Blogging in English v. blogging in your mother tongue

I cruised by André Ribeirinho’s blog the other day, and stopped at one (of many, mind you) very interesting post.

André ponders whether or not to post in his native tongue, Portuguese, continue blogging in English, or do both. On the one hand, he enjoys reaching a wide audience that shares common interests.

I feel that I write in English because I want to connect with other people with whom I like to share opinions or ideas. The same people with whom I want to maintain an ongoing conversation.

on the other hand, he feels he might express himself diferently if he were to write in his mother tongue, and he would – simoultaneously – contribute to the portuguese speaking community.

Nevertheless, I would like to share some of my ideas in Portuguese with the
Portuguese-speaking community.

I’ve been thorugh much the same coniderations myself. I’ve even tried blogging in Danish and also, for a very brief period of time, my blog was bi-lingual. Here are my random thoughts on the subject.

• Danish comes naturally to me – much more so than English. I very often hear phrases in Danish (lyrics or posts from Danish blogs or what not) that are very inspiring to me, and seem to catch something in a very precise way. I would love to share these, develop on them or even come up with my own. That’s HARD in an English blog
• I do, however, think I gain more from writing in the one language I know (my Spanish is too rusty) most people would understand. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of readers, but a fair share of the few people who read my blog actually visit it from foreign countries. I would hate for them not to be able to join in
• Ideas and interests are more important to me than national affiliation
• Bi-lingual blogs don’t work for me. I loose focus, and I tend to divide not only in languages, but also in topics. Fun stuff in Danish and serious stuff in English. I just haven’t been able to make it work
• I actually enjoy having to write in English. To me, it works as kind of a filter – if it’s worth translating in my head (it is, after all, somewhat of a different project to formulate your thoughts in a foreign language), it’s probably worth writing, and hopefully worth reading

In response to André (who, unlike me, actually asks his readers whether or not he should blog in one language or the other) all I can say is – I enjoy your blog. I wouldn’t be able to if it were written in Portuguese – please continue blogging in English