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Language Tempest At Orkut

Posted by timothy on from the fetch-me-the-teapot dept.

Quirk writes "Reuters is carrying an article outlining an ongoing headbutting session between English-speaking users of Goggle's orkut and the Portuguese-speaking users of Brazil. The orkut site has more than 769,000 members; 41.2% are Brazilians and 23.5% are Americans. The sites are now mostly in Portuguese, and English-speaking users are complaining that the service is intended to be in English. Orkut is a service meant to develop by way of invitation, and the Brazilians claim since they are inviting their Brazilian friends it doesn't make sense to communicate in English. Brazilian internet users averaged an estimated 13 hours and 51 minutes in May, eight minutes more than for Americans."

3 of 948 comments (clear)

  1. wanh by eekygeeky · · Score: 5, Funny

    "OK, I onlee kno teh english lang and i wanto no wh4t teh 0thre d00ds r saying!!!!! they sux00r! b1gt1meeee! WTF? OMG? cant tey keep thos guyzz 0ff teh inetrn3t? OMG. OMG." bleh. carl

  2. Re:Why Fight? by timeOday · · Score: 5, Funny
    If the people at the table next to you are speaking Korean, it doesn't affect you.
    Though when people nearby are speaking a language you don't understand, and looking in your direction, and laughing and pointing, well it's hard to not imagine things.
  3. Re:Language barrier by Nailer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or better yet, orkut.us, where the minority USA folk can go. :^)