Twitter Update: New Funding, New Languages

On Monday, Twitter made two significant announcements: two new languages have been added to its growing list of languages, and a big fresh boost of funding has been raised.

Since 2008, when Twitter first became available in Japanese as well as the original English, the social network has consistently added additional language options. The addition of Dutch and Indonesian makes for eleven total languages, but the method may be even more significant that the total.

These latest two were a result of the Twitter Translation Center, where “volunteers translate twitter.com, support pages, desktop and mobile applications — everything except the Tweets,” according to the official Twitter blog. “Then, a select group of the most active translators work closely with the team at Twitter to maintain localized versions of the service.”

The blog also states that the 200,000+ translators only took a month to develop the Indonesian and Dutch translations, the fastest language projects yet. Filipino and Malay are the next to get Twitter Translator treatment, and Twitter is actively searching for volunteers to help with either one.

Meanwhile, another Twitter blog post also revealed “a significant round of funding led by the venture firm DST Global, with the participation of several of our existing investors. We will use these resources to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in international expansion.”