some Swedish sites I know of, being a swede and all, as well as a couple pages in Japanese, but I’m really missing out on other languages it feels like.
I really like seeing many parts of the world in my everyday life, and the struggle of reading something in a language I barely know or through a scuffed translation program is quite rewarding in its own right!
On that note, do y’all have any non-english websites you like? I’d love to see them! Maybe you even have parts of your website that’s in another language? I myself like to add some small Swedish elements here and there – oftentimes with translations but nowhere near always, mostly because my main target audience is, well, me! Do you do anything similar? Please show me!
Here are some pages in Swedish I like:
(I hope to be able to compile a list of interesting sites in different languages later down the line, to put on my site lol)
I’m a monolingual English speaker, but I’m trying to learn a minority language - Irish. Because there are so few Irish speakers, and almost no monolingual Irish speakers, there are not many Irish language websites. One exception that may interest Yesterwebbers: Gaelchló, which offers free fonts based on historic Irish language typefaces! See if you can find the fabulous 1930s pulp novel covers…
I’m a bilingual French and English speaker, and I’ve been trying to learn a few other languages here and there. My website is currently very small, but I went through the process of translating every page to French, except the blog posts.
I’m in a phase where I wonder if blogging is really enjoyable for me, and I’m thinking of trying to do it more in French, see how it feels.
On that note, I really like Ploum’s approach to a multilingual website. It’s in two languages, but without too much of a hard distinction. It’s mostly French, with English bits here and there. The blog is more clearly divided (you can get a feed of just one or both languages), but it’s cool how you don’t really have to “choose a side” as a visitor. You can just browse and read the bits that you understand.
Noted! I do feel like language learning stuff has a certain space on the multi-language web, too!
Translating every blog post is a strong effort that I really ought to mirror, though on some level it feels abundant since very few swedish people coming across my website are likely to struggle with english… So I mostly use it for poems and such.
The site in your example is so fun! I love the side-by-side of french and english bios – it really makes it clear that I know some of the most basic French simply by osmosis – one of many things I hope to work even more on in this project!
Yeah, I do get that point, unfortunately… while I may argue that I, at least, don’t do it for views I do like for people to interact with my stuff. That’s why I kinda like the whole “part one language part another” ordeal, it partially “fixes” it.
However, I do also think there is a “market” for it in bigger languages at least, like German and Spanish maybe? That I’m probably just blind to lol
My website (https://gvalia.xyz) is by default in my native language (Georgian). The main content is different for both languages, though the core pages such as /about and /contact contain the same information.
I’ve been thinking from time to time about the philosophy of managing this stuff. I’ve noticed that other multilingual websites don’t have separate sections for separate languages, which I personally don’t like as a reader. But it makes a lot of sense from the administrator’s perspective: you no longer get the sense that content in one language is “lagging behind” the other language.
I also feel similar to @rina about attention and language. It’s much easier to imagine people stumbling upon—and reading—my English posts. Although I’ve found out that people who actually care about your site will try their best to read everything you have on there, even if they have to rely on translation tools to do so!
I made an auto-translator on the magazine page precisely because a huge number of people do not speak English
in fact, only a small part of the population, although the Internet is mostly English-speaking
There are a few interesting chinese blogs on bearblog, and some time ago I tried translating a post of one of them myself:
originally from:
It was my first attempt at translating blog posts, and I’m still improving! Considering to translating interesting English posts into Chinese to perhaps interact with the Chinese-speaking community too~
My first language isn’t even English, I just find it more practical. I have friends and family who don’t share my first language but speak English as their first/second one, so it’s easier to communicate that way. Online, I feel like it’s easier to find people who share the same interests that way as well. I have no plans to blog in other languages right now, much less write 2+ versions of blog posts, so English it is. Maybe one day that’ll change.
That said, I’ll often read blogs/sites in other languages that I speak or understand. I especially used to do this as a kid/teenager and it could be very interesting to see a different Internet culture compared to the Anglophone one.
@hedy, I loved that post! I really enjoyed how thoughtful it is and the way it blends different subjects together. I didn’t know about the whole thing with the pottery shards, that was neat to learn!
