My language test

I recently ran a test using a optimizer tool.  It was a  A / B test that compared two different versions of my home page. 50% of the time people would look at one version and 50% the users would see another version. This morning, I completed it.  With a strong level of confidence the test confirmed that the short version of my web page  http://www.claritaslux.com/ showed a 90% improvement over the long version of my page. When writing for the web realizes people will give you maybe 10 seconds at most before they decide if they want to stay.

The language I used for my website

The language I used in the shorter version was also clearer and more step by step – hand holding.  I think this is a good way to write as the readers, including myself, when they land on a page are often easily confused. When writing for the web be simple.
Now two big qualifications. 1) I was testing to see if users made it to my ‘Learn Russian purchase’. Since I do not have LearnFast Russian complete yet, I do not know if the long form would actually result in less sales. 2) On the long form people stayed on the site longer. So I can declare improvement but only when my product is ready, will this be a confirmed victory.

However, given the fact that 90% more people went to the purchase page with the short form written in a clear, simple, “hand holding way” (I need this ‘hand holding’ style myself, when I land on web pages as I am often disoriented and do not waste my time to figure out what the page is about though all the clutter). Therefore, when writing for the web, I will use this short style, and further set up a new test for a different type of page.

My recommendation when writing for the Web

• When writing for the web be clear and simple – use lots of white space as readers scan rather than read the web.
• Consistent grammar and word usage
• Know the person who lands on your page will be disoriented, therefore, guide them and help them
• Do not write at them, write for them.

If you want to have a free Russian e-mail account, I use mail.ru  In fact I have mbiernat@mail.ru   Why do I have this? Well, first it is kind of cool. Second, I have a real interest in the Russian language and all things Russian as I consider myself a Slavophile.  That is someone who loves Slavic culture. Hey, I moved from Boston to live in Eastern Europe.  Third, with this e-mail it gives you access to a lot of member things on the mail.ru potal, such as games and free Russian dating . Basically if you have this free Russian e-mail address you can impress your friends and connect more with the Russian internet and that is good if you are trying to learn Russian.

There is also an english version of the site here eng.mail.ru if you do not know Russian that well, and I use an online translator when stuck.

So even if you can not have a Russian passport having a Russian e-mail adress is your passport to the Russian world, on the internet.

I just noticed that Google now has translate for Polish. This is something I have been waiting for. Now you can easily translate Polish web pages into English. In the past it was only Spanish, then French, then Russian, but now Polish. You can try to read anything in your target language and with one click of a button translate it into your target language

What are the Russians surfing? I think what people are surfing in a language reflects the collective unconsciousness of the people speaking the language.  Sometimes they similar to English language Internet surfers and sometimes they are not. 

Here are the top 10 Russian language websites.

1. mail.ru  Russian language mail server and news portal like Yahoo with a very active Russian dating site
2. Vkontakte.ru  Russian language Linkin for making contacts
3. odnoklassniki.ru Russian language Facebook, Classmate reunite
4. yandex.ru Another Russian language mail, dating and news portal
5. rambler.ru same as above, Russian dating, news and mail
6. google.ru Search Russian language pages
7. ucoz.ru Russian CMS or content management system for making your own blogs and sites, highly recommended.
8. narod.ru Russian Russian language myspace type site, you can have your own site and connect with others
9. zaycev.net Russian language flicker or image site
10.liveinternet.ru Russian language stumbleupon that is member driven site ratings

Conclusions about the Russian language Internet

Based on what I have seen on the Russian language Internet and from what you can see above, the most popular Russian language websites are similar to Western Internet pages; however, I think they like general ‘do it all’ websites that have Russian news, dating and mail portals more than specializes sites. Russian language users like sites that give them power to rate popular Internet sites (like our Stumbleupon). Further, more things are free on the Russian language Internet, as Russians will not pay for such things as Russian dating or even a lot of software. So if you can browse the Russian language Internet and you will find a lot of things for free that we pay for in the west.

If you look at Alexa, the site which ranks popular sites on the Internet, you can look at the top 500 most popular sites in the world.  I will not list the ranking out as that is something that you can explore.  But what I noticed was out of the top 500 sites Slavic speaking counties or languages rank disproportionately high in comparison to the their populations for popular.  Of course English is the international language and absolute language at this juncture on the Internet, but look at the top 500 ranking.  I would have expected more Asian countries – languages or Spanish sites, however, in a relative, but not absolute way, I would say sites that the  Russian or Polish language sites have a much more pages which rank high in the top 500 on the Internet.

For example the Polish e-bay Allegro is in the top 40 most popular sites in the world and Poland only has 38 million people (out of 6 billion), while the large Russian mail servers are all in the top 50.

What is the reason Slavic languages dominate?  I think it is because Slavic counties have a strong technical educational background and have always had a tradition of math and science, from rocket scientists to the founder of Google Sergey Brin.   I am an America that lives in Poland. I would have to say that the average Pole is eons more computer and web savvy than that the average westerner.  I love America, its just an observation that every Russian, Ukrainian, Polish boy and girl from Moscow to Kiev to Lviv to Krakow knows something about writing programs, and are plugged in. This is perhaps why Slavic languages are so popular on the Internet.

Trends in business and demographics is like global warming, often there is little that can be done to reverse these trends. So is the case with the English language. “English has already invaded the languages of Moliere, Cervantes and Goethe, dominating the fields of technology and business and even taking some native tongues hostage.But purists are fighting back as hybrids such as “surfen” and “downloaden” on the Internet, “emailear” and style terms “looke” or “gestyled” show the creeping advance of English.Spanglish, Franglais or even Denglish, a mix of Deutsch (German) and English, are prompting a backlash, with a call to arms in some European countries for protective measures or new policies.”

English the new world language

I do not think there can be anything we can do about such trends, its really not that English is taking over, rather I think eventually the world will speak one language, with other languages existing but most people speaking one for business and one at home, that language could be English or Spanish or Chinese, we do not know. Look at the USA, the same argument is being made but the language that is invading, for good or bad, is Spanish.

Internet resources and language learning one of my pet peeves with the internet is the amount of spam and useless junk that exist connected to language learning. The internet is the largest receptacle of recylced information in the world.

I created a site <love phrases. These pages required a tremendous amount of work. It’s free and valuable. However, many pages that come up on a Google search are short bits of recycled information. They speak generally rather than specifically about what you want to know and their real purpose is to act as a doorway to a commercial language site. There is nothing wrong with making money, however, offer something of unique value for free and this will benefit everyone.

When I search the internet for language leaning resources I usually do not use generic searches such as ‘learn Polish’, rather, concrete. For example ‘Polish grammar’ or ‘Guttenberg project French language books’ or ‘polyglots who spoke Italian and how they learned it’. Specific searches yield better quality results as they are indexing text, rather than a cleverly optimized keyword.

Experts say English still world’s language from The Brunei Times-English will remain the global language in the foreseeable future, even with the fast paced changes brought about from the forces of globalization, experts said.

Trends in technology helps to further spread English as the global language, thus most people tend to agree that English will continue to be the global language, said Dr David Prescott, Associate Professor of the English language & Applied Linguistics Department at Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

“Other languages do not pose a threat to English as the global language because a significant amount of world business and technology activities is conducted in English,” he told The Brunei Times.

World Language

Although English is not does not have the largest number of native speakers it is, for better or worse, the most important language in the world. It’s grammatical structure, absent of cases and gender and full of contractions, and has evolved because of one thousand years of adaptation to being used globally.   I do not think it will always be the most important.  Perhaps the world will evolve back into one world language.