It's a multilingual world- I feel so left out!

» It's a multilingual world- I feel so left out!

I am very fortunate that the nature of my job lets me meet and work with fantastic people from all over the world. One thing that many of these people have in common is that English is not their first language, though they speak and understand it perfectly. Actually, that's not my point. My point is that "some other language" is their first language, and that "other language" is one that I don't understand, and this stops me from being able to share their primary world.

These friends and colleagues use web sites in their first language for their first source of news, blogs, and social networking services. Some of them join in the english-language social networking sites as a secondary site just to see what's going on with their english-speaking friends. But the primary sites where they post most of their own content is in their home language which I can't understand and can't access. I feel left out!

Here's an interesting little tidbit from last year: According to a Technorati study from 2006, 37% of their tracked blog posts were written in japanese, and 36% were written in english. Unfortunately, 64% of the Technorati-tracked blogosphere is in a language that I can't read... And it's probably larger if you take the blogosphere as a whole. I feel so left out!

I wonder what percentage of the world's web content is written in languages that I don't understand. I'm not sure how to measure it, but I'm sure it's huge. I wish I had a way to read or understand some of it. But how?

I am trying to learn a few other languages. But, I'm not particularly talented at it and I'm not hopeful that I'll be able to get to a stage where I have good comprehension skills any time soon.

What percentage of the world's web content is written in a language you don't understand?
Do you feel left out like I do?
What should or can we do about this?

Tags: communication experience, multiple languages, multi-lingual, web technology, social networking, blogging, feel left out, HP

Please feel free to leave a URL in your comments.

Posted by Susie Wee on Sunday, July 15, 2007 9:26 PM

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Comments for It's a multilingual world- I feel so left out!

Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

It's easier for us working for a US company in non-english speaking countries. We lear english and use it regularly and we also have our primary language. I can read and participate on spanish or english communities. =)

Posted by jlrevilla on 7/15/2007 10:18 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

jlrevilla: It's great that you can use your two languages regularly. I actually learned some spanish in high school, but I forgot most of it because I haven't had much chance to use it in over 20 years! (Oops- I'm revealing my age.)

Gracias por visitar!

Posted by susie.wee on 7/15/2007 10:39 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

Susie, your post immediately led me to play with the google translate again. Hmm, a lot fun to see the result! Word by word translation at least does not work for Chinese. I don't know others.

So this breaks my dreams of having a drag-down menu with an option of "language translating" (like "character encoding" in most "View") in a Web browser.

There is one thing that may be "a little" helpful. That is multimedia. If we can turn the text into pictures, video clips (maybe without audio like the old movies in 20's:-)), most of the readers may be able to understand without a problem. If a user simply chooses to express his idea this way, it is global!

Posted by sqchen on 7/19/2007 10:24 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

sqchen: I was actually playing with various online translation tools just before writing this post. I met with some Latin American reporters and one of them wrote a blog post in Spanish that had my name on it. I was curious what was written so I plugged it into various services, and, like you, I realized that these automatic translation tools are not yet ready to solve this problem. This was part of my motivation for writing the post!

I also very much agree with your idea about multimedia being helpful. It would be neat if people could express themselves in language-agnostic ways, and then the devices could speak the language of multimedia standards like MPEG and JPEG and still be understood! In other words, people could speak with images, and devices could speak with multimedia standards!

Thanks for your comment!

Posted by susie.wee on 7/19/2007 11:47 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

This feeling of being left out is a tad odd, given the unprecedented ease of access to a gigantic number of multi-cultural and multi-lingual people.

If I want to know more, say, about a very popular Filipino comic book and movie character, I'm two click away from huge communities of natives with a rather solid mastery of English. If I read something about a Hausa tradition that sounds weird, finding Nigerians to ask to is trivial (even, as it turned out, in the middle of Seoul). If I'm interested in discussing some subtle aspects of body language and culture in the US, there are millions of people who'd love to talk about it (and tens of thousands who can make valid parallels with my own culture).

Content, knowledge does not really exist as an entity. It's always about people. Even if miraculous translation existed, you'd still need genuine familiarity with the culture, and thus somebody to provide context, references, assumptions, etc.

Posted by Sebastien_Andrivet on 7/24/2007 12:20 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

Sebastien: Interesting points. You give examples where today's web tools allow you to reach out to people from so many different corners of the world, so you can find people to answer virtually any question you have. I was actually referring to the vast library of posted content that I want to access but can't read because I don't understand the language. I think both of these examples show that multi-lingual people are very important in this new world.

Great point about the culture. Yes, I agree that differences in culture is a bigger challenge than differences in language and time zone. As you said, "It's always about people."

Posted by susie.wee on 7/27/2007 12:27 AM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

Automatic translation tools aren´t that good. It takes a person to do so (lol). Just dropped by to say hi. For some reason i guess i was the one who wrote the blog post... man, you just had to ask and i´d kindly make the translation for ya! :D

Posted by alexeitd on 9/18/2007 10:44 AM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

Hi Alexei! Glad you found this post. Yes, it was your article that I tried to translate into English. It didn't work too well, but I did learn that "Palo Alto" could be translated into "High Stick". Ah, so all I had to do was ask for a translation! Why didn't I think of that? ;)

Posted by susie.wee on 9/18/2007 11:29 AM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

That´s the funny thing about Palo Alto. Lots of spanish-based names, but few people knows, for instance, that Camino Real means "Royal Road" or that the "Cabaña", where we were, its spanish for "Cabbin". But, then again, that´s the beauty of the whole California State. I´m working on the translation... maybe i should also send a link of my article on MScapers for my newspaper. Well, here it is http://www.listindiario.com/app/article.aspx?id=23043

Posted by alexeitd on 9/19/2007 9:19 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so lef

Alexei-the-techie: Ah, so that's what El Camino Real means. I've been meaning to look that up. The MScapers article looks great... although I'm exactly sure what you said. I'll get one of the spanish-speaking researchers in my lab to help me understand it, so don't worry about the translation. Thank you for writing the article and sharing the link! And, I love your username- very cute!

Posted by susie.wee on 9/20/2007 12:10 PM
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Re: It's a multilingual world- I feel so left out!

I think there are many ways to be part of the multilingual world without speaking five different languages. I recall seeing a colleague's IM status in a language I did not understand, as opposed to the typical "available" or "away." I was curious, said hi, didn't get a response, so I put the phrase into the google translator, and realized that this person's mother was sick, and the phrase was a request for anyone with the same blood type as the mother. Sending a broader message to colleagues yielded three volunteers who were on standby if needed. (One even volunteered her husband!) My learning for that day was to remember to reach out more!

Posted by ancoraimparo on 2/26/2008 1:02 PM
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