Is writing two languages in a blog post a good or bad idea?

kaka135 Level 1

October 26, 2018, 4:59 pm

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Is writing two languages in a blog post a good or bad idea?

As Chinese is my first language, when I started my personal blog, I wrote my blog posts in Chinese. Now as I participate in more English written forums and sites, and I also found some opportunities require blogs written in English, I am thinking of switching to English, so perhaps I can reach more readers in different countries and also expand the opportunity of affiliate marketing.

While considering this, I do not want to lose or disappoint my Chinese readers as well, I am thinking if it is a good idea to write both Chinese and English in a blog post. I do not mind writing in both languages as I think it's also an opportunity for me to practice two languages. I wonder for those who do not know Chinese if they will feel disturbing when there are non-English posts written on the blog. I am not sure if this is not good for SEO as well.

What are you thoughts on this?

Comments

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esteban123

esteban123

I think this would be a good idea but it is kind of a rare activity since mostly people write blogs with the use of one language only which is he English language since this is the universal language that most people are accepting.I think if other people would read your blog they may find it weird at some point since they are not used to it but it only depends on your discretion. If you find it worth it then why not used it if you feel you can do more about it.

6 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

This is true because a lot of people do not like to cast a net over the audience that their content will have. There are numerous people who struggle to learn english and get to write to the best of their ability in english so that they can have an audience from each and every nation. It is kinda beneficial if you ask me.

6 years ago

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theresajane

theresajane

Yes, you are right. Most blogs are written in English. Unless you want your blogs to be exclusive to people who speaks the certain language like you so, it is advantageous to write in English since it is a universal language and definitely can catch the attention of any person.

6 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

Yes but there are periods when if you try to translate some stuff there are things which get lost in the translation. At such moments it is always better to write in the native language as you can communicate better to the audience.

6 years ago

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jeffreyjose48

jeffreyjose48

I agree with you. Just use one language. If you started in English then finish everything in English language.

6 years ago

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mark8625

mark8625

Most of the blogs I read was only one language. If its English the article should be full English. English is a universal language and I believe that many chinese would understand your article if its in English. The only options that you can do to still take care your chinese readers is to make an article of chinese language too. So you will write an article with both English and Chinese language for the sake of your readers.

6 years ago

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mirodge

mirodge

Precisely! I agree in that note. Knowing two or more languages is a good factor as a writer it means you can reach more readers. As far as I know not all Chinese people are English proficient, so by translating your blogs to Chinese language is one way of attracting Chinese readers. It's hitting two birds with one stone"

6 years ago

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mark8625

mark8625

That is right. Not all Chinese can understand and even speak English fluently because obviously that is not their mother tongue and even their second language but if you can write an article with Chinese substitute language then it might work and much better for them.

6 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

I am wondering whether it would be easier for them to translate if the content is the same. The translation though does not always work out well if not done correctly and there are many things that can be lost. I think that one needs to also know if there is a problem with the readers with the english content and whether they need it to be in chinese.

6 years ago

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mark8625

mark8625

Yeah if his readers are all Chinese then its about time to him to write the content in full Chinese language. It will become easier for him and less work to do. Translation is one of the best options but it should think more about it before he do it.

6 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

True. They still have a lot of considerations to make and there are various aspects to consider when hiring a freelancer. They ought to also strive and know how their readers will respond due to the switch and if they will have more views.

6 years ago

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mark8625

mark8625

Correct. We should always consider what should be the best in our article and the best for our readers. In the end both are winners.

6 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

True a win win situation for us as well as those who we create the content for is always desirable due to the fact that it helps to build long term relationships. people will always come to your blog or site.

6 years ago

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mark8625

mark8625

That is right. People will come back to your site because they know how good you are as a writer. They might also recommend your blog site to their friends, so in the end both of you are winner.

6 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

The recommendations make you the bigger winner at all times. This is why it is always great to establish the right relations with clients. You never know the number of people that they will probably recommend to you and as such the benefits that you stand to gain.

6 years ago

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Jeane

Jeane

These online translation tools don't do a perfect job. I've tested this out translating articles since I'm bilingual and wasn't impressed by the results. For two or three word phrases, they'll work fine but long articles of say 300 or 400 words, they won't do a good job.

It's better for that reason to create a copy of an article for different languages or hire someone to get the job done for you though of course if you don't know the language that well, you won't know if the final copy will be good.

6 years ago

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superlicca

superlicca

I think you can make a content with two languages in your blog since you also have Chinese readers and there is nothing wrong with that. I know that English is a universal language but I feel that Chinese readers are more comfortable with their own language. Having the two languages can make them easier to read your blog. And who knows if there are other readers who can also read Chinese even if they are from other countries.

6 years ago

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katarinamurtin

katarinamurtin

Agree! I am surprised that everyone's recommendation is to write in English. You should write for your fans in Chinese and then write again in English. Don't use tools as Google Translate because it translates very poorly.

6 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

In my opinion, it's a bad idea. WHY? Because there is a Google Translate you can put on your blog and when anybody visits, they just click on that tool and it translates the blog into whatever language they want to read. I've tried it! I translated a website or blog. It was an Asian blog. I clicked English and the page I was looking was completely English. It was great! I have the translator tool on my blog.

6 years ago

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amelia88

amelia88

That's true - Google Translate is incredible! However sometimes I do find it messes up translations a little bit, or things don't sound right in terms of sentence structure. I don't know how reliable and accurate it is with certain languages, so that might be a problem.

6 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

Yes. There are certain languages that the translator totally screws up! Fortunately I don't come across too many of them. But I have had the experience of trying to translate something and Google didn't detect the language at all. I didn't know what the language was myself. That's why I was hoping the translator would work. I can remember that happening at least once. But for the most part, it works great.

6 years ago

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mirodge

mirodge

Readers don't have patience to read articles that they don't understand. For me, It is better to have a translation blogs. Readers will definitely appreciate your works by giving them privilege to easily understand. It is like watching Korean drama, mostly viewers don't know how to speak and understand Korean language but more are hook to it, because it has an English subtitles, with that, non Korean viewers will also understand.

6 years ago

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MomoStarr16

MomoStarr16

Translations are good for all the readers out there. Most of the population of readers only have a single language to understand and having translations will de help a lot for the readers and for the writers as well.

6 years ago

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stbrians

stbrians

In steemit blogs were written in either English or any other language. At times, people wrote in other languages followed by an English translation.

In other words, am saying that it depends on where you are writing to.

6 years ago

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thejoyrevolutio

thejoyrevolutio

I think it is okay to write in two languages in your blog. But I think it will be more cohesive to write articles in full English or in full Chinese. It will mess up the readers if you mix two language in one article. It is actually advantage if you translate your article in your blog in both languages. It means more people will understand your work and more traffic.

6 years ago

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beerthooyah

beerthooyah

If your target are chinese well perhaps its is best to write in that language. Can we maintain two separate blogs with both with different langauges. I dont know if it will work but its worth the try.

6 years ago

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Jeane

Jeane

I would suggest that you write your blogs in one language because there is the danger of alienating some of your readers if they stumble into an article they don't understand because they don't know the language.

There is also another option. Create another blog for readers who speak English. You can re-write the articles that are in Chinese and post them on the other blog. This way you could be killing two birds with one stone. My two cents.

6 years ago

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amelia88

amelia88

I think it’s fantastic in terms of broadening your reach - the more languages someone can read your blog in, the wider your audience can be.

I do think though that having two languages interspersed on the one site it may look cluttered or spammy. Maybe two separate sites is the better alternative?

6 years ago

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DISTEFANO115

DISTEFANO115

It has it's own pros and cons, doing it can bring clarification and make the message easier to express, this is the advantage. But the disadvantage of this is that you'll have a narrower audience. It's really up to you, if you want more popularity then choose one universal language but if you want better clarification and quality of the text then use what you are comfortable with.

6 years ago

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rlpzbeermoney

rlpzbeermoney

It's a very bad idea in my opinion. Even if your blog is primarily Filipino for example, it would suck for the non Filipinos who can only understand a portion of your blog post. Think about a worldwide audience when writing. English is really universal.

6 years ago

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amelia88

amelia88

That's what I was concerned about too. In theory it's a good idea but in practice I think it would just make the blog look messy, and scrolling through to find parts in a language you can read might turn you off reading the blog at all. In a sense you might actually alienate people rather than bringing in more readers.

6 years ago

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rlpzbeermoney

rlpzbeermoney

Filipinos and Singaporeans use a mix between English and their own languages and it sometimes get confusing. I can see if this is used in a blog that the blog is specifically targeting a niche audience than a worldwide one. It might be off putting to other people but it offers a sense of belonging to the native speakers.

6 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

MY husband has many friends in Facebook who are English speakers only and the majority of his friends are speakers of our native language. He usually posts in mixed language for the benefit of his English-speaking friends. It is like getting the best of both worlds but i's not easy because it is like writing the idea twice so that both group of readers would be able to understand. I guess it is okay to blog in 2 languages but you should be clear on the translation.

6 years ago

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iambeth

iambeth

I think you would benefit from doing one article that's purely your language and then making another one in English as a translation of the first one and position them side by side. This way you can reach a broader audience. Your readers will be able to understand the content as well as appreciate the intricate Chinese characters.

6 years ago

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theresajane

theresajane

I thinkam your avid readers would understand if you post an English version of your post. Also, I don't see anything bad about writing in two languages. It's kind of fun to come across a writer who doesn't only write in English but also in ther Mother Tongue. It just only shows that you can cater a wide range of audience/readers.

6 years ago

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emiaj55

emiaj55

On my opinion, If your readers won't mind seeing other language on the blog that they had been used to, then I think it's a good idea. Since it would broaden the scope of your audience. But if you are a little hesitant then maybe you could do it little by little. In this way your audience won't be too stranger to the blog as they may feel that it is changing too much to a point that they may feel that it is a different blog altogether...

Another way that you could try is to make an exact copy of your blog but this time make it pure english.. Then you would have an english version of your blog.

6 years ago

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jayjaydimson

jayjaydimson

Well, it depends on your most viewers or watchers on your blogs, if they can understand the languages that you are using it's fine, as long as they are not giving you bad comments, just continue what you are doing on what will make you happy.

6 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

You can always post it in English because it's the universal language. You can either post a Chinese translation or just some instructions in translating it into Chinese.

6 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

The only way that I can agree to using more than one language on a blog or forum would be if the site or blog/forum is designed to automatically translate the used language into English.

It's only this way that other members on the site would be able to read and understand what's written and possibly respond.

6 years ago

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jpk0007

jpk0007

I don't think that there is anything wrong in writing your blogs in two languages if you have readers who are not able to understand English properly. However, I feel that it's better to keep it simple and try to write in a single language. Presenting in two different languages may make it cumbersome for you and also for the readers to a small extent. I think that English is understood by most of the people around the World and the very few who are not able to understand English can very easily make the use of online translator apps

6 years ago

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jaybee19

jaybee19

I belive this is a great idea simply because you will be able to reach out to more audiences with this kind of technique. Having a blog with two languages might definitely increase your audience and I don't think others will find it weird especially if you have a disclosure/note or some kind of announcement about it to your readers. After all, English is not the only language in this world and I do believe that there's a lot of Chinese who doesn't understand English.

6 years ago

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Jstreeter26

Jstreeter26

I feel like a good idea maybe would be to just provide both. Carbon copy what you wrote in Chinese in English. I feel like that would appeal to each side.

6 years ago

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ElectorAlexande

ElectorAlexande

I don't think the search engine will appreciate that idea and your blog may look scatter and confused but if you can run it with a perfect web designer then you can do it, I also think it's a nice idea but I don't want you to lose any reader in the process changing or updating.

6 years ago

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mark8625

mark8625

Yeah that would be a good idea. Writing it in two languages has lot of things to do but in the end you will please your readers. There are many people who understand English language so your readers would become bigger and bigger too.

6 years ago

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Gandalf

Gandalf

I think it's good idea, although it maybe time consuming. It really depends on your audience, but I do think that having both is an advantage. Having two languages on a site isn't a problem as long as it's easy to navigate. What I find on multilingual sites is that if I lose the English option it's hard to get back to it.

6 years ago

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ElectorAlexande

ElectorAlexande

I seriously think this is a good idea and also a serious thing to consider before making, if you have started with Chinese I think you should continue and true to add something like a translator widget on your blog if possible so it can be open to many variety of people not just English readers.

6 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

"..... add something like a translator widget on your blog..."

This is exactly what I'm trying to say that should be done when one is considering about using more than one language on his or her blog.

It's going to be useless to have some comments or contents on one's blog that only those privileged to know the language can read and understand.

6 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

In my opinion, the prospect of using two languages on one blog seems good but it doesn't seem feasible because it's going to limit interaction among only those who understand that particular language.

It's best to stick with only English language because it's the most popular and understood language all over the world.

6 years ago

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mitan143

mitan143

Well, I think sticking to one language is best. But if the platform has a feature of translating the post into another language, then that would be much better for your chinese readers. Or choose the language which could give you more opportunities, anyway your chinese readers can understand your article or blog post if they will find someone who can be able to translate to them your article or any way that help them understand it.

6 years ago

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burgosmichael24

burgosmichael24

Having the skills of writing is truly amazing and having the ability to write in two or more languages is truly even better. It's a good thing to know that you practice your writing in both languages. However, using both languages in a single post may give your readers a hard time to understand your article which can diffuse their interest and it will not be beneficial for you. Maybe you can identify first your target readers so you can identify which is the appropriate language to be used in your article. I believe whatever language you are using in your articles it will always be effective as long as your heart is in your craft.

6 years ago

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stormbreaker10

stormbreaker10

It is bad idea of using two language in your blog. It is like, while you speaking your half nosedrill is dripping a blood and the other is not. The real question in yourself here is, what is my target readers in the blogs? What will I do/use in my blogs to make it more understandable on my target readers?

6 years ago

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Barida

Barida

That is what I was saying as you can't really have to use more languages I'm your blog. You will get to notice that not many will easily understand what you are writing on English and the best thing to do is to focus on the language that you are already making use of.

6 years ago

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jayjaydimson

jayjaydimson

Why will it be bad? It will only be bad if the viewers or readers cannot understand what's written or saying on the blog.

6 years ago

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ElectorAlexande

ElectorAlexande

Yea thats true. What he needs to do is to make the blog look welcoming to the readers, if an English reader access your blog it will take a while to understand what the blog is like because he will be seeing more than one language there and may even drive the reader out but a welcoming blog he enable the readers understand what to do next when on your blog most especially first timers.

6 years ago

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ElectorAlexande

ElectorAlexande

Yea thats true. What he needs to do is to make the blog look welcoming to the readers, if an English reader access your blog it will take a while to understand what the blog is like because he will be seeing more than one language there and may even drive the reader out but a welcoming blog he enable the readers understand what to do next when on your blog most especially first timers.

6 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

It really depends on your target audience if most understand English then write in English. If most of your readers prefer your native language then you can do that also. Sometimes posting the same article in different languages can give you more readers because the ones who are not comfortable with English would be attracted to it.

6 years ago

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nrnlss

nrnlss

Majority of our country understand basic english so if I am in your situation it is okay, but I don't know about you and your audience, if majority of your audience understand English then go for it.

6 years ago

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Barida

Barida

I don't think that it is going to be a good idea for you to switch from one language to another when your blog is almost successful. The thing that I have noticed is that most of the readers that are there on the basis of your current language usage will feel that you never asked that for an opinion before having to change it. I also don't think that it is all of them that are going to understand English when you use it to write.

6 years ago

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MomoStarr16

MomoStarr16

Englsih as we know it is the most use language worldwide. So if you want more people to get understand your article you should wrote it in a language that a lot of people can read it and that is the Englsih Language. And being thoughtful for your own country is not bad at all. It is a good idea to write two kinds of language for those people who don't know English.

6 years ago

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jayjaydimson

jayjaydimson

This thread is answered already, because what's the sense of using two languages, if your reader can understand it right then there's no problem.

6 years ago

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jaymish3

jaymish3

Not a bad idea.Especially if you have a regular, audience from different countries.You can set your website in a way that it automatically translates the site when opened in a particular Country. I don't think that you need to write in two different languages. Though I think that this is a fantastic idea because you can get an audience from two different Countries. So if you can why not?

6 years ago

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rlpzbeermoney

rlpzbeermoney

I've seen blogs where under the English paragraph, a translated version of the paragraph is there. Not just a Google translation but the writer explaining it in his native language. I think it's a very cool idea to say the least.

6 years ago

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allyn2017

allyn2017

It depends on your country. In our country it is normal to have 2 language in blog post since we are using two dialects.

6 years ago

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jayjaydimson

jayjaydimson

Yes, I agree with you, as long as the readers can understand what is written on your blog, two language is fine.

6 years ago

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MomoStarr16

MomoStarr16

There will be a question to vary if doing an article with two language is needed or not. Ask yourselves if who will be your target audience. If a lot of people or any language that is not your native language then doing another language of that article is a good idea. But if the audience will be same as your language you are using, doing only one language is okay.

6 years ago

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mftmadam

mftmadam

It would be a good idea, at least your readers who are English speakers would continue reading your post. And Chinese readers of yours would have an easier time reading your post, I actually think it's a good idea. Good thinking in your part, but at the end of the day it's still your decision. I'm just giving my opinion, i hope it helps.

6 years ago

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esteban123

esteban123

I think for me I would rather use one language which is the English language so that readers would not be confused about it so that it will looks good and attractive at some point, since most people find it more convenient to have the English language.

6 years ago

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focusedwriter10

focusedwriter10

Well, before you even write the blog with two languages, first know your audience or the target group. The idea is good, but if you are specific about the audience, then forget about it.

I would recommend you stick to one language. However, if your blog is geo-restricted, then you can give a try with a few blogs, then wait and see the progress.

6 years ago

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HappyLady

HappyLady

I cannot see it would hurt to post the two blog posts and have a link to the chinese and a link to the English version. There are people who will never be able to learn Chinese, but as you say, might still enjoy the blog. Why not try it for a few blog posts and track the views to see whether this makes any difference to the blog or not?

6 years ago

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koki12346

koki12346

In my opinion - yes. It really depends on the audience. For an example if you write for the newspaper - writing 2 languages is not so good... Some people may like it, but i think that the most of us do not like it...

6 years ago

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