Facebook will let you post in several different languages at once - CNET

We hear it all the time: Facebook has 1.65 billion users worldwide. But that also implies something else that can go overlooked -- there are a whole lot of languages being used on Facebook.

The social network wants to make it easier for people to communicate with a global audience -- even if you don't speak a language other than your own. On Friday, the company introduced new software that automatically translates Facebook posts to several different languages. Once you publish your post, Facebook will show it to people in their preferred languages.

Here's how it works: Type up a post, click on a pull-down menu, and you can add up to 45 different language translations, ranging from French to Filipino to Lithuanian.

For now, the software, called the "multilingual composer," is being tested only among a small group of users. The company has already been testing it with Facebook Pages, which are specifically for businesses and brands, but it's now opening testing to the broader social network. The company said the feature is already being used by 5,000 Pages.

Facebook says half its users speak a language other than English. The new tool will use artificial intelligence to prefill the translation field when you add different languages to a post. Then the software uses information like a user's location, language preferences and what language a person most commonly uses to post on Facebook to decide which version of the message to show.