Written on September 15th, 2007 at 09:09 am by Darren Rowse

If English is your Second Language - Which Language Do You Blog in?

Reader Questions 116 comments

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.

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116 Responses to “If English is your Second Language - Which Language Do You Blog in?”

  • John Cow

    September 15th, 2007 9:37 am

    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 :)

  • Nicole Simon

    September 15th, 2007 9:38 am

    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” ;)

  • Markus Tressl

    September 15th, 2007 9:59 am

    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.

  • Zach Kollegger

    September 15th, 2007 9:59 am

    I’m Canadian, so I guess I “swing”, but primarily English for me.
    I know German but never blog with it. :-)

  • Sérgio Rebelo

    September 15th, 2007 10:02 am

    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.

  • Tina Kreminski

    September 15th, 2007 10:09 am

    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

  • ChrisB

    September 15th, 2007 10:18 am

    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.

  • Gadiel rivera

    September 15th, 2007 10:28 am

    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.

  • Pierre

    September 15th, 2007 10:29 am

    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.

  • onera

    September 15th, 2007 10:38 am

    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.

  • Koki

    September 15th, 2007 10:39 am

    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

  • Fernando

    September 15th, 2007 10:41 am

    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.

  • YC

    September 15th, 2007 10:42 am

    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.

  • Nelson

    September 15th, 2007 10:46 am

    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.

  • Kelvin Kao

    September 15th, 2007 10:56 am

    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. =)

  • Kiltak

    September 15th, 2007 11:05 am

    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.

  • Wolney H Filho

    September 15th, 2007 11:06 am

    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.

  • Kay

    September 15th, 2007 11:31 am

    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

  • sasieboy

    September 15th, 2007 11:35 am

    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.

  • Mark McGuire

    September 15th, 2007 11:47 am

    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.

  • Brennan

    September 15th, 2007 12:06 pm

    English. Mainly because it’s my first language (I also know French), but also because there’s a larger audience.

  • liche

    September 15th, 2007 12:22 pm

    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.

  • brem

    September 15th, 2007 12:25 pm

    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.

  • Carlos Bastidas

    September 15th, 2007 12:31 pm

    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.

  • Beth Kanter

    September 15th, 2007 12:38 pm

    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

  • Andrei

    September 15th, 2007 12:39 pm

    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.

  • Mifeng

    September 15th, 2007 12:51 pm

    i’m a Chinese and study in singapore now. i blog in Chinese, i am thinking about when to start a English blog ~

  • Tomek Gozdziewicz

    September 15th, 2007 1:02 pm

    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.

  • Famefire

    September 15th, 2007 1:07 pm

    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.

  • Mark

    September 15th, 2007 1:13 pm

    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 :)

  • Lodewijkvdb

    September 15th, 2007 1:30 pm

    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).

  • Content Ads

    September 15th, 2007 1:51 pm

    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.

  • Miguel Vera

    September 15th, 2007 1:59 pm

    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.

  • Vincent Sparreboom

    September 15th, 2007 1:59 pm

    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.

  • Yuri

    September 15th, 2007 2:01 pm

    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.

  • Duncan | Syrup&Tang

    September 15th, 2007 2:15 pm

    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;)

  • gillian2

    September 15th, 2007 2:29 pm

    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.

  • Kanquona

    September 15th, 2007 3:14 pm

    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.

  • Dave

    September 15th, 2007 4:09 pm

    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.

  • Avinash

    September 15th, 2007 4:50 pm

    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).

  • workaholic

    September 15th, 2007 5:17 pm

    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.

  • Nice from Thailand

    September 15th, 2007 5:22 pm

    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.

  • Rhys

    September 15th, 2007 5:23 pm

    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 :)

  • Cifra

    September 15th, 2007 5:43 pm

    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!

  • Tagliaerbe

    September 15th, 2007 5:45 pm

    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 )

  • Yourhighness

    September 15th, 2007 5:48 pm

    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.

  • Elit Alice

    September 15th, 2007 5:52 pm

    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.

  • Zoe Marmara

    September 15th, 2007 6:49 pm

    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.

  • Alastair McDermott

    September 15th, 2007 6:54 pm

    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

  • Paolo Amoroso

    September 15th, 2007 7:20 pm

    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.

  • Binny V A

    September 15th, 2007 7:36 pm

    I agree with Avinash - I am from India as well and blogging in English makes much more sense than blogging in my native tongue, Malayalam.

    And most of my blogs are about technical stuff(programming, linux, etc.) Most of the terms in those sites are not even translatable to Malayalam.

  • Androsch

    September 15th, 2007 7:40 pm

    I publish in German: I have direct knowledge of and contact with my audience and there are still some open niches in the German web. But I am scared that this niches are rather narrow and it is sort of frustrating to look at Google Analytics and see only a tiny area in Europe in dark green color and the rest of the world white or very light green. I plan to publish in English soon and to compare the results. But I am shure that I will not give up publishing in German. The German language will stay around an other fifty or hundred years.

  • Juha Ylitalo

    September 15th, 2007 7:46 pm

    My native language is finnish. I’ve used that one in my blog, because initial target group was friends, relatives, etc.
    One major problem in finnish as language is that there is something like 6 million (6,000,000) in a world, who can speak and read it. That gives you so small target group, that like so many others in these comments, I am seriously pondering whether or not I should create english version of my blog in hope of getting more readers.

  • ppip

    September 15th, 2007 8:04 pm

    As a mainland Chinese, I mainly write blog in Chinese(www.happysky.org), and host it in USA. I had tried to start a blog in English and host it in mainland China(blog.nklog.org), but I find it’s hard to maintain — for people live in a big country like China which speak only one language, it’s less need to start a English blog…

  • Brian Brandt

    September 15th, 2007 8:33 pm

    My native language is danish, and I use that on my blog about entrepreneur and marketing. I also considered a great deal to blog in english because of the bigger group of people. Denmark only have 5 mill inhabitants. But I’m considering a new blog in english, but the competition is thereby also bigger for the good keywords. Its a 50/50 decision in my mind!

  • Kenneth Dreyer

    September 15th, 2007 8:47 pm

    My native language is Norwegian, and therefor it was naturally for me to launch my first blog in Norwegian. The first problem I stumbled upon was there was only 4.5 million people in the wordl that could read and speak Norwegian. This of course made them a very small group to target. After a couple of months, and a few hundred users daily, I found out that I’ve reached my highest point. There was no more people to target within my niche.

    Therefor I started, on a very small scale so far, blogging in English. I haven’t goten so many users so far, but the target group is so much bigger now. I would rather be a mid-size English blog than a big Norwegian one.

    But when it comes to Spanish as the example, you could do pretty good with that languange, considering that it’s the second most spoken language in the world. I can even understand some myself :)

  • BlogInsider

    September 15th, 2007 8:55 pm

    Hi, i’m a from Spain. I tried to blog in english but my english is not enough good for that. That’s why in my current weblog, i use spanish.

  • Ricardo

    September 15th, 2007 9:06 pm

    Hi Darren,

    I am portuguese and living in Switzerland. So I generally blog in german language. When I think a story of mine is digg-worthy, I write it in german and english, so both parts of my readerships can enjoy it.

  • Tobsy

    September 15th, 2007 9:20 pm

    I’m German and blog in English.

    Most of the people who’d read my blog in German understand English anyway.

    Not only is the number of native speakers higher, I also get to know other bloggers from a lot of different countries.

    To reach a wider audience, English is good.
    To network, English is essential.

    Even if you make mistakes (as I do - lots of ‘em *g*), you’ll be understood worldwide.

  • Eniac

    September 15th, 2007 9:22 pm

    In Serbian/Croatian it’s preety same language so most readers come from these countries. I haven’t tried to blog in English, mostly because I am not that ambitious about my blog

  • Bruno Šarić

    September 15th, 2007 9:23 pm

    Only on croatian langauge :)

  • LivePaola

    September 15th, 2007 9:31 pm

    I’m Italian and I blog in both English and Italian. It feels quite natural: if I’m reviewing a book or article I’ve read in English, I do it in my English blog; if I want to comment on Italian societal trend or on the state of the Web in Italy, I do it in my Italian blog. Still, I have noticed that, with approximately the same amount of content and posting frequency, my English blog has reached a higher Google page rank than my Italian one. And that’s because the algorithm goes where the people are.
    Thanks for posting this interesting question!

  • Marek

    September 15th, 2007 9:41 pm

    English. I don’t really have choice since I live in US and 90% of my readers are coming form US, Canada, Australia, and UK.
    Time to time I am posting in some discussion forums in Polish, mostly about my blog posts: ~1% of readers from my native Poland.

  • Diego

    September 15th, 2007 9:52 pm

    Hi Darren,
    I am spanish and I have two blogs, in spanish and english. The english one is more focused on technology and software development because I think english is the ‘lingua franca’ of all the techies around the globe. My english is not very fluent, but it’s good enough to communicate to my readers. Some complains about my grammar and style, but writing in english help me to have the language fresh.
    I write also in spanish in another blog because sometimes is very hard to express deep thoughts or feelings in a language is not your mother tongue. Spanish is a very expressive language and you can play easily with the language. It does not make sense to do it with tehcnical english.
    Finally, I know I lost a lot of readers in my english blog because anybody can figure out easily that it’s not my mother tongue and my writings are sometimes too naive, but since I am not a professional blogger, blogging helps me to keep me fresh and sharp in english, something I need in my daily job.

  • samulli

    September 15th, 2007 10:04 pm

    I am german and blog in english. For me it was never a question when I started my current blog, because most of my friends and aquaintances nowadays are either english, american, australian or Kiwis. So, it wouldn’t make any sense for me to blog in german.
    Besides, I had a look around the german blogosphere recently and I found maybe one or two bloggers I like to read, but the rest I wouldn’t wanna be associated with. So I’m staying with english, even if my language skills may not be perfect yet.

  • Marko Novak

    September 15th, 2007 10:09 pm

    My native language is Slovenian but I write my blog in English because there is only 2M Slovenians and that’s not enough for a blog.

  • Technobuzz.net

    September 15th, 2007 10:16 pm

    I am Indian and Blog in English.

  • silvino

    September 15th, 2007 10:22 pm

    portuguese, always.

    my choice it’s all about “mindset”. writing in other languages is not a question of translating words, but being able to translate thoughts within different realities.

    but ..sure.. it depends. i must acknowledge that it depends on your goals while blogging. what would be different .. what would it mean to you .. if you could blog in a language that all the web-users could read and understand?

  • Mike Ramm

    September 15th, 2007 10:55 pm

    The language is not just a matter of expressing yourself. It is also related to the problems you write about and your attitude to your readers.

    I am Bulgarian and I started my first blog in English but I realized very soon that the problems I write about are specifically local so I decided to start another blog where to write in Bulgarian and to establish a closer relationship with my fellow readers.

    Bulgaria is a very small country and Bulgarian language is spoken only here so writing in Bulgarian condemn myself to have very small audience so I don’t think I can get significant income from ads but I hope that my blog can make a significant help in promoting my business to my readers, which is also a good way to make money out of a blog indirectly.

    At this moment I keep both blogs and depending on the topic of the post I decide where to post it - on the English blog, on the Bulgarian one, or on both. Of course, it takes more time and effort but I think it is the right way.

  • pelf

    September 15th, 2007 11:05 pm

    I’m a Malaysian Chinese, but Malay isn’t my mother tongue. It is Malaysia’s national and official language, the one we learn in kindergarten above anything else :)

    But I don’t blog in Chinese either, though it’s my mother tongue because (this is embarrassing), I can’t read and write Chinese. That’s why I blog in English :)

  • Chiguire

    September 15th, 2007 11:07 pm

    Hello there. I have an indie games and game programming blog. My native language is Spanish, and I know English pretty well. My blog is in Spanish.

    This was a question I had to answer before putting online your blog. I think it has to do with what you want to take from your blog. I wanted to contact fellow Spanish-speaking game programmers, while providing the best content (tutorials and reviews) in Spanish.

    It’s no surprise that writing in English will bring you the most traffic you’ll ever dream with other languages. I’ve been blogging for 9 months and I’m currently receiving ~250 daily visits, and have 50 subscribers. As a Spanish-speaker, I think the most difficult thing to do is to reach other countries’ audiences. I live in Venezuela, and I registered in Venezuelan blog directories (there is a healthy blog activity here), and until recently, almost all my traffic comes from here. Last two months I registered in a Spanish directory, and I’m currently receiving more traffic from there than my home country!

    Would this mean that I have to register in every single country blog directory? We’re talking about marketing yourself in more than 10 countries, and that assuming that every country has a good blog activity: I know from experience that Spain, Mexico and Peru have it. I can’t speak from other countries. Probably experience will tell.

    And now the ad part :-), if you’re a Spanish-speaker game programmer, please do visit my site and stop by for some chat, thanks :-P .

  • Markus Jung

    September 16th, 2007 12:19 am

    I’m blogging in german - also the title of my blog ist german and a .de domain. In my niche (distance education) there are already some english blogs and boards - but mine was one of the first in german.

  • Andrew

    September 16th, 2007 1:02 am

    I’m from Argentina too. I writing my blog about Spanish Language and Latin culture in English language. My English is not good but i can write it. I think English, nowadays, is the Internet language. Is more economic language than Spanish language.

    Thanks Darren for your blog!!

  • Yohay

    September 16th, 2007 1:05 am

    I blog both in English and in Hebrew.
    It’s somewhat hard, since Hebrew is wirtten from right to left. This imposes technical issues, but it’s fun!

  • Chip

    September 16th, 2007 1:22 am

    I write articles in English. I’m from Romania, but our blogging market is small, and many blogging services do not support Romanian blogs. There’s plenty of time to blog in my native language some day.

  • Help Blogger

    September 16th, 2007 1:33 am

    This is not so complicated question.

    I think that bloggers that feel more confy they should write in that language.

    I speak and write 5 languages ( Bosnian, German, Slovenian (1st), Russian and English) I write my blog in english because I notice that I receive more hits then in any other language. The reason why that is so is because people even speaking german or slovenian for example they search in english most of the time.

    For people that would like to target multiple audience they should create 2-3 blogs and write posts individualy instead of writing 1 post in 2 or even 3 languages. Posts like that could be more then 10K words long and nobody really want to either scroll down or up to see where the translation starts.

    Thats my blog tip.

  • Nadya

    September 16th, 2007 1:40 am

    I am Russian so I am trying to maintain blogs both in Russian (http://www.triorus.com/ru) and in English (http://www.triorus.com/en). However, it is difficult because my English is not perfect. English posts always come with delay.

  • Fernando

    September 16th, 2007 3:06 am

    I’m Spanish and make my bloggin in spanish ’cause is the language of my readers. As the other Fernando said, I don’t try to achieve the english world because there’re too much in english at Internet.

    Future is Spanish ;)

  • Ben Licher

    September 16th, 2007 4:23 am

    I’m Dutch. My second languages are French, English and German, all fluent. I blog in Dutch because of my goal: reaching Dutch readers who want to learn about NLP. I don’t monetize my blogs. If I would monetize a blog I would surely choose to blog in English or bi-lingual.

    I’m testing http://www.worldwidelexicon.org. Love the concept and the possibilities and started translating my (Dutch) articles. Still some bugs to solve (feeds stopped when I installed theplugi - WordPress) but (wo)man, the world is opening for everybody who doesn’t write or read a second language! Bloggers in the world check out these guys! Bloggers in de wereld, kijk op die site!

  • Ben Licher

    September 16th, 2007 4:33 am

    And LodewijkvdB, hi to you! Practice by thinking in English. I keep up my favourite second languages by thinking about my private life in English and thinking about some parts of my work in French and some emotions in French and other parts of my work in English. Works like a charm!

  • Andreas (schweizweit.net)

    September 16th, 2007 4:53 am

    My blog is about public transport system in switzerland and some swiss topics in general. So it’s comprehensible to blog in german. ;o)

  • PlasticPilot

    September 16th, 2007 4:56 am

    I’m from the french speaking part of Switzerland, so my first language is french. I blog both in english and french, depending of the topic.

    My blog about aviation is in english, but this is was a very easy choice to do, as any pilot is supposed to have basic english skills.

    For some more litterate and novel-oriented blog, I use french, because my english writing is not good enough for litterature.

  • Tal Galili

    September 16th, 2007 5:22 am

    I, like Yohay, am a native Hebrew speaking person. Hebrew is written right2left so it imposes theme issues (behind and infront the scene) so even if you want to write both in hebrew and english - you’d rather create to separate blogs then one (that’s what I and my brother did with “The hummus blog”, where the english version is on “www.humus101.com/EN “).
    Having two blogs (one for each language) is not ideal, but it seems optimal…

  • Dr Shock

    September 16th, 2007 6:02 am

    I am Dutch but I blog in English (US). I use English a lot in my work but I can still do with some practice. So blogging in English is also about learning to write better in English

  • Coding Pad

    September 16th, 2007 6:02 am

    I’m african, and speak and write three languages (other than English) fluently. I choose to blog in English because my audience is primarily English speaking and the topics I blog on would be difficult to write in my native languages. I don’t have a non-English blog but it’s an idea I have toyed with for a while, and I am planning to make it one of my 2008 projects.

  • flo

    September 16th, 2007 6:34 am

    i am german. i blog in german. sometimes i think about blogging in english.
    two reasons against that:
    1. my english ist not good enogh
    2. from a seo point of view (whitch is important to my blog) there is less competition in other languages than english.

    3. i stole your layout. i hope, you can live with ist. but i will change it anyway. because the click-rate is worse than it was with the more-than-ugly layout i had before.

  • embuck

    September 16th, 2007 6:39 am

    My native language is slovak, but I have blogs in slovak, czech and also in english.

  • PJorge

    September 16th, 2007 7:15 am

    I blog in Spanish. Starting over again, I would probably choose English.

  • Ades

    September 16th, 2007 7:38 am

    I am Kyrgyz but I blog in English (US). Officially Kyrgyz Republic, also known as Kyrgyzstan is a Central Asian country, which gained independence in 1991 after the collapse of USSR.

    Kyrgyz is my first language, Russian is my second language and English is my third. So I choose to blog on my third language ;) So far has been quite successful at it.

  • Asako

    September 16th, 2007 7:39 am

    As you can tell from my name, I am Japanese. I grew up in Japan, so my English is still not that perfect. But I spent most of my career outside Japan, in the US and Europe, and now live in the US. I have much better knowledge of US and European businesses. As I am writing on business topics, I chose to blog in English.

    So I pulled another blog partner who is an American as a co-author of my blog, and sometimes have him proof-read my articles…. :) There’s always a solution to everything :)

  • adrian boioglu

    September 16th, 2007 7:41 am

    romanian. but 25% of my posts are in english. is good for my english speaking language friends and not only for that…

  • Markus

    September 16th, 2007 11:06 am

    Wow.. this is definately an overwhelming response.

    First I thought of blogging in English but then I was too scared because of the potential language errors I would make by doing so.

    For me, a better question is: What do native English bloggers think about blogs written in English wich is not perfect.

    Usually if I read German text written by foreigners I immedeately realize they don’t speak German as a first language. I don’t mind, but I definately know that others do.

    What do you think?

  • Suphkorn

    September 16th, 2007 3:50 pm

    I’m Thai Blogger and I perfer to write in native language because the native language sentense will make me closer to readers.

  • chtanxw

    September 16th, 2007 5:40 pm

    I can read and write English, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia. Which language I will use depend on the market place.

  • Johan Idstam

    September 16th, 2007 6:40 pm

    I blog both in Swedish and English. I started in English and most of the time I translated articles back into Swedish. Nowadays I blog things my mother understand in Swedish and work related stuff in English.

  • J. Alonso

    September 16th, 2007 8:56 pm

    I blog in Spanish, mainly because my English isn’t good enough, but I keep reading English blogs both as a source for blogging and to improve my English so that I can blog in English in the near future…

  • alan nadal piantini

    September 17th, 2007 1:19 am

    Well, I’m from santo domingo so my mother language is spanish. Thinking like you I installed a widget that “translate” my blogs so you can read both -english and spanish- languages. Well , it not translate them but instead I have you write them in both languages and you can choose your preferred language.

  • XmasB

    September 17th, 2007 3:33 am

    I write my blog in norwegian. I have often wondered about switchin to english, but I like the little community that exists in Norway. There aren’t too many blogs in norwegian. It would probably be easier to get more readers in english, based on numbers alone. But so far I’m writing in norwegian.

  • Olivier

    September 17th, 2007 4:57 am

    Hi,

    I must agree with the first blogger: I am a native Dutch speaker and blog in English to have more audience. Although I plan on translating some good English sites into Dutch.

  • martin

    September 17th, 2007 6:10 am

    I´m from Argentina as well, and blog in English AND Spanish, though mostly in English. Depends on the subject I´m blogging about, sometimes it´s easier to get the message across in English, but when talking about regional things, Spanish works better.

  • Rolf F. Katzenberger

    September 17th, 2007 6:31 am

    My blog Evomend (on self-development) is bilingual, I’m writing in English and in German. In general, I translate the postings within 2 days or so. Sometimes, the original gets written in English, next time in German.

    No big issues, but sometimes its hard to find equivalent URLs for the sites I mention, in the respective other language.

  • Paweł Kata (Oszczędzanie pieniędzy)

    September 17th, 2007 7:10 am

    I blog in Polish, although i’m planning to translate some posts into english and publicize them in “English” category.

  • Milla

    September 17th, 2007 2:04 pm

    I have 4 blogs in Spanish. Main one has an “English version” using Babel Fish. It is nothing like Oxford perfect english of course, but using a little good will it could be understood. Of course everyone wants millions of readers. Of course. However, my point here is that we other-than-English-spoken-bloggers –whether we like it or not– have a certain amount of responsibility in changing the actual balance of the language of the audiences. What would happen if everybody started writing English and English only? I am with Fernando, Spanish is the future! :-)

  • Celso Lemes

    September 17th, 2007 3:06 pm

    I´m a Brazilian, and my blogs are in Portuguese.
    As some people have said before, the english speakers are bigger than the other languages, so I think we could spread our blog for a bigger audience.
    But I also see a problem with that. Because english is a more spoken language, surelly ther will be more blogs in your niche, so it will be harder to get piece of cake.

    I pretend to create a blog in english versions in the future, but for now my english is not that goog to start a project of this kind.

  • Raffi

    September 17th, 2007 9:15 pm

    I blog in Armenian and in English. I used to blog and write more in Armenian, but the audience that I have are more comfortable in English. Now 30% is in Armenian and 70% in English

  • Tonda

    September 18th, 2007 12:36 am

    I blog in Czech language, whitch is my native language. Once I tried to translate few my articles into english, but I was too bored by doing that.

  • Dan

    September 18th, 2007 8:52 am

    My mother tongue is spanish and I started my blog in spanish but after 7 months I received few visitors, so I decided to change to english and since then the visitors grow up. I think this is because the technology is easier to get and use on countries like USA, Canada, Europe, etc. rather than latinamerican countries, so this is why there are more english spoken users, of course this is only my opinion.

  • Norbert Evenich

    September 18th, 2007 4:05 pm

    I’m Hungarian and I write for Hungarian Linux users, so I use my native language. Although you can reach more people with English, but it depends on your target audience.

  • Erik Willumsgaard

    September 18th, 2007 4:30 pm

    I am Danish, having more blogs in both Danish and English, but I have it a little like Nicole Simon (German) have it, when writing:

    “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” ;)”

    But when I blog about Danish politics or the city planning in Copenhagen, there’s of course no doubt about the (Danish) language!

  • Jorge Diaz

    September 18th, 2007 7:29 pm

    I constantly have that dilemma. I started my blog (innovapixel.com) writting in Spanish, then i decided to writte in English. I think i am going to writte on english only :)

    If you are blogging for money, you definitely have to writte in English, because there are a lot of companies that offer monetization for your sites/blogs. You have more reach too.

    I tell you this because i created a blog recently about Apple News, its:

    http://www.thedailymac.com

    I started this blog recently, and now i have like 500 visitors daily :) . So thats why you should blog in English.

    Ask yourself a question. Are you blogging for money?

    Then writte in English. :)

  • Javier Ferrand

    September 19th, 2007 10:58 pm

    Actually, what made me go blogging in the first place was the fact that although there are many interesting blogs and websites about the topics I’m interested in (productivity, personal development, good habits, personal finances, entrepreneurship, motivation, spirituality, etc.), the options in Spanish are not so great, then I chose to blog in Spanish.

    I feel I can be a bridge for people who don’t speak English to get great useful content only found in English. It is a way of sharing knowledge with a lot of people who don’t have the chance to get it another way. I feel I’m contributing.

  • Papa Shongo

    September 21st, 2007 12:17 am

    It’s a tough one. French is my first language but I live in New York and so choose to blog in English as it is the language that most of my audience speaks. One thing I do is post an entry twice, once in English and then French, but only when I feel that the topic discussed is pertinent to both groups. I blog about Africans in New York so some issues might be more relevant to francophones in Africa as opposed to the other English speaking folks.

  • Genesis

    September 21st, 2007 1:17 pm

    My first language is English, I´m Canadian, but I have lived in Guatemala for 5 years and my husband is Guatemalan, so we speak mostly Spanish. Because of this, I have four blogs in English and am starting one in Spanish.

    The truth is that the English market is bigger, but for niche blogs, other languages often offer untapped markets which I feel may be more valuable in the long run.

  • snwop

    October 1st, 2007 6:33 pm

    My mother’s tongue is Spanish and I blog in Spanish. I have never thought of writing my blog in English, though other blogs I have in mind, maybe. In any case, as I can see from ClustrMaps, lots of people from Europe and America are reading me, so I guess that the language is appropriate.

  • wisetranslations

    April 23rd, 2008 5:03 pm

    My parent’s teached me how to speak French. But most of the time, we speak English.

    I’ve chosen to blog in french-english because I feel that I can help a lot of people who want to learn these languages.

  • Marisa

    August 20th, 2008 10:06 am

    I am a citizen of the world and I blog in English!

    Regards.

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