Christa627:I remember that when I was a beginner I was always annoyed by the habit of peppering English text with Esperanto words and expressions, as I didn't know what they meant. Now of course I understand them and barely notice them, but this thread made me remember about how they annoyed me as a bwginner. Sorry if this is off-topic.

I really love the "my lingvosento tells me"...

Christa627:...they annoyed me as a bwginner.

Aĥ! A typo! I blame the tablet! Corrected now...

why aren't they posting in the Esperanto forum?

Because, fairly obviously, the thread that has excited their interest happens to be running in the English Forum.

Threads in English Forum 4141. No other forum comes close to being so active. Next most active forum - half that number of threads.

I think the rule is fine the way it is and that is should be respected. Nobody said you can't post something in Esperanto in the English forum---only that you must provide a transaltion if you do. People who do not have enough of a command of English to participate in the English language forum do not need to be posting here; there are MANY other national language forums to accommodate their linguistical needs.

Polaris:I think the rule is fine the way it is and that is should be respected. Nobody said you can't post something in Esperanto in the English forum---only that you must provide a transaltion if you do. People who do not have enough of a command of English to participate in the English language forum do not need to be posting here; there are MANY other national language forums to accommodate their linguistical needs.

I'm all for respecting the rules, and questioning whether the current rule is correct should not be taken to imply anything else. But I echo the point that Sudanglo just made: if someone understands enough English that a conversation here excites their interest, it seems a bit harsh to say that they can only contribute if their English is up to it. I'd rather have the opportunity to hear their ideas in Esperanto than force them to marshal their thoughts in English. Others have sung the praises of google translate's merits: surely there is no need to have a translation every time when it is just a click away.

I take Erinja's point about learners. I'm barely more than a beginner myself. But the English forum isn't just for beginner's questions, or at least that isn't what the description says.

I'm being long-winded, without worrying about the style.Often when we think of transposing a text from one language to another there are three situations: "Translation" is when the original text is written in a foreign language and needs to be converted to the native language, such as english translation into portuguese (my native language). When the reverse occurs, the original text is in portuguese and I want to transpose it into english, we call this 'version'. The third situation in named 'dual version', that is, the process of transposing a text written in a foreign language to another foreign or non native language, like Esperanto, e.g., from French to English, or from English to Esperanto.
There are different levels of language competence with reference to reading and writing. And there are also several laudable attempts to try to communicate in a almost true way. In my particular case, I understand approximately 80% from the English and I dominate 60% of the writing of this language; I understand 95% from the Spanish, but I can write less than in English); I can understand 70% from the Italian and French, but I hold only 20-30% in writing these. So, it is logical that in general, my ability to translate from one language into my native language is much greater than the capacity of shed from my local language to a non-native language. Then, I see no problem in writing in any language, because taking part is what matters. So, we all have the right and fair to write in a good or bad way, in search of communication. If I understand well what is being said in another language, I like to participate, even if in some deficient way. I try to use all technologies available for this purpose. From the moment our national languages go beyond the borders of our countries as international languages, we lose the right to claim them exclusively for us, because from now one they are 'lingua franca' or international languages. They are no longer property of only one people.

Hi, y'all - jes' gotta' decide which'n is English, darn! Butter my buns an' call me a biscuit, but I ain't al'ayz upta it. Jes' havin' a form in one lang'age an' not wannin ta read anothr keen shyur give ya' a headache - but's my mind thet here'n tha Eeesperan'o site, we dang rite gotta be tol'rant!

erinja:We have neither the manpower nor the desire to micromanage the forums to the extent of preventing people from posting in a national language forum what they are linguistically capable of posting in Esperanto. But I think there's value to the viewpoint of posting in the Esperanto forums when you are capable. You are very, very, extremely welcome to post in Esperanto only - in the forums intended for that.

I understand manpower may likely be an issue for my following suggestion, but here's an idea that you might consider:

Employ a forum moderation team to patrol and edit posts that contain only Esperanto responses (and possibly the occasional Esperantisms) to provide native language readers with the appropriate equivalent in the native language (possibly presented in a lovely green color scheme to indicate staff interference).

Samtempe (at the same time[/b]), send a private message to the guilty users to remind them that they should try to post in the native language whenever they can (punishment or not). I feel like the rules as they are are quite fair, but the manner that I handle ignorant rule breakers in my own field of management is a bit more bleeding heart-ish than that.

There's a few alternatives to this, such as implementing a button that allows users to submit their own translations that (pending approval) can be added to the post with little effort on the forum moderator's part. This would require assets like web developers and more advanced software than what Lernu has to pull off, provided anyone actually wanted that. In the future, I would hope that Lernu would have such a thing, but I recognize the fact that there are limitations.

I would say yes as long as there is a translation. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense because they can just post in the Esperanto forums.

Esperanto forums are for speaking Esperanto.
English forums are for speaking English.

It is simple. But, if someone wants their post to appear in both languages, I guess they can do that here in the English forum.

If you'd like to see all *sorts* of arguments, both for and against, just do a search on the topic. Whether or not to allow untranslated Esperanto in the English language forum is not a new discussion; it has been argued pretty thoroughly already, and I'm pretty sure circumstances haven't changed any since the last time this was hashed out.