Convosphere speaks sixteen languages, and the source language is Italian. That alone is an anomaly: almost all software is born in English and translated outward. We do the opposite, because the product was born in Italian squares and its words took shape there.
Translation is not distribution
For a global social network, adding a language means opening a market. For a proximity chat it means something more concrete: people who speak different languages share the same square, and the square only works if the interface does not choose for them.
The multilingual neighborhood is the norm, not the exception. The minimarket owner’s app and the Erasmus student’s app show the same map, with the same conversations, each in its own interface language.
The detail that cost us the most
The sixteen translation files carry the same keys, line by line, and every release verifies all of them: one missing key fails the build. It sounds pedantic. But an untranslated button in Urdu or Bengali tells its reader something precise: this app is not for you. Which is the exact opposite of what we are trying to build.