Facebook: Hablamos Español

Popular social networking service Facebook has begun introducing internationalized versions of its site, introducing a Spanish-language version and promising French and German editions are on the way. Facebook users who want to view the site in Spanish can just change their language selection in their account preferences, and, by default, visitors from Spanish-speaking countries will see the site in Spanish beginning on February 11.

“Over 60 percent of Facebook users are now outside of the U.S., and many live in countries where English is not the primary language” said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a statement. “Our goal has always been to allow people to use Facebook in their native language so we built an application to enable users to participate in translating the site into their local languages and dialects.”

Facebook estimates it has more than 2.8 million users in Latin America and Spain.

Facebook’s translation to Spanish was handled in an interesting way: instead of hiring localization experts, Facebook rolled out a translation application and enabled users to submit their own translations inline while using the site. The user community then approved translations through an online voting system. More than 1,200 translated items—about 3 percent of the entire site—were offered by a single translator.