2018/02/04
Some articles on the blog side of anthe.studio are available in another language. In this article I will explain why.
Change of plans
Originally, I planned on publishing every article on anthe.studio in three languages: English, French and Dutch. Unfortunately, manually translating an article is a very time consuming job. Because this trilingual attitude was straining content creation, I eventually decided on only writing in English, albeit with a few concessions.
Language and the target audience
My goal on anthe.studio is to put out information or an opinion on something. Language is, in most cases, nothing but a carrier of what I want to say. However, sometimes, language is strongly connected with the content or the target audience.
For example: an article about video games is not tied to a certain language. However, when I write a background story on KetnetKick, a video game with a primarily Dutch speaking target audience, I consider it to be normal to provide a Dutch version of this article as well. To not discriminate a possible international audience, I deem an English version sufficient for anyone else interested in a primarily Belgian topic.
Benefits of this system
The original trilingual creation mindset did not take into account the target audience of each article, making for a lot of wasted time on translating for an audience which might not have existed. Time is now adequately spent.
Articles are also no longer bound to three fixed languages. When it is logical to provide a certain text in, say, Norwegian, this is now possible, given that I am able to provide a translation of high enough quality.
Finally, not feeling obliged to publish an article in three different languages greatly benefits me as a writer. Again, translation is very time consuming and I have rejected several ideas due to time constraints.
With this new flexible language system in my favour, I have made it my goal to be a more active writer.