Research and Analysis of Bilingual Blogs
Jane Funk
English 572
June 15, 2013
Random notes and commentary on illustration, urban
sketching, art and visual communication by newspaper
artist and Urban Sketchers founder Gabriel Campanario.
This blog is noted as being bilingual, however it just has a Google translate button for the blog’s text:
http://gabicampanario.blogspot.com/ As I evaluate the writing and design of the blog, I see a fairly clean
design for the text. This typical blog is full of weekly posts on fairly random subjects, which are arranged
in categories on the right. The author has added many areas for sharing on social media, but I wonder a
bit about his headings as they are sometimes idiomatic expressions mixed with a software application
name. This can be problematic when the heading translates or is posted on social media. Translation
does seem to be an issue here. He writes in American English originally. However, translating using the
Google button, which is small, in English only, requires scrolling to find, and offers a very poor
translation due to his idiomatic expressions and higher level constructions and vocabulary, makes
translation worthless to those who struggle with the language. Overall, it is a site with clean text,
sometimes long and difficult headings, too many advertisements, and a poor translation ability.
A Rant, A Rave, and a
Little Bit of Everyday Life
This blog is bilingual, but the heading is not linked to the translated blog, which is a different address:
http://ktayd13.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/spanish-blog-is-now-live/ Started in February of this year,
this man is new to blogging. His beginning abilities are obvious in many areas. To begin, his title says
very little about the blog contents. His comments are about being Chilean, cooking, and life as a
bilingual/bicultural man. The title says none of this. Next, his font is so small, it is hard to read. He also
has placed a calendar of posts on the top right, but this feature does not invite reading as the visitor has
no idea what those posts contain. Finally, the biggest area for improvement is simple: He placed a nice
large sentence in the upper right corner announcing that the blog is available in Spanish. But, the
sentence is not a link to the blog. In order to find the blog in Spanish, a visitor has to be on the exact
post where he posted the link. Similarly, he posted a search link for the blog, but it is in Spanish, not
English like the rest of the page. The blog is difficult to read and use.
What is 350?
We're building
A GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO
SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS.
This blog is multilingual, but the articles are simply language and culture specific. They are not
translated: http://350.org/en A professionally organized blog, the content is clear. This organization is
concerned with global warming and the environment worldwide. Each area of the world has
representative buttons at the top, although one is hidden under ‘more’. The photos are engaging and
the text for the headings clearly uses correct nouns for SEO. The best part is the hover and discover
menu design. The About and Resource tabs, for instance, allow a user to hover and move to the correct
area of interest. Overall, the site is clean, easy to use and read, and full of good information and links.
The only area for improvement would be to allow visitors to read what is happening in other regions as
each article is language and region specific.
The HUDdle
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Official Blog
Connect with HUD
This government blog has a button to translate the whole page to Spanish: http://blog.hud.gov/ The
button is located directly at the top where a visitor can find it easily. However, the page it opens has
different content. Even the menu on the right changes, so in essence, those who are reading in Spanish
do not get the same news and help that an English reader would. This menu links to articles on a variety
of topics, which is too complicated and busy. Some of the menu items contain acronyms and
initializations, which communicate nothing to those looking for help. As the typical visitor might be
someone looking at housing problems in the US, the language of the categories needs revamping. For
instance, “From The Field” is a category. As categories fall into SEO, this could mean farming. This also
does not tell the visitor what that click will find. What is under this button has a variety of posts which
could be categorized in a better area. One is on ‘lead’. There is a category called ‘lead paint’, but this
category only has one article. Also, the Spanish version has lead paint, but it is a different article. Instead
of 50+ items, the site managers could easily combine these links to general groups with a hover feature
instead of alphabetizing them. When clicking on these categories to read, the articles appear, but not
completely. At the end of each is a bracketed ellipsis where typically a button appears for [read more].
Instead, a visitor has to click on the article title to read it all. This is counter-intuitive. Overall, this site
has good article headings, articles in both Spanish and English, and areas for commenting and following
on social media. Underall, the site randomly assigns and designs categories for each article, the headings
are not easy to understand, and it gives different information to different language speakers.
Dr Christopher Rollason: BILINGUAL CULTURE BLOG –
This blog is only for those who are completely bilingual as reading requires both languages. There is no
pattern: http://rollason.wordpress.com/ One can see this requirement at the only top menu options:
Home and acera de. Acerca de means About. Why are these different languages? Also, some of the
articles are in Spanish, some in English, some have Spanish in the title with English text, and a few are
translated in both languages. Furthermore, everything is posted under the category “sin categoria”,
which means he does not even have categories set up but that he did set his blog language as Spanish.
The right menu shows that he posts often with everything by date in a huge list. However, who would
want to click through the whole list. This blogger must blog because he likes to write and is not
concerned if anyone reads it.
Another strange mix of language can be seen at this blog. Not all headings translate and users hit a
Spanish button to view content in translation: http://www.micaminar.com/en/ The content translates
along with the categories nicely. However, some oddities need cleaning: At the end of each entry, the
author has a Spanish click for other posts of interest called Si le interese. This appears in the English
version also. The social media links cover the titles so that reading is impossible. The two columns on the
right overwhelm the page with advertising and links to other writers. Lastly, several of the articles have a
click directly below for reading the same article in Spanish even though the site translates them. . Even
the CSS doesn’t load correctly and the site error freezes my brand new Dell 8500 super tower that could
download all the FBI files while streaming every Justin Beeber tweet simultaneously. The site has
promise but needs better balance and error correction.
VidaVibrante.com Our Health, Our Culture, Our Lives
This is probably the best as the articles translate well, most all the buttons and advertising is in both
languages, and the marketing is definitely aimed at Hispanics: http://www.vidavibrante.com/ The
designers of this site are professional in every respect. The column on the left has all the categories
organized under basic health issues (although the capitalization is difficult to read). The featured articles
have a clear image, H1 heading and H2 directly under each so as to give the viewer a taste and translate
nicely to Twitter feeds and SEO. The video scrolling at the top has professional images with the same H1
and H2 below each. And best of all, the translation is complete for all headings, text, and link. The only
irritating attributes are the Colgate ad, which is only in Spanish and the poll that auto-opens forcing
someone to click it out. This is a great site.
A very professional feel, this blog is actually weird as only the link headings are bilingual:
http://blog.latism.org/ The articles are great, being professionally written. The photos are engaging. The
look is clean. However, this blog has some big issues. At the top are 3 competing menus. The very top
heading in a light grey has cryptic headings for Latism 2 and a conference. This bar is for a completely
different site. The next menu is a double for the 3rd, except the 3rd has an additional menu for an oddly
worded category—Social good/Filantropia. I question as to why each menu has a very easy to
understand bilingual heading when nothing else appears in Spanish. If a visitor doesn’t speak English
well enough to understand the heading, why bother clicking and trying to read? All I can figure is that
the additions make the site ‘look’ somewhat Hispanic. The headings must be ornamental.
THE PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETER
BILINGUAL ENGLISH-SPANISH BLOG ON ISSUES IMPORTANT TO THE PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETER.
This blog is for bilingual court translators and really has a strange mix of Spanish and English. Blog looks
bilingual. But, it is only for people that speak both languages so why are the headings in both?
http://rpstranslations.wordpress.com/ If you know what code switching is, this site is an excellent
example. Language theorists and researchers look for examples of this to further the study of language
centers in the brain and how they associate with emotions. This man, who is marinating in two
languages simultaneously, writes mostly in English. However, with a little digging you can find where he
switches to Spanish. I liked his articles as they were salty at times, a bit edgy in areas, professional
overall, and engaging. His site is clean and has many visitors as evidenced by the amount of comments.
This is probably due to his tagging, which is beyond comprehensive. He probably has as many tags
added to articles as words in the text. This is the problem: his tagging is the best way to navigate. He
does not have any categories listed, and once visitors click on an article, they lose the navigation to
other articles. In order to return, one must click on the double headings to the left. And, the heading to
pick is Welcome. This should be Home not Welcome. And, since almost all his articles are in English, why
does each left heading appear in two languages? As he has good information, and many interested
followers, he should redesign his basic elements.