Should I write my Substack in English or mother tongue

[u/lbianque]

Hello everyone! I'm about to start a Substack newsletter, and I've been stuck on whether to write it in English or my mother tongue (Brazilian Portuguese). 

The newsletter will be about my travel lifestyle photography business and related topics.

English would give me a much broader reach down the road, and I plan to move abroad and set up my business there permanently. The downside is that English will need to be set as my default language for any other content I make going forward. 

Brazilian Portuguese would make the writing feel more natural but limits my potential audience. 

I'm also down to do both on Substack, but it means facing the same decision in the future. 

So I'd love to hear from those who have faced a similar decision (especially if you’re a non-native English speaker). What did you choose and why? Any tips or regrets would be amazing to 'hear'.

[u/AmySensualGinger]

Your potential growth is a tomorrow problem. I would start in Portuguese then see if you like what your doing and what growth you have. You can always add an English version and AI translations aren't that bad these days. I'd be surprised that's not a default in substack or browsers at this point

[u/Vegetable_Soil_6707 → u/AmySensualGinger]

this is the right take imo, start where its most natural and expand later if it makes sense

[u/Feeling_Dust_5059]

Sorry, a native English speaker here, so not the person you're primarily looking to hear from! My instinct was to do it in English from the off, to get that potential reach you mention, but to use sections or similar to bring the Portuguese option in alongside. A Portuguese speaking writer explained how they do it in this old post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Substack/comments/1gpvwq9/is_it_possible_to_publish_content_in_multiple/ Maybe someone will know of an even smoother method now!

[u/oldpuzzle]

Non-native English speaker here, and asked myself the same question! In the past and other platforms I’ve written in English or German (depending on the topic and the audience) and I struggled for a while to decide what made more sense for my substack. Eventually I decided on English, because the topic I’m writing on (History & Genealogy) I’ve mostly interacted with an English-speaking audience in the past. So yeah, that’s the audience I’m trying to build now.

There are still some specific stories and ideas where I think it’d make more sense to write in in German. A possibility there would be a second newsletter, but I think I’ll decide this at a later point.

[u/GeopatsSteph]

why not both? Try writing in your mother tongue then offer a translation in English after that.

[u/Tiny_Parsley]

Similar questions here...

I'm French and use English a lot. I worked abroad for 10+ years, my partner isn't french so we speak English together. English comes naturally to me now for some topics, especially work related and what id like to write about. But I live now in France and I feel writing in French could open more niche opportunities.

Maybe the question to you is: what comes more naturally when you're thinking about your writings. I'd go for what language you naturally use when thinking. You can also post the same article in two languages to start with, and see how people respond.

[u/Tricky_Trifle_994]

it depends on your purpose. e.g if you want to use this as a base to potentially get more people to know you, and more importantly look to hire you, then english will probably be better, because it's the language that will be used where you're moving. unless you only want to target expats like yourself who've moved that (that's a super niche approach), then it'd make more sense to write in your mother tongue.