I have a question for you. A question that is actually twofold, and it's also a bit of a poll.

Non-native English speakers: what percentage of your FB friends are native English speakers, and what language do you do your status updates in? Why that language?

Native English speakers: how many of your FB friends speak a language other than English, and how many of those post status updates in their own language? Do you hate seeing posts in your news feed that you can't read? Or did you already block all of those out of your news feed?

I'm asking because I'm wondering what my non-Dutch speaking FB friends are thinking of my posts, that are all, except for some, in Dutch, since the vast majority of my friends is Dutch. Not that I care much ("sure you don't!"), it's just grinding my gears a little.

I overheard some of my friends (who are a bit snobby I guess) talking shit about one person who always posts status updates in English ("is he trying to come off cool or what?"), but he has lots of international friends so it all makes sense. They be ignorant yo!

I communicate in English mostly to non native friends on Facebook unless I know the language. Rarely I'll have a French status when it is directed at someone I know who speaks it. I comment a lot in French because the French here are stubborn and don't want to learn a language that can help them in life.

2011 is the year I start posting pics of my shit on Facebook. My promotion means most coworkers will have no choice but to love it.

I'd say somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of my fbook friends are non-native english speakers. Of those, between 1/2 and 2/3 now live in the US so they tend to post most statuses in english. The rest seem to post more often in their native tongue. My cousins in Austria, on the other hand, seem to post most of their statuses in English and then respond in the comments in German haha.

A few of my older friends that live here now but are foreign do post their statuses in their native tongues but that seems to be the case mainly because most of their facebook friends are from their countries of birth.

Maybe 5 people on my friends list are native english speakers, further half dozen not native english speakers but neither do they speak slovenian, and the rest either speak or can understand slovenian.

Most of my status updates are in my language, sometimes i will post in english if i want it to catch the eye of one of those who cant understand me otherwise and then there are the times when i post a status update in english just because i was thinking in english at the time and didnt actually notice until later that i wasnt typing in my native language.

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I don't mind reading status updates in languages other than English even though that's the only language I speak.

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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker I don't mind reading status updates in languages other than English even though that's the only language I speak.

I can spot the cynicism there buddy.

I've spent many many hours browsing internet boards, playing video games, watching movies, reading study books, all spoken/written in English. I can honestly say my spelling and grammar in English is better than like 95% of the non-English speaking people I know. Although I'm rarely finding myself in a situation in which I have to speak English, it has more than once happened to me that I could only think of the English word and not the Dutch word. English puns are way funnier than Dutch puns and the list goes on and on...

That's why it's such a shame there are only one or two friends that get the occasional English joke I make. The other day I said "No shit, Sherlock" and wrote "Captain Obvious to the rescue" to someone. Though pretty simple (and, yes, cliché internet humor), he didn't get it.

Maybe I just need to find new friends.

it's because you aren't funny...it has nothing to do avec la langue que tu parles le fif.

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Originally posted by Frenkieee I can spot the cynicism there buddy.

No, no. I mean, I am in a foul mood but I really wasn't aiming for cynicism, at all. I have FB friends who live in other parts of the world and consider it natural that they want to communicate in their native language or with people who speak a language other than my own. I don't particularly mind it and, sometimes, if I'm bored, I'll even try and decipher what they're talking about - without using Google translator.

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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

quote:

Originally posted by Frenkieee Non-native English speakers: what percentage of your FB friends are native English speakers

I'd say probably less than half. A quarter, maybe? But I definitely need English in order to communicate with way more than half my friends because they speak a language I don't

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Originally posted by Frenkieee and what language do you do your status updates in?

English, most of the time. Sometimes in Portuguese (my native language). Seldom in a third language (Japanese, Spanish, or what have you).

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Originally posted by Frenkieee Why that language?

It usually goes like this:

Is it a link to an article or video? If so, what language do you need to understand in order to comprehend the linked content? Unless you need to have a good grasp of a language other than English to understand what's going on, then I'll write in English.

Is it a local event or is it something everybody can comment on? If I'm talking about something that requires some knowledge about life in Brasilia, then of course I'm going to post it in Portuguese, otherwise I'll be focusing on the wrong target audience. If, however, everybody can chime in and throw their 2 cents, then English it is!

quote:

Originally posted by Frenkieee I overheard some of my friends (who are a bit snobby I guess) talking shit about one person who always posts status updates in English ("is he trying to come off cool or what?"), but he has lots of international friends so it all makes sense. They be ignorant yo!

I don't know how to say this in a nice way, and I apologise if this sounds too aggressive, but your friends are idiots and I'm willing to bet they don't speak English, so they're just making themselves feel better for being ignorant twits.

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English is not my native language though I communicate almost exclusively in English (at least on FB), mainly because the majority of my FB friends are Anglophone, or Francophone but do understand English even though they pretend they don't. I'd post the occasional French status if what I'm trying to say just sounds better in French.

I do have a few friends who post in Arabic or Spanish, I understand those languages so no issues there. I also have Norwegian, Dutch, German and Brazilian friends who rarely post in English but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Why would it bother you anyway?

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The only hard feelings should be in your pants

Quite a few people on my FB are non native english speakers, so I see lots of posts in different languages. If I've got time, I usually copy/paste into google translate and see what they've written, other wise I'll sort of skip over it to the next one.

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Originally posted by zyklon-jay it's because you aren't funny...it has nothing to do avec la langue que tu parles le fif.

Luckily for me you don't know anything about me or my humor for that matter, so I won't be offended. If it hadn't been the guy who thinks it's funny to do nothing other then criticize people and the things they do or say, maybe I would.

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Originally posted by Lira I don't know how to say this in a nice way, and I apologise if this sounds too aggressive, but your friends are idiots and I'm willing to bet they don't speak English, so they're just making themselves feel better for being ignorant twits.

In this case, they are. They're girls for starters, who are of course renowned for talking behind other people's backs and like to criticize other people. They're also the ones who try to be witty every once in a while and post an update in English, only to make a rookie mistake in a sentence with only four words (this makes me cringe). But let's face it, even native English speakers make than/then, your/you're they're/there/their mistakes so I can't really blame them.

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Originally posted by Intellekshual Why would it bother you anyway?

Maybe because Facebook's purpose is to stay in touch with your friends/acquaintances and whatnot, which is not that easy if you can't understand a word they're saying.

Then again, if you really want to stay in touch you'd be better off sending them messages or writing on their wall. And in the end, I couldn't give a damn about 95% of all status updates.