I wrote an article earlier today about the facebook site being translated into spanish, french and german. I speculated that having the facebook applications translated would be the next step. I have just received confirmation from facebook that this will in fact be the case. This is coming in a short time (possibly a few weeks).

Facebook source: “In addition, the translation application will soon be available to Facebook Platform developers who want to have their applications translated by the community.”

Nearly 1,500 Spanish-speaking users on Facebook chose to be part of the effort and translated the site from English to Spanish in less than four weeks

Current users who want to view Facebook in Spanish can change their language preference from their account settings. Beginning on Monday, Feb. 11, any person who goes to www.facebook.com from a Spanish-speaking country will see the site in Spanish. Over 60 percent of Facebook users are now outside of the U.S. – many in countries where English is not the primary language – with more than 2.8 million active users in Latin America and Spain.

Users who added the Facebook translation application were allowed to submit translations inline while browsing the site. The community then approved all translations through a voting system. For example, users agreed on “dar un toque” to describe the Facebook-coined term “poke.” Many translators are motivated by the impact of their contribution to making the site available to millions who speak their language. The leading Spanish translator was responsible for 1,284 of the winning sentences, almost 3 percent of the entire site.

As the company releases new features, Facebook will continue to empower its users to make these available in their local language.

Facebook users can now also access the mobile site in their supported language through any mobile device with Web capabilities. This is going to be a big benefit in europe as mobile usage is quite large there.

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