Four months after Facebook started local translations in over 60 languages, the German version still shows many inconsistencies. According to Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation in Berlin this Monday, the social utility has more than 100 million users worldwide, but just 1,2% German users. Facebook’s offline campaign “Deutschland macht blau” is about to bring a change here and tries to encourage German users to share and communicate online on Facebook. But the success of the campaign is in question as long as there are obvious language problems with the German version.

Some examples:

1. Login page: slogans don’t feel like proper German or are just word by word translations: ‘

• Facebook ermöglicht dir das Teilen von Inhalten und öffnet sowie vernetzt deine Welt“ (engl.: “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life”),

• Es ist kostenlos und jeder kann beitreten (”It’s free and anyone can join”).

2. Start page:

• I just read that a friend is not longer listed as engaged. In German it says: Name ist nicht mehr als [Kommentieren]. They missed to put in the verb.
• Where it says “name shares link” (e.g. from Google Reader), it is translated on the profile. Do it one way or the other, but don’t mix both.

3. Profile:

• Under the profile picture of a friend I can suggest friends for him or her. The German translation is Freunde für Name vorschlagen. This is not proper German and just another word by word translation. Name Freunde vorschlagen would be a much better choice.

Ad on Facebook

Besides those minor notes, I don’t see why it is necessary to have two buttons in the top navigation linking both on my profile (click profile and the name button on the right, next to settings). Another thing which might be confusing for new german users are ads on the right side of your profile which pretend to be a part of facebook. Most people switching from StudiVZ or other german social networks need some time to discover and learn how to use the site, and clicking once on a wrong button could mean to loose them right away. Although the embessador campagn is going to motivate loads of german users to sign into Facebook, Facebook has to get up a fully proper german Facebook translation rapidly. Missing words, lame slogans or word by word translations are not suitable for a company like Facebook, which is ranked under the US Top 5 valuable companies.

(image: Facebook)