Introducing multilingual debates

Dear reader,

We at SWI swissinfo.ch recently made some exciting changes that affect how we learn from and talk to you about the topics we cover and the issues you care about. Our debates, which allow for discussion with our journalists and with our worldwide community of readers, are now truly multi-lingual.

What does that mean? Thanks to automatic translation technology, participants in our debates can write in their preferred language, and those reading in any of the 10 languages we publish in will be able to read and understand what’s been written. Instead of 10 different discussions on the same topic organised by language, there’s now a single thread that speakers of English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Russian can all follow and participate in.

Some of the topics that have generated the most international discussion so far include the state of freedom of speech, opinions on assisted suicide, topics for votes in Switzerland such as taxes on the wealthy, and the question of whether Swiss citizens living abroad should be offered Covid-19 vaccines by their home country.

Each debate is “hosted” by one of our journalists, each of whom works a beat and wants to hear from readers around the world who are interested in and affected by the topics they cover. Journalists also get involved in the discussions, sharing their experiences and expertise, and may even get in touch with you to inform their reporting.

But it’s not only our journalists who can launch a debate with the reader community. We also want to hear from you: what questions would you like to discuss? What stories would you like us to report on? Let us know by putting your question in the form below:

Our auto-translated debates are still in Beta-mode, meaning we’re continuing to improve the technology and interface, also with your input. We’re aware that automatic translation – while very good – is far from perfect. That’s why we’re developing ways for you to give us quick feedback on the quality of a translation, so the system can improve over time. In the meantime, you can send feedback directly to [e-mail].

Thanks for being part of our community of readers around the world, and for keeping in touch with us. We hope you’ll find the debates on SWI swissinfo.ch interesting, informative and engaging and that you’ll let us know how we can keep improving.