Facebook Changes Direction

Facebook has announced the addition of two more supported languages: Arabic and Hebrew.

This is more challenging than a normal translation exercise because – as well as the completely different character set – these languages are written in the opposite direction to English. Text begins on the right and is read towards the left. This means that full language support requires not just simple translation but in some cases total redesign. Facebook’s Ghassan Haddad also discusses other issues such as mixed character sets and gender support via “dynamic explosion”.

Facebook is now available in over 40 languages and these new additions will make the site more appealing to a huge market.