# English only section



## Toadie

Hi, I was just thinking about the English Only section.  Would it really hurt to allow threads in other languages there?  I think it would greatly increase the forum's ability to help people with questions regarding English.  In any case, these have been my observations:
1.) There are only occasional threads in languages other than English in the English only section.
2.) There are VERY FEW threads regarding English in other language's forums.
3.) There are a great deal of threads in the English only section which are written in English, but very unclear, due obviously to a language barrier.

I think the best solution would possibly be to create another board in the English section, where other languages may be spoken, as well as to maintain the current English only section.


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## Revontuli

I don't think it's a good idea, Toadie.

There are enough sections where people can post in whichever language they prefer. Everybody's free to ask a question about English usage or the relation between their language and English.

Secondly, EO section is, for me,  where you can get the best answer related to English usage.

As to the last two reasons you've given, I don't agree. I see threads in other forums regarding only English as well. And, if someone has serious difficulty asking a question due to a language barrier, he can post to the specified thread of his language. But I haven't seen any member so far who has insufficieny of English as to prevent him from asking. Here's a language forum anyway and everybody has enough knowledge of English.

So, EO should remain as it is.


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## Xiroi

There are plenty of subforums where English is discussed in other languages and/or English. So I'm not sure what you mean.

Your questions:

1) Right, because only English is allowed there. You'll find a note on every forum header informing about the languages you can use there.

2) Are you sure? What forums do you mean? If it's a monolingual forum that's no place to discuss English, just like you wouldn't discuss French, Urdu or Hebrew in English only. Then you have bilingual subforums as you can see on this list and there are hundreds of threads about English there, where you can get an explanation in either of both languages. Then you have other forums, like Portugues, German and others where you can discuss both the forums's language or translations to/from any other. Finally you have the "Other languages forum".

3)Just as there are a lot of threads written in terrible Spanish both in the Spanish Only section as well as in the Spanish English one and I'm sure the same is true for any other subforums. People are learning, and you can't learn without making mistakes. Besides if they choose their native language and it's not one commonly taught in other countries, they may not get enough replies as their question will not be understood.

So if you want to post you question in other languages, you have subforums to do that, I can't see any possible advantages in doing that in EO and I'm unable to see your point. What would the advantages be?


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## Revontuli

Xiroi said:


> 3)Just as there are a lot of threads written in terrible Spanish both in the Spanish Only section as well as in the Spanish English one and I'm sure the same is true for any other subforums. People are learning, and you can't learn without making mistakes.



And yes, another advantage of EO forum.


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## jann

> 2.) There are VERY FEW threads regarding English in other language's forums.
> 3.) There are a great deal of threads in the English only section which are written in English, but very unclear, due obviously to a language barrier.


There are in fact a great number of threads about English in the French-English Vocabulary and French-English Grammar forums.  I would estimate that about a third of these discussions are entirely in French, except for the particular example sentence cited in English.  The remaining two thirds of these discussions are bilingual, with questions and answers about English written in both English and French.

Very few of our threads on the FR-EN forums are unclear due to language-barrier issues... specifically because when such problems occur we ask people to clarify their questions or provide the sentence in the original language.  If the thread is confusing and useless because no one has returned to clarify, we remove it.  Fortunately, this is rarely necessary.

Though I spend most of my time on the FR-EN and French Only pages, I have trouble imagining that people don't discuss English elsewhere on the site.  We have bilingual forums for Italian-English and Spanish-English... and the vast majority of the rest of our forums are specifically designated "for questions about language X, or translations between language X and English or any other language."  Surely people discuss English in these forums.


So here's my suggestion: if ever you see a thread on the English Only forum that is confusing because the author is having trouble explaining himself in English, and if it seems to you that the problem would be avoided and the question answered more efficiently if only the discussion could be bilingual, then please alert the EO moderators by clicking the small red triangle located in the top right corner of the post (
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





).  They will examine the thread and possibly contact the author to ask if he would mind if the thread were moved to a forum where he could explain his question in his native tongue.  

How does that sound? 

Jann
French forums moderator


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## fenixpollo

Toadie said:


> 2.) There are VERY FEW threads regarding English in other language's forums.


 By now, it's obvious that you should specifically tell us which forum has "very few threads regarding English". 

As for the Spanish-English forum, half of the threads (more are less) are trying to translate English phrases or understand English grammar structures.


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## sokol

Well, Toadie - you might refer here to the German forum, right?

There are quite some English native speakers posting on German forum (you being one of them ) but there could be more and discussion rarely is as profound as in English Only - which is only to be expected: English Only is a much bigger forum, with higher frequency of posts and native speakers from all over the world posting there on a regular basis.

So it _is _true that some threads in German forum which deal with translation from or to English would benefit from input of foreros who never visit the German forum - for a simple reason: most of them do not understand German.
It would be annoying (and frustrating) for them to try and make sense of a bilingual German-English thread.

I think there's no real option except the one mentioned by jann: to report a thread with the suggestion to move to one of the bilingual forums.


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## timpeac

As an English Only moderator I wanted to see how this thread progressed before replying (although I'm writing here as a member, not as a moderator). I'm glad that everyone seems to agree that English Only should be English only. One of the aims of the forum is to have a space where you can ask questions and understand the answers just as long as your English is good enough. If we allowed some posting in German, some in French and some in Spanish, for example, then some people would be excluded.

I think that I can talk for the bilingual forums when I say that questions about English usage are very welcome there too. My suggestion would be that if you are not a native English speaker but your English is good enough to ask the question in English and read the answers, and you feel confident enough to do and your question relates purely to English probably asking in English Only is the best option.

If you're not completely confident in English then you are of course welcome to ask in another forum - but as noted you probably won't have quite the concentration of English natives replying (although many English natives with excellent abilities to analyse their own language are found on most forums and of course non-native speakers who are prolific in their knowledge of English in English Only!). Also, it is sometimes the case that a non-native misunderstanding of a facet of English relates to the way that their own language deals with that issue (particularly for grammar I would think). In those cases it might actually be best to ask in the bilingual forum for your native tongue since you will find people there who specialise in understanding and explaining the differences between the language in question and English. I've studied a fair amount of French in my time, and sometimes I see a French speaker ask a question in English Only and think to myself "hmmm, I bet they're confused on this point because that is handled in xyz way in French" - but I wouldn't be able to go into that in the English Only forum. I see this particular in cases where the question is basically "can I say xyz in English? If not why not?" as opposed to "I saw xyz usage in this native English source and am confused by these parts of it".


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## TrentinaNE

Toadie said:


> 2.) There are VERY FEW threads regarding English in other language's forums.


This is not true of the Italian-English forum, where questions routinely go both ways.

Elisabetta


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## brian

The problem is not with big forums like French-English or Italian-English, but rather with the small forums like German, Greek, etc. As it is, a lot of non-native English speakers don't realize that discussions _about English_ in the German, Greek, etc. forums (and in those languages, too) are more than welcome; they think those forums are for questions about German, Greek, etc. only.

There are actually two problems occurring. I'll use the German forum as an example. This thread deals with point (1), but point (2) should be kept in mind as well.

1) some native Germans don't realize they can ask questions in the German forum about the English language, written in German; they think the German forum is only about the German language, or at most, discussion of translation but not of English grammar, etc.

2) some non-native German learners who are also non-natives in English don't realize that they can ask questions about German in _any_ language, not just in English (exception being Spanish since there is a German-Spanish subforum).

Number (2) actually isn't as big of a problem in the German forum--I don't think-- as it is in, say, Latin, where sometimes I'll read a thread written in poor English by a Spanish speaker who then gets a reply in Spanish and says "Oh wow I didn't realize I could've written in Spanish from the start! That would've been so much easier!"

We small-forum mods have agreed that the blurb under each forum, i.e. "Questions about German, or translations between German and any other language," is not explicit enough, and in fact quite deceiving ("Questions about German" being the first thing you see). We're currently working on a better way to make these things more obvious to foreros.


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## ewie

The thing I like about English Only as it stands is that _because_ everything is in English, English-learners of _any_ native language ~ from Abkhazian to Zulu ~ can participate in and benefit from threads, provided their level is up to it (and we _almost never_ have questions from absolute beginners).
If we had a sub-forum *English >< Any Language Other Than English*, not only would it render the bilingual forums (EN><ES, EN><PT, etc.) somewhat superfluous but it would run the risk of being populated with threads in languages that the EO 'panel of experts' might never even have _heard_ of and which would, as a result, remain unanswered for all eternity.


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