ThatDutchGirl's survival guide: native or another language?

Hello my friends!

It's time for another survival guide lesson. Today's class will be about languages to blog in. This is a dilemma a lot of bloggers face, whether they just started blogging, want to start blogging of have been blogging for quite a while. In this survival guide topic I try to list some of the pro's and con's of blogging in your own language or another language.

As my native language is Dutch and I blog in English, English will be the language I'll use as the "other" language, so if you're native language is English this blog might not be of much use for you. (I'm sorry.)
One last thing, these are all my points of view so it's not really a steady standard or something, you're all allowed to agree or disagree with me and share your own thoughts on this topic!

Why blog in English?
This is a decision that, at first, was very easy to me, I just prefer writing in English. Furthermore when you blog in English you can reach a much bigger audience as a lot of people on this planet have English as their first or second language. Then there is the challenge I liked about it, as English is my second language, I'm not as good at it than I am at Dutch. However this made blogging a bit more exciting and challenging for me. Also, blogging in English allows me to write about more global issues or topics. 

Why blog in your native language?
Then there is blogging in your native language. You might find this easier and feel more confident to write blogs in your own language. Besides you can blog about local things, like local Dutch elections or a national holiday the rest of the world knows nothing about (like Sinterklaas). Blogging in your native language can make you feel more connected to your readers as it's mostly a smaller community than the big English speaking community. Blogging in your native language might also depend on what you want to blog about. When you want to blog about books and your country has a big or small book blog community it might be easier or more difficult to join them but that's just up to you to decide. Blogging in your native language might also make it easier to get a deal with certain companies however the Dutch blogging community has become rather big over the years so I don't know if you're chances are still that high nowadays. This should not be a reason to start blogging though!

Will I always keep blogging in English, probably. Do I know for sure, definitely not. Sometimes these things happen in Holland and I really feel like I should write a blog about it but then again it won't come across as good in English as it will in Dutch. This mostly leads to me discarding the blog and forgetting all about it. I don't know why, I could definitely post a blog in Dutch every once in a while because why not this is MY blog and I can post whatever I want on it. Maybe one day. Who knows.

Anyhow. If you don't feel comfortable writing in English or feel like you can connect more with your followers in your native language please blog in your native language. Do what you feel is the right thing to do. And if you just like the English language, want to improve your English or when English is just the language you're better at than feel free to blog in English! The language you blog in is something that can't be decided by somebody else than you! This is a choice you have to make!

If you have other reasons to write in English or your native language or something completely different, feel free to share your opinion in the comment section below!

Lots of love,
ThatDutchGirl96

Why I started this blog.

Hey guys!

Why did I start this blog? A question I have to answer to pretty often. People tend to ask me quite a lot. Why would you start a blog? Yeah why? It's not like it will be of any use in your future job. Then there are the moments I have to answer this question to myself. Renée, why did you start this blog? Okay okay, so then keep writing if your head is so full of stuff you needed a place outside your diary to write it down. 

But why did I actually start this blog? I don't remember it that clearly but thanks to the statistics on here I do know it was around the end of 2013. There is a thing I do remember which is that I already had the idea of starting a blog quite a while before 2013. I think I wrote something like this a while ago but I have always loved writing and I have always been into writing. Despite my very bad handwriting I've always been one of the better students when it came to grammar and spelling and building sentences. There have even been times where I was convinced that all I was good at was writing stories or writing down my days in diaries. So can you believe how miserable you feel when you can't finish a story or can't get yourself to write in your diary. Believe me you will feel terrible, it's like the only thing you are good at has just slipped through your fingers. So when I found out I'm not one to write a book as I always get stuck over some details or the passing of time, all the ideas got stuck in my head. Wanting to be written down and pushing and pulling to get to the front of my head hoping to be written down first when the moment would come. 

So one of the reasons I started this blog back in 2013 was to create a place for me to clear out my mind. Talk about topics that were taking over my mind or just weird thoughts that I started to over think and create new universes around. 
But Renée, why didn't you post anything after creating the blog? Well good question and honestly I have no idea. Maybe I just forgot I had made a blog or had no idea what kind of content to post and in what style I should write. Silly things like that could have ruined my enthusiasm back then. However the name ThatDutchGirl / ThatDutchGirl96 always stuck with me so that is how I got back to the deserted blog last year. It was around then when I felt like starting a blog again. I had a plan, kind of, and a pretty long list of things I wanted to blog about. A list that got crossed off really fast as I lost enthusiasm rather quickly and got stuck in a writers block not long after. 

Right now this blog is just a place to escape reality for a bit. This is the place I can talk about topics I can't discuss with my friends. The place I can truly express myself without feeling like I'm being judged (and yes I do know that is a weird thing to say on the internet as this is THE place to get judged and criticised). Just a place that is mine, that is controlled by me and everything on here feels like it's a tiny part of me. Of some parts I'm more proud than others but you know that's life and as long as I was proud of the post when I posted it I shouldn't delete it.  

Why I started this blog? I started this blog to have a place of my own where I am able to talk about whatever I want to without people interrupting me. To talk about the things I am interested in or the things that happen to be on my mind a lot. A place where I feel like no one will judge me. A place to fully express my opinion and share all the thoughts and stories that are stuck in my head. This is my personal bit of online space and I am really happy I decided to start a blog in 2013 and to actually start posting things on it in 2014. Now all there is left for me to find out is what my personal blogging style is regarding the kind of content I post and how I write things down and if and how I'm going to maintain this schedule I have going on. But let us not worry about that now. I will save you that for another time.

Lots of love from France,
ThatDutchGirl96