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Return to Bulletin Home - February 2007 |
Language Usage Online ICEF Bulletin recently interviewed Rod Hearps, operations director of EdMedia and developer of ICEF Online. Hearps has been recruiting students via the Internet since 1994 and is a keen observer of online trends. During our conversation, he offered his thoughts on the current state of language usage on the web and the implications for educators and agents. ICEF Bulletin: There is a perception, perhaps especially in the Western world, that English is the dominant language on the Internet. Is this true? Rod Hearps: I'm not sure how widespread that perception is. If you are an English speaker, you tend to see only the part of the Internet that you're familiar with and not see the large areas of the web that are in other languages. In any case, the idea that the Internet is an English medium is entirely incorrect. There are more than a billion users on the Internet today, about 300,000,000 of who are English speakers. So just under 30% of Internet users have English as a first language. In the next ten years, most of the growth in Internet usage will come from non-English speakers, and so the percentage of English users online will decline naturally to roughly 25% by 2015. ICEF Bulletin: What are the most common languages among Internet users? RH: The ten most common languages today are English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Italian, and Russian. (See chart below.)
Used with permission of USjournal.com RH: The percentages of Internet users who speak Chinese, Russian, Spanish, or Portuguese are all definitely on the increase. Of these, Chinese-language usage will grow the fastest, and is expected to double over the next five years. ICEF Bulletin: What are the implications of a multilingual online space for agents and education providers? RH: In many respects, the implications are far greater for providers as opposed to agents. Most agents target a specific language group and so their materials and websites are already in that target language or languages. The ability to deliver information and to provide service in the first language of the prospective student is in fact an important part of the agent's role in the recruitment process. In contrast, education providers are generally trying to reach a global market, and now more than ever, providers clearly have to provide some level of multilingual content in their marketing campaigns. Depending on the provider's marketing strategy, this may mean translating information fairly widely, or creating translations for specific priority target markets or target language groups. Universities and colleges that are receiving students for academic programmes often take the view that students will need a high level of English to join their programmes and that these students should therefore be able to receive information and interact with the institution in English, even at the inquiry stage. However, we should remember that student recruitment is a sales process, and it is both a mark of respect, as well as a source of competitive advantage, to deal with students and their families in their first language—or, for that matter, to empower agents to do so. Agents are more and more open to placing provider information on their websites, but are generally not prepared to take on the job of translating and updating that information themselves. At the same time, many students would rather make an inquiry in their native language and translated content from the education provider supports this interest. Finally, providing programme information in multiple languages is an important aspect of brand management, in that it helps to ensure the accuracy and currency of translations. |
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