[BRIEF NOTE] Facebook, now in Canadian French

[rfmcdonald]

Canadian News Wire reports that Facebook is now available in Canadian French.

Facebook today announced that Canadian French is available on its site, marking another milestone in the company's efforts to create the best possible experience for people everywhere to connect with their friends, family and co-workers, no matter where they live or what language they speak. More than 1,200 Canadian French-speaking Facebook users chose to take part in the translation effort.

[. . .]

Jimmy Lavoie, 17, an avid Facebook user from Québec, was the most prolific translator. "As I worked on the translation, my goal was to help create a site that feels natural and comfortable to French Canadians. I like the French language and I try to protect it, on the Internet and in real life," wrote Lavoie in a guest posting on Facebook's company blog. "I'm especially proud of Québec French, also called Canadian French, which is recognized as a different dialect from the European French language."

To complete the translation from English to Canadian French, users who added the Facebook translation application were allowed to submit translations while browsing the site. The community then approved all translations through a voting system that "voted up" or "voted down" each translation. For example, users agreed on citing both "cégep" and "université" as the translation for "college" in the "Info" section of the Profile page.

Back in 2008, I blogged about how Facebook was lagging behind in Québec apparently because of the late introduction of French as one of Facebook's language. It's interesting to see how quickly this has been remedied, with users going so far as to tailr a versino specifically for Canadian Francophones.