Why
I’m used to writing in English. An English-language blog could theoretically reach a wider readership, assuming I ever advertised this blog somewhere. One problem I have with the Finnish language has to do with the expressiveness of the language. Words are commonly borrowed from the English language for use in Finnish texts, especially when it comes to new fields, eg. technology & sciences. English feels more powerful in it’s capacity to allow me to say what I want, more accurately and efficiently. There are more synonyms and alternative expressions available.
As to why I would write in Finnish, I think of the people close to me, some of whom cannot comfortably read English. I would like them to be able to read the blog too. Some of the topics I want to write about concern particularly Finnish problems, writing about them in English would seem a bit odd. You have to know your audience, as they say, and take them into account.
How
Technically, implementing bilingual support on this platform was quite simple. It’s just a separate folder. I haven’t been able to fully customize the menu links. This is both a technical detail and a translation difficulty. I couldn’t come up with a suitable translation for the words “About” and “Tags”. Many Finnish bloggers use their first name to link to the page where they tell about themselves, some use “info” or something else. It’s not fully translated, but whatever, it’s about good enough.
And then the biggest problem, time usage. It can take about an hour to write one blog post. Probably more to be honest, it depends how long I end up polishing it or doing research. After the text is ready, how long does it take to make the translation? Nowadays, translation tools work quite fine. I could throw the text into Google Translate and continue with minor corrections. Or I could refuse these tools and translate the text manually, practically rewriting the text in English. It takes another hour. I guess it’s not too bad.