I just had an IM conversation about a technical point, with somebody whose native language was not English. I could sense the frustration; the question was clear in the other person's mind, but there was no way to make me understand it. Since we have speakers of all major languages around here, this sort of frustration is really unnecessary. Maybe the forum FAQs should emphasize that English is not required; just specify the desired language in the title, and (unless the language is obscure, or has no standard Romanization) somebody will come along and answer it in an understandable way.

How about they intergrate a translation thingy for ppl to use seeklight

NOOO!! Have you ever tried to run ANYTHING thru Babelfish?! Try it on the japanese sites. The result will be highly amusing. Of course you will usually get the GENERAL idea, but sometimes it just turns out rubbish. And then there are a LOT of languages that are NOT supported by Babelfish, danish for one. So in case I didn't knew any english I would still be left in the dark. Ockham's suggestion is fine, people should write the headline in their own language if they didn't understand english. This way people who understood it could jump in and reply :o) - OR direct the one that's asking to someone who they knew could answer.

Yeah. But I do think Babelfish is amazing when you think about it. When I was a girl something like babelfish was only science fiction.

Sure BabelFish IS amazing :o) As long as you're aware that it may produce VERY strange results. It's better than none for sure :o)

Of course the other alternative is that someone would be able to translate the question into english for others with a superior technical knowledge to answer. If that makes sense, its hard enough to make yourself understood when you know english!!!

This language-specification already happens sometimes. I just think it would be good to encourage it; to make it clear that Renderosity is a place where understanding matters more than standardization.

I've seen any number of folks in here send 'foreign-language' postings, and get answers; Spanish, German, Danish..have yet to see Japanese..;) If they have problems with English (heck, I have problems with English sometimes, despite mangling it for oh..43 years or so..;), they could try posting in their native tongue..ich weiss nicht, no sabe, jeun se pas, mor di na, ya nye znayu, I dunno..(probably a record misspelling of 5 different ways to say 'I don't know', a useful phrase in any language..;)

I like the idea, it's usually easier to phrase what you mean in yer native language (okay, so I sometimes not even -then- make sense L). And please, no Babelfish thingie. While it's pretty okay for single words, it mangles whole sentences awefully. But it's good for a laugh nonetheless L btw, pakled....you certainly didn't mangle the german "I dunno" (Ich weies nicht) phrase L

But, Packled messed the French one! It should be "je ne sais pas..." :-) Even though french is my native tongue, i rarely use it on the web. For me, English is faster to write. French has too many rules & exceptions in it's grammar. Excellent for Songs & poetry though... Indeed! BabelFish & similar web translating services tend to mess up the proper order of verbs. Marco

Optical, I knew he spelled it wrong, but I can't spell it correctly either, so I left it out ;-) I'm faster in writing in english, too, I've got a lot of english speaking friends online, I read a lot online, and almost any page I visit (like this one) are with english content. L I almost like english more than my own tongue...

BrokenAngel9, That's all right, i didn't want to mess up the german one. :-)) Well, for me it's half & half. I like english better for writting & expressing my emotions verbally. But, for day to day talking i prefer french. Wish i could learn many more languages. But, i don't a natural ability for it. To me though, it's more then just learning the grammar. It's also about learning the cultural elements for each languages... Dolce Sogno! Marco