Buddies now speaks 5 languages
Buddies is now available in five languages: Swedish, English, Norwegian, Danish and German. The whole app is translated — not just menus and buttons, but also push notifications, error messages and event-related strings wherever possible.
How to use it
The app follows your phone's language setting automatically. Phone in Norwegian, you get Buddies in Norwegian. Phone in German, you get German. No setup required.
If you want the app in a different language than your phone's, you can switch it manually in Settings. Useful if your phone is in English but you'd rather use Buddies in Swedish, or the other way around.
Push notifications work smarter than you'd expect
This is the part worth understanding. When someone in an event sends a message, or when your event status changes, the push notification is delivered in the recipient's language — not the sender's.
That means a Swedish host creating a Swedish-language event will generate notifications that show up in German for a German Buddy who joined. And that German Buddy sees their own controls in German, even if the rest of the group chats in Swedish.
For you as a host, that means you don't have to think about your participants' languages. Write your event in whichever language you're comfortable with. Buddies handles the translation of everything system-generated. The only thing not auto-translated is what you write yourself — the event's title, description, your messages in the chat.
Why it matters
Friendships rarely get built in a language you're not comfortable with. Forcing someone to navigate an app, read event descriptions and process notifications in a foreign language adds friction exactly where it should be lowest — at the first impression.
This update is about two things at once. If you already have a group, it's easier to invite a friend who happens to speak a different language — the colleague who moved here, your friend's Norwegian brother, a German neighbour. The fact that one of you is on the "wrong" language stops being a problem.
If you don't have a group yet but you're in Sweden from another Nordic country or Germany, the whole app is now in your language from the very first screen. No translating in your head, no guessing what buttons do. You can focus on what actually matters: finding events and meeting people.
Where we're heading
More languages will come as we expand geographically. If you're interested in seeing Buddies in a specific language or country — get in touch.
Download and try it in your language
Buddies follows your phone's language automatically — or switch it manually in Settings.
Read also: Why do so many men struggle to make friends as adults? →