Product Blog

54 Languages and Counting

It’s probably not a surprise that English is the most popular language that our visitors use — but it was revealing when I discovered recently that non-English languages comprise 40% of Disqus network usage. More than anything, it underscored the importance of having a robust, easy-to-use and comprehensive translation system.

We’re getting there…

Disqus today supports 54 languages for publishers to choose from (look for the Language options in the Basic Settings area of the admin). They range from French and Spanish to Greenlandic and Azerbaijani, and use translations submitted and curated by our incredibly diverse international community.

These users graciously spent their own time to use the translations tools we provide in order to make the Disqus experience better.

Anyone with a Disqus account can apply to help translate for any of the languages we have available by going here: http://disqus.com/translate/apply.html

There are still rough spots—notably with providing the right context around the phrases to be translated, and the speed with which we get new translations out. We plan to address these and incorporate further improvements to the comprehensiveness of our translations and the ease of submitting translations.

But 54 languages is a respectable number, and evidence of the amount of (much appreciated!) effort our users have put into improving the global Disqus experience. I’m proud of what has been accomplished so far, and excited to see Disqus’ internationalization support expand in coverage and accuracy in the coming months.

Let us know what other languages you think should be added and any other suggestions to improve the translation process.

UPDATE: In the comments below we were also reminded of a nifty trick that Marina from HotforWords.com shared with us to allow Google Translate to work on the text of each Disqus comment. Click here to check it out!