Even though it seems that pretty much everyone can speak English, the simple truth of the matter is that some people would much rather use a piece of software or an online service in their native language. 300 million accounts-popular social networking site Facebook provides support for a wide range of languages, even dead languages that hardly anybody uses like Latin.
Facebook Lite, a lightweight version of Facebook designed for users with a slow connection to the internet, does not provide the same functionality as the main Facebook site does. It has been described by Facebook representatives as a “fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept Friend requests, write on people’s Walls, and look at photos and Status updates.”
In Facebook Lite everything that isn’t absolutely necessary has been stripped out – this does not include the ads though. But this does not meant that Facebook like provides less language support that Facebook does. As of this month, Facebook Lite can be used in all the 70 different languages Facebook provides support for.
Moving on, popular micro-blogging site Twitter is currently available in just 2 languages: English and Japanese. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced that in the future support for more languages will be added.
“With some help, we will soon be rolling out support for French, Italian, German, and Spanish. These languages are commonly referred to using the acronym FIGS and are often the starting point for services like Twitter when its time for more language support. Later, we hope to offer Twitter in several other languages. No matter how sophisticated technology gets, we're reminded daily that it's about people and that's something we've taken to heart regarding translating Twitter,” commented Biz Stone.
You can get started with Facebook here, Facebook Lite here and Twitter here.
Facebook Lite, a lightweight version of Facebook designed for users with a slow connection to the internet, does not provide the same functionality as the main Facebook site does. It has been described by Facebook representatives as a “fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept Friend requests, write on people’s Walls, and look at photos and Status updates.”
In Facebook Lite everything that isn’t absolutely necessary has been stripped out – this does not include the ads though. But this does not meant that Facebook like provides less language support that Facebook does. As of this month, Facebook Lite can be used in all the 70 different languages Facebook provides support for.
Moving on, popular micro-blogging site Twitter is currently available in just 2 languages: English and Japanese. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced that in the future support for more languages will be added.
“With some help, we will soon be rolling out support for French, Italian, German, and Spanish. These languages are commonly referred to using the acronym FIGS and are often the starting point for services like Twitter when its time for more language support. Later, we hope to offer Twitter in several other languages. No matter how sophisticated technology gets, we're reminded daily that it's about people and that's something we've taken to heart regarding translating Twitter,” commented Biz Stone.
You can get started with Facebook here, Facebook Lite here and Twitter here.