One of my FB friends writes all (or at least most of) her entries in Swedish, and another alternates between English and Dutch. I speak neither Swedish nor Dutch. When I'm particularly bored/looking to procrastinate I try to guess what they are about, but mostly I just ignore those entries. Oh, and another who writes occasional entries in Finnish, but I can't even guess at those.
Yeah, it may seem pompous, I agree. I have already annouced it on facebook (this entry is a verson of the note I made), and have given all and everyone with knowledge of the langauge, the opportunity to correct me.
Though it's fun to find out the "secret" behind what other people are saying when they speak foreign languages, it seems rude and entitled to demand that others translate what they write online into a language one can understand. Besides, it's so much fun to see a variety of languages on my Facebook feed!
All of my FB friends are bilingual in English, but the other most spoken language among them is Norwegian, so there's a small contingent of us who post status updates and comment on others' content in that language (both bokmål and nynorsk are used). The only other languages I ever see on my (mostly American English) feed are Swedish and Québécois French.
Yeah, I like seeing all the languages as well :) Although I have no Québécois French :)
Most of my friends have a good command of English as well, so it tends to be the default langauge, unless another is chosen. Just like now, I am answering your comment in English, even though I understand from your comment that I could as well answer in Norwegian. Does the same thing happen to you=
Indeed it does. Norwegian isn't my native language, but sometimes I'll respond in Norwegian to English stuff, and vice-versa. I think it mostly depends on my mood and how well I feel I can say what I want to say in either language, and what simply sounds best :)
Yeah, you're right. Selv om terskelen er høyere - så langt jeg har sett - å svare på norsk ved en engelsk status, enn ved en norsk. Og det gjør at færre kan kaste seg inn i samtalen. Som nå.
Do you only have friends who write in the same language as your (chosen) language? What is the etiquette when it comes to foreign languages? Overlooking them, like I do, or some sort of (passive-)aggressiveness?I'm from Australia and the majority of people I'm "friends" with (or, you know, actually friends with) are people I know from school or university, and either speak English as a first language and/or probably speak it has their primary language (they might speak another language with their family, but don't necessarily still live with family.). I have three German facebook friends, two of them never write status updates, the other does very rarely and always in German. But I speak almost fluent German, so I can understand them. A couple of friends of mine sometimes write statuses in Indonesian, because they've been learning Indonesian for several years and recently went there on exchange, another friend of mine is Korean (but lives in Melbourne now) and wrote one recently in Korean, and my brother wrote one in Chinese last week
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Thank you for the answer. I've seen some attempt at using google translate on some of the statuses and comments, but like you I do have some doubts on how good online translators really are!
I guess I've seen people ask for translations, but I've never experienced any backlash for using other languages. I guess I don't think of Facebook as being English-centric, but I my Facebook interface isn't in English and I have a lot of friends with native languages other than English, but I suppose I can see why some people might be put off by it?
I must admit that the only times I've seen signs at aggressiveness has been from English (only)-users. Perhaps us non-English people are more used to a variety of languages (or I'm just predjudiced).
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Oh, and another who writes occasional entries in Finnish, but I can't even guess at those.
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All of my FB friends are bilingual in English, but the other most spoken language among them is Norwegian, so there's a small contingent of us who post status updates and comment on others' content in that language (both bokmål and nynorsk are used). The only other languages I ever see on my (mostly American English) feed are Swedish and Québécois French.
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Most of my friends have a good command of English as well, so it tends to be the default langauge, unless another is chosen.
Just like now, I am answering your comment in English, even though I understand from your comment that I could as well answer in Norwegian. Does the same thing happen to you=
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Selv om terskelen er høyere - så langt jeg har sett - å svare på norsk ved en engelsk status, enn ved en norsk. Og det gjør at færre kan kaste seg inn i samtalen. Som nå.
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