Multilingual Opuss Opuss seems like a neat idea. I however do not see myself using it much, neither for writing nor for reading. The former, I am just not that into. The latter, well… English is not my native language. It is not that I feel like I have any serious difficulty with it. I do think I have reached a reasonably proficient level with it, and I do happen to read blogs, news or documentation in English on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, I probably read more in English than in any other language, including the two that are native to me. When it comes to reading fiction, or even literature in general, though, there is still a certain level of concentration I need to invest that ends up taking the pleasure of it away. While back in my 20s I did use to pick novels in English every now and then, as the years go by, I am not feeling one bit as if the foreign nature of the language gets to fade away as I dive into a story, but all the contrary a feeling of detachment and… unpleasant disconnection persists in a way that makes me progressively lazier about facing the effort to read for leisure anything that is not in a language native to me. It would be nice if Opuss was a multilanguage community, with the ability to tag and filter by language. I do not mean having a separate Opuss for each single language a user could ever feel comfortable with (nor, of course, an interface solution that would effectively render the app the same). I still think there is a plus in having a multicultural community sharing thoughts, comments and stories in a single undivided hub. But if there was a way to limit the stories to a language or languages of preference throughout all the experience, while still retaining the ability to peep into stories in other languages without having to dig deep into some preferences of sorts, I think Opuss would be far more usable by an international audience. Now, I do understand such a change would add certain complexity to the app that would be bringing little to English speaking users who are happy with an English-only community. Yet, I think tying the service to a single specific language limits how enjoyable Opuss can ever become to non-English speaking regions and hence what a default Opuss could become for sharing stories.
