Why did i choose to blog in English ?

If you’ve already been visiting my blog here for a while (and of course read some of my post here), you’ll probably think that i’m pretending to be a cool guy by writing in English language instead of my own language which is Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Language). Despite there are various spelling and grammar error here and there (and lots of other error), i keep writing in english.

But why did i choose to write in english eventhough i can’t write it well ? .. that’s because english is the only international language i know (i can’t read chinese language or japanese or spanish, etc), because no matter what you write in your blog if you want to get international coverage, there’s no way you can use your own language eventhough you really want to promote it to the whole world .. and that’s a fact

But is that the only reason on why i decided to write in english ? of course not, and that’s why i’m going to tell you the other factor on why i decided to write in english language although i write this blog in indonesian language at first :

My Site Visitors mostly came from USA

Although i write my blog in indonesian language at the first time. My site visitors mostly came from United States and some European contry as well. Not from my own country. And after thinking about it, i decided to write in english several days later .. and you can see it here as a proof

Monetizing your blog using your own language is hard

Big advertisers (such as adsense, or other affiliate program) that can pay you using a pay cheque only accept several language. But most of them only accept your blog / site if you write your content in English language.

And as a side note, if you live here in Indonesia, you’ll find out that there’s no easy way to monetize your site (if you’re doing it the right way without even thinking of creating a scam site to trick visitor to buy your so called ebook, and of course without stealing someone else article)

Learning Experience

I only learn english by watching movie and anime, and by reading various resources on the Internet (that’s the main reason i can translate better rather than writing it). But in order to make yourself better there’s no other way other than trying to write it directly and show it to the public (especially the native english speaker) so you can learn from it

Well .. i think that’s already explained it all, although there’ll always be an obstacle when you’re going to write in other language if you’re not really good at it.

For example, if you get words like your blog sucks, your grammar sucks, learn to spell, and similar insulting words. You should just ignore it (don’t let it go to your heart), because if you just give up blogging because of something like that, you can be sure .. you’re not going to advance further in your blogging world

Note : This is an entry to Problogger Group Writing Project, and for those that didn’t know about it, you might try visiting Problogger website to learn about this group writing project :)

Gura said Aug 7, 2007 at 11:16 am

Interesting. I’ll consider it (making my blog in international language).

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Joaquin Payton said Jun 14, 2007 at 4:23 pm

This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”

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Reaper-X said Feb 19, 2007 at 6:58 pm

Hello Nick,

It seems there’s a big problem (at least for me) .. because all the video filesize are big, and my monthly internet bandwidth / quota is just 2GB / month :( (i cant afford to get an unlimited internet connection because its really expensive for me .. $200 / month *tax excluded*) and that’s why i always block video / audio stream from being displayed

Im sorry that because of this i cant help you, but if you have any other solution to this just let me know :)

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Nick Lyon said Feb 16, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Hi, Thanks for your post. The Translate4Conservation page is part of a bigger initiative – http://www.films4.org – Films4Conservation. The aim of this site is to provide conservation videos to a global community, making them available for campaigners to download, to reach new audiences and to empower people without the means to make their voice heard to reach new audiences.

The translate4conservation page is an example of how we can take people to the very heart of issues happening right now, and get them involved in helping our conservation initiative. Unfortunately we normally can’t spend more than a month working in Indonesia at a time – so our Bahasa Indonesia is not very good. With the bigger projects we can secure small funds to help us translate from English to Indonesian and vice versa, but we do not have any core funding and the project operates as non-profit, so we are not paid for our work on Films4Conservation.

We thought that there must be a lot of people around the world who were bilingual in Bahasa and English who would like to help local conservationists by translating the important messages they had.

If you could publicise our work through your blog and ask bilingual volunteers to step forward this would be a huge help to us. There is more info on how to help at the bottom of the Translate4Conservation page. This can be accessed through a tab on the http://www.films4.org site. I look forward to hearing from any volunteers. All best wishes,

Nick.
Founder http://www.films4.org

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Reaper-X said Feb 10, 2007 at 10:11 pm

Im sorry for late reply because of the recent flood here

btw im really delighted if i can be of any help to you (and as long as i can help you, of course i’ll help you). just tell me a detailed description about it :)

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Nick Lyon said Feb 3, 2007 at 12:50 am

Hi, I was wondering if you could help me by posting a blog entry about our Indonesian conservation work. We are currently looking for Indonesian volunteers to help us translate some conservation messages to help with our campaign work. We have set up a blog specifically for this purpose:
http://translate4conservation.blogspot.com/

This would be a huge help to us, and our friends operating out in the field sites in Indonesia. Specific areas include Sumatran Tiger Conservation, Forest Loss and Oil Palm development.

Best Wishes,
Nick,
Director of the Orangutan Film Protection Project.
Producer at Cockroach Productions http://www.cockroach.org.uk
Founder of Films4Conservation http://www.films4.org

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Reaper-X said Dec 31, 2006 at 8:44 pm

Actually i find your blog interesting Ashrufzz ;-)

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Ashrufzz said Dec 30, 2006 at 7:19 pm

I’m a Malay. I speak malay but I think in English. I tried to blog in my local language which is Malay but failed. Haha..

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Reaper-X said Dec 23, 2006 at 2:06 pm

Hahaha .. but you’re a lucky guy mr.bink to be able to speak Javanese Language, i dont even understand a single words about Javanese language (except for Sundanese) :P

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mr.bink said Dec 22, 2006 at 4:29 pm

Well, you are right mr. aditya, actually I wanna write more in english too. And know I am still using Bahasa Indonesia and sometimes bahasa Jawa..heehehehe

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Reaper-X said Dec 22, 2006 at 1:04 pm

Thank you very much everyone for your visit and comment on my blog, i really appreciate it :)

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Yoav said Dec 21, 2006 at 11:24 pm

I am struggling with the same problem. But it’s nice that you can spark a conersation even if you are not a native english speaker

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cctech said Dec 21, 2006 at 11:11 pm

I admire you for taking on the English language. Believe me, there are people that have grown up with English that have not mastered it :).

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Ashish Mohta said Dec 21, 2006 at 10:13 pm

Really good points.Most of my hist too come from USA but i am trying to cover russian and china too.l will have to geneerate some idea son how to do .

I also got entry in darrens project.
http://technospot.net/blogs/index.php/2006/12/19/predicting-the-evolution-of-techspot-insideout/

And i am feeding your blog.There wont be another chance to meet so many bloggers

Merry Christmas

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Reaper-X said Dec 21, 2006 at 8:45 pm

Hello Ashok thanks for visiting my blog btw you have an interesting post there about affiliate marketing :)

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Ashok said Dec 21, 2006 at 8:21 pm

Find your blog through problogger, i am also a participant there. Nice point on choosing english it give more coverage to your thoughts. btw I am from India

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