Discussion
Me: "I want to learn German."
Them: "Why would you do that? Don't bother!"
Me: "Because I spend half my time on the Fediverse clicking on the 'Translate' button."
I can't help it if so many of the awesome accounts I follow are in German. And I want to be able to understand their messages without clicking on 'Translate' 50+ times a day. Plus this way I would understand / could attend ALL the talks at Berlin #FediDay.
I'm putting this here so that people hold me accountable 😅🤗
estoy en la misma...
@_elena There's a translate button in mastodon 😅??
@_elena I post on two accounts, one in English, one in German. I often translate to the second language, so you'd often get the same post in English and German. If what I generally do is interesting to you, it might help. :)
This is one of the best reasons to learn a language. 😊
Oh. And do you know LanguageTransfer? It is a really good free language course taught in English audio. It focuses on understanding. I used it to learn Spanish.
@_elena Seeing a few recommendations here to start with learning German I wonder if there is perhaps something similar to https://waywordradio.org/ for German? It's a radio show with two linguists taking questions from audience and it is such fun! I always wondered how they did it, answering the questions on the spot so well. Anyway: Question to your audience (If I may): Is there something similar for German?
@_elena Ich habe Dich gerade zum ersten Mal im Fediverse gesehen und Dein Einführungsvideo angesehen.
Es ist großartig, Danke dafür!
Ich zeige es jetzt meinen Freundinnen und Freunden (leider per WhatsApp) 😀
@_elena it would also be helpful if the translate option was located at the 🔝 of a post rather than the bottom.
@_elena
Viel Erfolg und gutes Gelingen!
🍀🍀🍀
@_elena wait what... There is a translate button?
@_elena Good luck! As a german I find it problematic, that so many parts of the fediverse are german. The Fediverse needs to spread more around the world to be a real competitor to X, Bluesky and all other alternatives that pop up nowadays. I like it here, but Mastodon lacks so many interesting people that use Bluesky or sometimes X. Especially in science and nature conservation related topics.
Before I went on stage at Berlin #FediDay the MC mistakenly said "the following presentation will be in German." My friends in the audience giggled because they know I don't speak it.
And then surprise!
I started my presentation with "Hallo zusammen. Vielen Dank an alle Organisatoren des Berlin Fedi Day."
@samvie's reaction - who was sitting in the front row - was priceless 😂
Special thanks to @Tobias and a couple of FediDay angels for letting me practice with them.
Next year: 4 sentences!
@_elena Vi povus lerni Esperanton?
@earwigplanet one language at the time please! but yes, I'd love to one day 😊
Where is this Translate button? I think that it is something that the administrator has to enable?
If so, @mathieugp , could you enable this button? That would be cool.
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@_elena I'm right there with you! Every time that I look at my Fediverse feed I want to learn German, not only to read the posts here, but because of all the cool events that I see happening in Berlin.
I was complaining to a friend the other day that I cannot find any in-person Free Software, BSD/UNIX, etc. meetups in my area (there were several regularly scheduled ones pre-COVID, but now, none), and concluded that I need to move to Germany.