Commenting in a Foreign Country Day 24

May 24, 2008 at 10:50 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Edublog, Online Instructors, Online Learning, Ruminations Blog, Teaching, comment08, online education |
Tags: 31 Day Comment Challenge, blog commenters, Blog Comments, Blog Community, comment08, creating community, Education Blogging, Education Blogs, foreign language blogs

Computer screen with language choice It took me a bit of reflecting to figure out why this challenge–posting a message in a foreign language–was more challenging for me than most and why I ended up modifying the challenge.

Many of the people in my family of origin speak Finnish as a first language (my mother, aunt, uncles and many cousins), so when I was learning foreign languages in school, I always wanted to make sure that when I spoke or wrote the language, it was perfect.

Even with using Google Translator, which would assist in reading a foreign language blog post as well as translating comments into the proper language, I still felt extremely uncomfortable about posting in a foreign language. When I played with the Google Translator and ended up with responses written in languages using different characters, I was even less sure about posting the characters.

I then decided that if I am going to be commenting on a blog post (which I haven’t be doing a lot of), it would be better to post on a blog from someone in the challenge, so I morphed the activity to being one where I would post a comment on a blog from one of the 31 Day Challenge Participants that was being written in a foreign country.

Chosen Blogs & Comments

Brian Lockwood, How? What? Questions for Lifelong Learning, blogging from Yokohama, Japan. A comment was left on the April 21st post Are Web 2.0 sites Electronic Portfolios friendly?
Leigh Newton, Leigh in Azerbaijan Looking at the Country and Education, blogging from Baku, Azerbaijan. A comment was left on his May 14th post on Artistic Shoes
Adrienne Michetti, create. connect. question, blogging from Hanoi, Vietnam. A comment was left on her May 11th post on I believe in global education, BUT…
Sarah Stewart, Sarah’s Musings blogging from Dunedin, New Zealand. A comment was left on her May 24th post on Comment Challenge Day 17: Commenting on Five blogs in Five minutes. (O.K. this last one wasn’t strictly a foreign language, but Sarah had visited my blog a few days ago and I decide to stop by hers.

The simple sentence that I decide to have translated was: “Greetings from the 31 Day Comment Challenge.”

In Japanese 日からのご挨拶コメントの挑戦です。
In Azerbaijani wasn’t an option. Had to go with Russian, Поздравления с Днем 31 Комментировать обстоятельства.
In Vietnamese. (I used http://vdict.com to translate the Vietnamese into English) Những lời chào từ 31 Thách thức Bình luận Ngày
In New Zealand. (I picked Maori from the page “Hello in Many Languages“) Tena koe from the 31 Day Challenge.

After seeing the translations in foreign alphabets, I decided to keep the translations just for this post, since I didn’t know if posting text in a foreign alphabet would just end up a garbled HTML mess. So I posted a simple “Hi” in the language of the blog and the fact that I was posting from the 31 Day Challenge.

Day 24: Comment on a Blog Written in a Foreign Language

The challenge for Day 24 came from Sue Waters and Silvia Tolisano, to comment on a blog post in another language.

Google Translator was recommended as a way of reading the blog post and then translating comments into the language of the blog. It was also suggested mentioning that Google Translator was being used to translate the post and the comment, in case the comment isn’t perfectly translated.

Accomplishment for Day 24

Deciding to adjust the challenge slightly.

Seeking out Three 31 Day Challenge Participants blogging in a Foreign Country.

Reading their Posts.

Using Google Translator to translate a short message in the language of their country.

Deciding it would be better to just leave a “Hi” in the language of the country.

Posting messages.

Writing and Posting Day 24 of the Challenge.

Reflections & Revelations for Day 24

Being a perfectionist, particularly when it comes to foreign languages really surfaced as part of this challenge. After I realized this and decided to modify the challenge for me to post to someone from the 31 Day Challenge blogging in a foreign country and use Google Translator to leave a greeting in the language of the blog, the challenge became much easier and enjoyable.

Since I don’t typically see what happens with web pages or blogs written in Japaneses, Russian or Vietnamese, I decided not to post something in a foreign alphabet out of concern that the text might not really say something that I would want, but most of all it would end up a garbled HTML mess.

Image Source: Andrés Giordano. Choose Language. Royalty Free Use.

This blog post is part of The Comment Challenge, comment08.

5 Comments

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I think the concern is justified — ie, the translation might say something you don’t want to say, and I was a little concerned, too.
But, shucks, I went ahead anyway and now I am engaged in a conversation/comment with a teacher from Mexico who is a blogger.
So, it was worth the chance.
Kevin

dogtrax — May 25, 2008 #
[...] new Multimedia options discovered as part of Day 24’s post [...]

Exploring Other Ways to Comment for Day 26 | Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD — May 26, 2008 #
The reason why I suggested it was because I have quite a few readers that English isn’t their first language. For example, Gabriela from Romania has supported all my sites from when I first started and she does this for so many other bloggers. Similarly Ines in the Challenge.

Good to see Kevin that a result for you is to end up in a conversation with a teacher from Mexico.

Sue Waters — May 27, 2008 #
Hi Kirsti,
Thanks for both the comment and the trackback. I definitely think you’ve tweaked it in the right manner.

I really appreciate you leaving a comment on my blog because it brought me over here, to your blog, which I may not have discovered otherwise. Such interesting stuff!

Oh, and FWIW, “Ti nau” is rarely used in spoken Vietnamese (at least in the north; not sure about the south as I’ve never lived there). It’s much more common just to say “Xin Chao!” (polite, formal, what most foreigners say) or “Chao _____” filling in the blank with whichever appropriate pronoun applies — there are about 8 different pronouns dependent on gender and age of who you’re speaking to. To you, I will say “Chao chi!” because you are older than me and a female.

And I’ll also say, again, Cam on, chi! (Thank you!)

MsMichetti — May 30, 2008 #
Hi, I am still a little behind with the Challenge but I have installed the translator because I heard from a French reader. Thankfully, her English is much better than my French.

I was reading your ‘about’ section and I see we have a few things in common, not least that you are moving away from clinical practice in education - so am I. I hurt my back a couple of years ago looking after a woman in labour, so am not too keen to repeat the experience. How are you feeling about doing less clinical?

Sarah Stewart — May 31, 2008 #