Last week, Facebook launched a Spanish version of the site that for the first time allows
hispanohablantes anywhere to sign up and browse the site in their native language. And now, anyone on Facebook can set their language
preference for their account as well as select a language for sending invites to their friends.
What made this launch remarkable is that the site was translated by the Facebook community using an application developed by Facebook. Although other translation projects have used similar collaborative methods, the dynamic nature of the site, and the variety and richness of the content, made this project all the more challenging.
As a native
hispanohablante and
ingeniero in the internationalization team, I was particularly excited about this launch. During the weeks we fine-tuned the application, we received great feedback from the community of translators. It was also great to see the translators engage in lively and passionate discussions as to what the best translations should be for certain words and phrases.
Facebook currently has more than 2.8 million active users in
España and
America Latina, all who had signed up using the site in English. Today, we are making the site even more useful for them to connect with all of their friends. We've posted notifications to let these users know they can invite their
amigos hispanohablantes to join Facebook.
In just a couple of days we have seen a significant growth in the number of users that have joined Facebook from countries in
España and
America Latina, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Facebook has always been about expanding who could use the site—from college campuses, to high school, to workplaces, to everyone with email. We expect this growth to continue as Spanish-speakers are now able to join in on the fun.
We are planning to launch French and German versions of the site next, and everyday we receive requests from the community to make more languages available for translating. Stay tuned for more posts from other members of the internationalization team, as we continue to make Facebook available to everyone, everywhere, in all languages.
Nico es un caminante que, donde no hay camino, hace camino al andar.
