For Your Consideration:

I've been thinking for a while now about making the blog bilingual. Not necessarily because I am just inundated with foreign readers, but because my own language skills need to be maintained, and my knitting vocabulary is pretty pathetic! I've been looking into ways to make it easy for users to change language, without making English viewers read double posts. Some bloggers have varying answers to this - the most popular is being able to choose your language from a pull-down bar or tab and have the entire page convert. My computer skills just aren't up to that, though, so I'd like your opinions. Would it be really annoying to have a French language version of a blog post in with the English (my guess is yes, but y'all might be more forgiving) or should I make a twin blog with its own URL - i.r. happyhandpainter-fr.blogspot.com or similar? I just worry that maintaining links, comments, etc for two separate blogs might discourage me from posting regularly.

If you have an opinion (that isn't completely rude and left anonymously, LOL) let me know in the comments or via e-mail.

Here's a fun bit that I learned recently though - you know that awkward silence in conversation that sometimes occur? In French, it's un ange est passe, literally "an angel is passing." You'd use it like this: Quand j'ai mentionné que j'etais enceinte, un ange est passe. - "When I mentioned I was expecting (pregnant), an awkward silence fell." I'm not expecting, of course! But I thought it was funny, and another step towards talking like a 'real' person. :)

ETA: Here is a link to a bilingual blog discussing the "Ten Commandments" of bilingual blogging. Some of these just aren't possible, but I thought it would be interesting reading for anyone else considering such a venture.