2008 3
Blogs and languages
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Today, by mistake, I published the Somalia and Twitxr posts in my Spanish blog as well. As I did not want to erase them I left them there. And soon I had more comments on them than in my English posts. To me blog writing is a give an take and while I am not going to say that I am interested in all comments in my blog I am interested in enough of them to read them and truly appreciate them. Still there´s a mystery that I can´t solve. Why is it that my Spanish blog has 3 times the readership but 20 times the number of comments? Maybe I should publish my English posts both in English and Spanish since I get more comments and readers. Probably half of my Spanish readers speak English and I don´t like to translate my posts. Once a Spanish reader told me that he was surprised that such few people read me in English. What surprises me instead is that so many read it and such few comment on what they read.
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Brokenglish.blogspot.com on March 3, 2008 ·
My guess: For the spanish spoken you are famous. So they get in more.
While the english spoken, they might be less but they know you better. In other words, it’s more difficult to know you in english spoken countries so the people who knows you and get into your blog, they are more passionate about you and your work. Does this makes sense? It would in spanish, but I am so bad at this.
brokenglish.blogspot.com
J. Farrell on March 4, 2008 ·
Hello, I am sure it’s a question of pure language laziness. I’m polylingual myself, but I hate writing in Czech or French. It’s easy for me to read English, Spanish, Czech and French, but I would certainly reply in English or Spanish if I had the option to do so. Therefore, your Spanish readers might well read in English to have first hand, untranslated info, but will reply in the language they are more comfortable width…. By the way, expect an e-mail from me over the next couple of days, Fon is in the eyes of our expansion of the Liberalia & MÁSmovil network, drop me an e-mail if you have a second, I don’t have your address! Just to remind you, we are the ones responsible for that long white thing doing free publicity for unlocking mobile phones in front of your offices a few months ago!
Fernando on March 5, 2008 ·
I’m Spaniard but I usually read both versions of your blog and I think that there is another difference in reader’s behavior: comments in the English version seem to be more elaborated that in the Spanish one, where there are a lot of support/hate/greeting comments. Probably is something cultural. Maybe Spanish speakers are more extroverted and like to be noticed, even if they/we don’t have something to say that adds info to the post.
uno on March 5, 2008 ·
Listen carrefully to your data.
It’s interesting. But I’ m sure that your logs could tell you a lot more about it.
For instance
What post had the most comment in both language?
Where are these commentators located?
Who are the top commentators?
What is the part of RSS sucriptors in both languages?
And one which is content related. You have written many post who had tremendous number of comments. These posts directly related to the spanish way of life and a little bit provocative.
Un saludo
polac on March 5, 2008 ·
I honestly think you shouldn’t translate your post in both idioms, i think you better run just one blog in Spanglish and you’ll get the job down all at once. It could be a new “esperanto” for 21 century.
mikefon on March 5, 2008 ·
Martin, perhaps some feel as I do. I enjoy reading your technical and family posts. I sometimes comment. But when you take potshots at the USA, I figure “why fire back?” It’s generally easier to ignore them than ask why Spain isn’t on the ground in Somalia, rooting out the terrorists as you suggest? I am not proud that my country has had to resort to aerial strikes, but it seems the world is more content to let us do the policing, than contribute their own troops and expertise to these difficult tasks.
See? That’s a negative post. At times I feel that way, and figure it’s better to say nothing.
I’ll stick to the positive posts 🙂
Marco H. on March 5, 2008 ·
I feel there´s a different way to communicate between latin and english cultures. I guess english spoken people read your blog more interested in your bussiness environment, while the spanish readers get more involved with your personal life and interests.
Martín Alejandro Carmona Selva on March 6, 2008 ·
Martín,
For me, you must have just ONE blog and write in whichever language you like -well, while you don’t choose Japanese or Russian-.
That’s what I learn to do with my -crappy- site. Instead of “forcing” English or Spanish, I just write in el que me sale de los cojones 🙂
neoyorquina on March 6, 2008 ·
Martin,
You are more famous in Argentina and Spain than you are in English-speaking countries. I’m an American who lives in Spain and although I’ve seen a couple of your posts on Huffington Post, I discovered your blog via Meneame. The times that I’ve read the comments from readers on your English blog, it’s clear to me that many of the posters aren’t native English speakers because their language is at times florid and stilted and not the least bit conversational in tone. Also, a lot of people try to suck up to you on the English blog. They suck up to you as well on the Spanish blog but there are also a lot of comments by people who act as though they know you personally or, at the very least, view you as a brother, friend or peer, so there isn’t that same emotional distance there that exists between you and your readers on the English side of your blog.
And to the posters who think that it is something cultural (that English speakers are too reserved to comment, not as socially extroverted as Spanish speakers, etc.) that’s complete bullshit. Those of you who believe that obviously have never visited popular tech blogs or political blogs in English where it is not uncommon for a single blog entry to generate hundreds of comments in a day. ¡Toma ya!
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Matin on March 3, 2008 ·
Two reasons could be culture and grasp of a language. The culture in Spanish speaking countries may better support bidirectional conversations, when the English speaking population is more accustomed to just listening or reading. I personally find my Spanish speaking friends to be much more outspoken than my friends whom only speak English. You also have to consider it is easier to read a language than write it and some of the people reading your blog in English may not be able to easily write a response in English. I read some blogs in French and Spanish, but I don’t know the languages well enough to respond without some effort.