In 2017, nearly 70% of the Finnish population between 18 to 64 age participated in social networks. According to a report, the number of social media users in the country is calculated to exceed 3.2 million users in 2018 and rise annually after that, the insertion rate settling close to 60%. According to a 2018 study regarding the digital scene in Europe, active social media penetration in Finland amounted to approximately 60%, referring to registered not only social media users but also those who actively log into social media services on a monthly basis. According to a study on digital media usage in Finland, daily social media usage increased by over 20 % in 2018.
So, we can see that social media in Finland has already had a profound impact on everyday life. Never before has knowledge been so naturally available with just a few clicks. Keeping in touch with friends and family across the planet is made so easy, we’ve come to take it for granted.
Several social media platforms are available globally, which means that their news and photo feeds, discussion groups and comment fields offer a fantastic opportunity to learn and use foreign languages.
Let’s have a look how can Facebook help you a Finnish to learn English:
- Groups and pages
Facebook has several pages and groups that can connect you to other English people and offer you free, effective lessons to help you with all viewpoints of English learning.
- Change your default language to English
Facebook has a spelling checker, so if you arrange your default language to English, it will fix your spelling errors! This can also assist you to improve your vocabulary as you learn to find out new terms that you may not have recognized before.
- Connecting to English speaking friends
Facebook is the ideal place to interact with your English mates and also to continue practicing your English! You can talk to people and get instant responses back, so it is a productive time way of learning.
There are lots of ways to communicate on Facebook; you can practice your language skills one to one in a Facebook message, you can post on someone’s wall or reply to statuses all in English.
- Practice posting your status
You can practice simple English by posting things that are happening to you, which is a great way to practice speaking in the first person. Asking questions is a great method to practice English. Then, your friends can reply to you, and you can start a chat online. This also means that lots of people can join in the conversation with you!
Facebook Translation Feature
Any technology that only runs in English ignores 75% of the world. That problem is particularly hard for Facebook with its global user base. Most languages are being dropped by the approaches in artificial intelligence focused around natural language processing started by researchers in the U.S. and China.
Facebook’s announced language translation AI has finally begun direct Spanish translations to the Facebook Messenger application. With this, users can view direct translations to and from Spanish/English without utilizing a secondary translation tool. This is the advanced step in AI-powered translations helping remove the language barrier.
Facebook Messenger is a real-time translation for communication partners across languages, that way users can connect, share, and empathize with people from different cultures. We fear what we don’t understand their language. But Facebook’s translation tech can show us just how similar we are to people from other countries; it promotes understanding between all humans.
Facebook Messenger can automatically translate words from English to Spanish, and from Spanish to English as a component of a new M Translation feature that was first declared at F8 earlier this year, via Engadget. Facebook first declared the function in May but dismissed it strictly to Marketplace e-commerce users at the time. F8 is an annual conference supported by Facebook, designed for developers and business people who made products and services around the website.
When you hit on the module, M will request if you’d like to auto-translate all the information you get from that friend in the future. You’ll have to select into auto-translation for every chat, but you can also select anytime, say when you’re undoubtedly fluent quite in Spanish that you don’t need help learning it anymore. While the feature is still limited, Facebook intends to increase its abilities so that it can also translate another language such as translate Finnish to English and can be published in other countries. The social network thinks it will enable people to join in a way that’s seamless and simple – it’s much easier to turn on auto-translate than to jump between Messenger and a translator app again and again.