Twice as opinionated as the average blogger

May 13, 2011 7:03 AM

Does there exist free blogging services & templates that enable one to have a bilingual blog, with side-by-side translations?

I've tried to look for templates to use with blogger, as well as a few others, without luck. Either side by side translation (say left column in French, right column in English) or using tabs to display one column at a time (with the tab label indicating the language) would be useful. Note that I would want to write the translation myself so solution that simply incorporate a button giving access to (links to) automated translations is NOT what I am looking for.

posted by aroberge to computers & internet (6 answers total)

I don't think you need a special service if you're providing your own translations, just a template you like.

At worst, you could use a single column template and post one language version above the other, with colors and/or font differences to make each version more distinct.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:46 AM on May 13, 2011

You don't even need a special template, assuming your bloging service allows you to use some basic markup in the post. If you can add a style sheet or edit the style sheet, you can set up two classes (say, .english and .spanish), and go crazy.

Even if you can't do that, you could always use in-line styles. One possible candidate:

<div style="float:left; width:40%;">
 TEXT IN ONE LANGUAGE
</div>
<div style="float:right; width:40%;">
 TEXT IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE
</div>
<div style="clear:both">&nbsp;</div>

Working with the style sheet and classes is much better and more future-proof, but basically, there's no reason for you to not be able to start doing this within the next half hour.
posted by jsturgill at 8:33 AM on May 13, 2011

I haven't used it, but
http://www.qianqin.de/qtranslate/
posted by RobotHero at 11:21 AM on May 13, 2011

Wordpress.com (free one) has two themes that I think fit your criteria. One is "Under the Influence" and the other is "Inuit Types". You'll have to play around a bit and see if they'll work.
posted by kathrynm at 4:56 AM on May 14, 2011

You might also want to look at this - A three column translation on wikidot.
posted by unliteral at 6:46 PM on May 15, 2011

Thank you for the suggestions. In the end, I decided to go with the suggestion by kathrynm. The suggestion to use qtranslate required, as far as I could tell, access to php code and what not - i.e. not a simple theme choice or modification from a free blogging site.

I did find a site that could, if I was more skillful, provide a great basis for a bilingual blog ... more adventurous people looking for writing a bilingual blog might be interested in it.
posted by aroberge at 1:17 PM on May 16, 2011