Why I chose to write in English

... and the reasons why I began writing

A few weeks ago a friend of mine, Jordan Chapuy, asked me a bunch of questions about this blog. He has been writing on Medium for quite a while now and he wanted to start his own blog (which you can now see here). He was hesitating about whether he should write in English vs French.

One of the hardest question he asked me was : "Why do you write in English ?".

And that was indeed a good question.

The reasons why I launched my blog

Looking back, my options were pretty limited. I was going to write either in English or in French (my native language).

So why did I go with English ?

When I started I wanted to reach as many people as I could so English was an obvious choice. I am lucky to have a level of English that is good enough to be understandable (and I hope enjoyable for native speakers too !) so I went for it.

It is also easier because the common language in IT is English. Be it in English or French, a View Controller is a View Controller so it made more sense to stick with English all the way down.

Last but not least, I truly enjoy writing and speaking in English and I don't really have many opportunities to practice, writing in English is one way for me to hone my skill, or at least not to loose it too quickly.

Following Jordan's question, we discussed it with Pablo Pernot, a pretty clever guy.

According to him writing a blog is all about four elements :

• Ego
• Introspection
• Sharing
• Marketing

And I have to say he is kinda right.

Using these four elements might provide some ideas regarding the language you should pick if you start writing yourself.

Ego

For some people having a "yourname.com" online is all they want. They just want to show that what they think is important enough to justify having a blog. It is all about ego.

Most of all, they want to brag about their achievements.

But there are a lot of easier ways to get your ego boost other than going through the troubles of launching and maintaining a blog.

If you are writing for this reason, in my honest opinion, you are doing it wrong.

Introspection

Sometimes you start a blog like you would start a diary or a therapy, just to go through your thoughts and process them.

Maybe you are questionning a dogma in your field, or expressing the fact that you don't understand a certain concept. You can also be questionning a choice you made, like writing a blog in English.

To me this is the most personnal kind of blog and it definitely does not suit everyone.

Sharing

Now we are talking !

If I had to pick a main reason I started a blog, this would be the one. Each and every one of us has a different life, live different experiences and it is worth sharing !

It is very likely that the obstacles you tackled in your life have already been tackled by someone and it is also highly probable that someone else will have to tackle them later.

Sharing your experience is giving them the opportunity to use your solution if it suits their needs or use a differente method if not.

It is all about giving !

Marketing

Let's talk a bit about personnal branding. Type your name on Google and see what comes out. This is your brand and it is what makes it easier for you to get a job or a pay raise.

A lot of people think this is about ego but it is not, it is about what you can bring to others and it is pretty hard for them to see it if you stay hidden in a cave.

A blog is a really good way of improving your personnal branding, as well as going to meetup or doing some open-source projects for example.

Why I chose to write in English ?

If you look at the reasons why I started blogging it made sense choosing English over French.

But my main goal was to share my knowledge and if you focus on that point then I am starting to wonder.

After all there are already tons of information in English regarding pretty much any subject I could write about. But not that much in French.

Writing in French would also improve my personnal brand in France, as I do not intend to become an international rockstar so it is not a big deal if only French-speaking people read me.

Finally it would be far easier for me to make puns in French. Since I want to write articles that you can enjoy I believe jokes, and humor in general help a lot !

That is why this article is the last one in English for now.

This is a huge decision for me and I would love to hear your reactions !
As usual feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn and to share this article using the little icons just below.

Cheers.