What would be the most important language besides English if I translate my gig

[heronimus]

Thinking about perfectly translating my gig and add it as a pdf to my gig. What would be the most important language if I add one… I think Spanish right?

[emmaki]

One that you can competently speak. No language is “more important” than another. Do you plan to sell your services in Spanish using Google Translate? Good luck when you get Slang Hell.

[mae_creativity]

Can you choose more than 1?
This is an interesting topic, since it means figuring out which non English speaking country has the most buyers on Fiverr.
Roughly -
Some of the top languages spoken in the world (natives speakers) besides English are Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Russian, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay … but I haven’t encountered many or none of these here (except for Arabic and Hindi)
Plus from what I’ve noticed, a large amount of sellers are from Pakistan, but I don’t know if they are also buyers. If so, then Urdu.
I’m curious what others think.

[emmaki]

The international language of business and commerce is, for now, English. I’m sure this will change in the coming decades, but it will depend on the country which usurps the United States as the preeminent export nation with the “best” currency. The dollar’s hegemony is only in place due to oil. That house of cards is teetering on the brink as I type. The problem is, that because the $ is so closely linked to other great powers (via bonds etc), the whole house must necessarily collapse with a nice little war first.

This isn’t an interesting question at all; it’s masochistic guesswork based on mercenary desire for extra money–all based on a lie. Learn a language you enjoy that’s useful to you and lets you connect to another culture. Then you can make bank on it.

Or just learn a language lots of rich lazy people speak. Pretend to be from their country to and “borrow” articles to bolster your actual piss-poor command of the language (or joyously embrace it anyway, as communication matters more than native fluency in 99% of cases)

[mariokluser]

Your spam has been reported!

[mariokluser]

If at all you should choose one that you communicate in. A downside is that you will get less help from CS in case of a dispute if the communication within a gig is other than English.

[emmaki]

No thanks. I do it better than you and I don’t spam irrelevant threads. You’re disqualified from ever working with me or working for me.

You’ve blended yourself into insignificance.

[emmaki]

This is a fair point–as a bonus, it comes without unwanted geopolitical commentary!

[mariokluser]

Did I ever deliver unwanted geopolitical commentary? 😉

[reskiyoer]

Well, I’d really like to have an option to translate my gig description by myself instead of having it done by Google Translate.

Some German speaking clients contacted me, since they were very confused that I’m a German (offering voiceovers, translations and proofreads) who can’t even write a German description.
Yes, you can clearly see the Google logo, saying it’s translated by Google, but somehow several people missed it already. After getting in touch, they knew I flawlessly write and speak in German, but I feel bad for all my post-prospective clients who didn’t message me first.

I have read somewhere that Fiverr is planning on implementing this feature. I’m looking forward to it with eager expectation.

But, as @mariokluser already said: As long as CS doesn’t support the language, it can be very difficult in terms of solving any problems with your clients.

[emmaki]

It would be nice if there was some sort of language tab, so that there was the English description, then people could add them in their native tongue. As Fiverr is an international business site where the whole thing is run in English, clearly communications should be carried out thus, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a Dutch/German/Spanish/Arabic/Hindi whatever description. Be good for SEO too, I imagine.

But right now? English. It’s a language with multiple benefits to learn anyway.

[misscrystal]

I recommend sticking to English if you possibly can.

[reskiyoer]

Yep, that’s true. I’ll stick to English as long as possible, since in any worst case scenario, I want the CS on my side. I’m always very accurate and try to cover every possible incident before it even happens.

On the other hand, if a German speaking client reads the gig description translated by Google, and Google didn’t translate something properly (German can be very exact, but you have to use the exact words…), this can result in big misunderstandings and troubles between me and him. Especially when it comes to technical language.
For example: If I read the translated version of my mixing gig description, I can only guess what’s meant there. Google doesn’t translate the sense or the words correctly at all.

Since Fiverr is shown in German, they should clearly hire someone to translate their site to proper German. Not only the gig descriptions lack in coherence and everything else, but also all the other little things are mostly wrong or translated with strange sounding words.

[miiila]

laughs Yes, I was horrified to see what my descriptions, written in English, look like when the ‘fiverr’ language defaulted to German. I was definitely seeing exactly what you describe, Germans laughing at my German, and thinking I´m completely nuts 😛
I was wondering if I should put that in there somewhere or use the precious box space for both English and German descriptions, or just put it in the FAQ and call it a day then?
You just explain it when it comes up and else pray you don´t lose good potential clients because of it?

[miiila]

That´s an interesting question - important here would mean ‘What are the most common languages spoken by buyers?’, and to know that, we´d need statistics from fiverr. They publish any?
I’m thinking a pdf with a few of the more common languages might be helpful in some cases, but in others only lead to trouble, if they wrongly assume you are fluent in their language while you aren´t.
I think I wouldn´t opt for it, but if I should make a guess on the most ‘important’ (for all intents and purposes) languages apart from English, I´d say French, Portuguese, Spanish, German. I´m totally on the fence with Chinese. There are lots of Chinese speakers of course, but do they buy on fiverr? I can´t even guess.

[mae_creativity]

In any case, I do find language geography, linguistic demography, globalization, and how all this is reflected in international online freelancing - interesting.
Whether or not it’s a good idea to translate your gig, depends on a lot of things including what you are offering exactly. I have a few gigs that absolutely require both me and the buyer to understand each other perfectly as we communicate back and forth a million times.
And I also have a gig that only requires the buyer understanding exactly what I offer, and that I understand 1 sentence they write me (actually not even that. If they follow the instructions in my gig description, they would just need to send me a document, I do something with it, and respond with a simple sentence that says “I did (put the document at…) thank you.”) Simple.
If you are bi/trilingual, most likely you can handle another language well enough for gigs like the last one I talked about (same as if u play a musical instrument or 2, you can handle a third). Especially if the new language is on the same language branch.
Another idea, is if you live with someone who speaks this other language… if the both of you understand the other’s way of thinking, then they could communicate and you do the actual work. Lots of possibilities. So fun - i love this stuff. I’d love to read your comments - we’re not writing a thesis here, it’s just a discussion. (And I def agree with a comment above - geopolitical commentary is unwanted.)
Hugs

[mae_creativity]

Hi Mila,
Just a thought about what you said: “precious box space.” (I’m unclear which language you want to translate, so for my example, let’s say you want the main description in English, and you want to add a German translation):
You can always write one line on the top of the English description that says: “see German translation in PDF above.”
(It took me a while to notice, but you can add a PDF to your gallery, and there you can write as much as you want.) 🙂

[netperks]

When I first began selling on Fiverr, I would probably have thought the same thing. However, many of the inquiries and orders that I receive come from China and Israel. It could depend largely upon what your gig is offering. Certain services could be more popular or sought after in particular areas of the globe.

[fastcopywriter]

Almost everyone in Israel speaks English, they have to, because it’s not a popular language and Israel is a technological society and if you’re into technology, you need to speak English.

A lot of people in China are learning English. So no need to translate gigs to Chinese unless you can speak it/write it really well.

[fastcopywriter]

You can only work in languages you speak/write very well. Remember, Google Translate makes mistakes that you won’t recognize unless you speak/write the language you’re translating into.

[mae_creativity]

I would imagine that China has its own fiverr type site. (??)
And Israel is the start-up nation + typicaly everyone travels abroad for a year after serving in the IDF + then return to university for which you need to know English in order to get in.
So, if we’re pondering which languages to translate gigs, I’m crossing off Hebrew and Mandarin.

[miiila]

Thank you for your reply 🙂 it was nice to share that tip, I´d discovered the PDF option already, and maybe will use it,
but the problem is more that probably many Germans who log into fiverr and see the German auto-‘translation’ by default won´t even bother to download and read my PDF I think.
The button for changing the UI language is way down on the bottom and very very decent, I struggle with it myself all the time, as I prefer seeing the site in English (the translation is let´s say a bit sub-optimal) and my setting it to English doesn´t get saved, so I have to repeat it, or deal with the German version…and I actually only found out where it is by a google search, I’d looked through all and any settings in dashboard, profile etc, and not noticed it there, where it is hidden.
But yeah, thanks, I think I´ll write a PDF anyway, so at least those who can be bothered, can read it 😉

I think it would be better to have profile and gig info in both English and German right ‘inside the main box’, but then you couldn´t write much at all, because of the letter limits.

[actranstextman]

Yes China has its own Fiverr type websites and they are quite active and booming…

Good to see you’ve got a lot of orders from China. Did they write to you in English or Chinese? I assume it could still help you a lot if you translate your gig into Chinese language - yes many Chinese people can read basic English nowadays but we all feel most comfortable and confident when reading in our mother tongues, don’t we? Google Translate is a great tool if all you need is only general information for a quick glance. For business and sales, you do need to invest in translation service by human translators.