Allow me to be a bit cynical, but with the weak dollar and still unsettled economy in the far east do we Europeans need the rest (of the world)? All the important things like obesity (blame that on the smoking bans) - burgers - cola, etc. are here anyway. On the 1st of May another bunch of countries joins. Another total of 75 Million bringing Europe up to 450 Mio in 25 countries. The only stumbling block is - language - just for only about 60 Mio English is the first language (Well one may be forgiven to even thinking about discounting this further by subtracting Wales Scotland etc.). For the rest, a staggering 390 Mio or 77% it is a second language if used at all. The reverse is also valid - US and Anglo Canadian sites only reach about 15% of the net population in Europe in their first language (and there are some major differences even between US/UK English) but if you can drop a product into Europe or have a distributor your can ship to all of the 450. I'm working on translating and running one of our sites - health products -in 5 major languages English(UK) / German / French / Spanish and Polish. I'd be interested to read your views - will you, or have you gone multi lingual - what are the challenges / experiences specifically for smaller sites with limited budgets and resources? M
Well you can't really compare English to non-English, because non-English is very broad. If you want to have a website for every non-English language, you are looking at hundreds of possible translations. If you compare each individual language, I'm guessing that English is going to be the highest single (or at least very high) as far the top individual languages as the first language (at least in Europe). But more importantly, you shouldn't look at what their first language is, but rather what percentage speaks English, what percentage speaks German, French, etc. My girlfriend speaks perfect English (she explains what some English words are to me even... I'm a native English speaker). But it's not her *first* language (although I would argue she speaks English better than her first language). And even though it's not her first language, that is what she speaks day to day, web sites she uses are English, books she reads are English, etc. - Shawn
Shawn, yes English in its various disguises is widely but the actual message may not come across. E.G. typical US style sales pages does not work well in the UK nor in Germany and certainly not in France. Dont get me wrong but on a technical level it's OK it's when you venture into more personal areas like finance and health that native may become more valuable. Having worked in muti lingual environments for example in Germany English is understood - except for the finer points specificall the roundabout way of UK English - So I'm just after some experience or tips with small sites and how to best run them multilingual. M PS Is your girlfriend virtual? Just wondering when you find time
i tried to learn polish to keep up with the local community but its so difficult to learn i gave up, most countries learn english as second language anyway so its no need to bother these days.