How about a "foreign talk" section?

[Sharky]

Well, I'm also a member of the Björk message board (www.bjork.com) and over there they've had an idea which I think it's absolutely marvelous. They have a "Foreign talk" section in which anyone can post whatever they want in any language they want. I think that it's a very good idea as some people could refreain from posting here because of their poor english knowledge. Also, it's nice to be able to speak with someone in your own language from time to time (I should know as I'm not a native English speaker).


Being this a rather international forum with members from all around the world that speak all sorts of laguages it's a pretty good idea.

I recall a while back a fellow countryman posted in the Formula 1 forum but since he didn't speak much english he posted in spanish which didn't please many members as they didn't undertand a word he was saying. I recall telling him that he should try posting in english but he told me that he wasn't very good at it and from what I undertand he never posted again. A foreign talk section would provide such people the place to post freely.

You guys should look into it because over at the Björk messageboard it's quite a success.

[Carrie]

I can see it would be a good idea, Sharky and I do understand your reasoning. However, how would such a forum be moderated? If a large number of languages are being used then surely that might be a problem, if unacceptable language starts to be used.

[Sharky]

Well, in order to be discussion there must be at least 2 that speak that language and if one is offended by the content then they can just tell the moderators. If the moderator isn't sure if the accusation is true or false he can look up in an online dictionary or ask a third party person who speaks that language if the accusation is true or false. Besides, there's quite a great deal of people here who speak several languages in this forum. I'm sure that they'll be able to help the moderators in any way they can. You could also extend the "curse word" database to the most popular languages such as spanish, french, german, etc. Besides, people at this forum are pretty decent.

[R]

Betyr dette at jeg kan banne på norsk?

[touringlegend]

Guten Tag meine freundes!!!

[touringlegend]

R, those better not be swear words !!

[Sharky]

Ven! De eso es lo que estoy hablando!

[marcus]

G'day Mate , did ya bring the slab with ya cobber !!!!

[Sharky]

Originally posted by marcus
G'day Mate , did ya bring the slab with ya cobber !!!!

LOL!!

Another thing to think about the convinience of such a section. Once I was an avid chat-room participant and on some IRCs the channels with the most people were the spanish channels. Once you entered those chat rooms it became pretty clear. The vast mayority of people that have access to the net in latin america love to chat, love to discuss but most don't know any english or at least not enough for others to understand them. And I wasn't surprised. After all I graduated from and english intensive school but out of the 90+ people that graduated with me only 3 or so graduated with a good english level.

So very little people speak english but a great deal of them love motor sports. I know for a fact that in Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico everybody's mad for auto racing. Having a section that would allow such people to join the forum and discuss anything without worrying about their english skills could really broaden the public for this forum dramatically. And that's just the spanish speaking public. remember that there's also a lot of German, French, Portuguese, russian, swedish, dutch, greek (and so on) speaking people out there that are more or less on the same situation.

[touringlegend]

But would this forum be like the Gravel Trao? Or just somewhere that anything non English could go?

[Sharky]

Well, at the Björk messageboard people can talk about anything regarding all the other english speaking forums as the ammount of english speaking people is much bigger than those who don't. I would believe that it would be a general forum in which people could speak about anything regarding the rest of the forums (F1, WRC, CART, Off topic, Road Cars, etc.) just that in a different language to english.

[Jukebox]

I agree with sharky as all these time i've registered here, i've seen only a few malaysian nationalities in here who refrained themself from posting any threads or replies. I don't know why but it might be because of what sharky pointed out.

But then, the majority of people in M'sia do uses English and i realised that i'm the only active guy from M'sia in ten-tenth.

To think back sharky, english is a universal language and it's the only widely used language in the world.

A message to the malaysians if they read this :

Kenapalah korang semua takmau aktif kat dalam forum ni, best juga kalau ada ramai sikit members dari M'sia disini. Diaorang semua memang pada permulaan susah nak accept tapi lama kelamaan mesti okay. Juke sendiri sekarang sudah ada ramai kawan dari merata dunia di forum ini.

Malaysia boleh!

[redshoes]

Sorry to disappoint but a foreign language section is not something we would be likely to consider. As Carrie has pointed out it would be virtually impossible to moderate. "Curse words" aside there are implications of posting libeleous comments in a foreign language. The site owners can still be sued, regardless of the language used.

[Nicholas]

I know someone at my school from Malaysia, he's a (mild )Ferrari fan as well...

[TimD]

Having spent a weekend exercising my truly appalling French at Le Mans, I was intrigued by the way language was used in a multinational campsite. It was a serious luxury to discover I could cheerfully converse in English with the majority of Germans, Belgians and Danes that I met, but I was also intrigued that English was also the language of choice when those same nationalities needed to communicate with one another.

The French, of course, were as Gallic and obtuse as we have come to expect and love....

What I'm trying to say is that as far as an international forum goes, English is probably a fairly happy medium for most people to communicate in.

However, I am fully aware that some will find it difficult to follow what is going on, in what is not their native tongue. Can I suggest a web translator? The one I use is http://www.worldlingo.com/products_s...ranslator.html and it works on the 10-tenths forum, and can come up with some extraordinary results!

It also means you can use the text box to type in your own language, and get the translator to reproduce it in reasonable English. It's not infallible, and it struggles when certain posters refuse to use grammar or even complete English words in their posts, but it's a start.

Sadly I must concur that the risks of unmoderated material are too great to make the idea of a foreign talk forum a runner.

[Raven]

I'll just post my support on here for a fellow Bjork fan.

[Sharky]

Thanks Raven. Good to know that there are many Björk fans out there.

As for what TimD, I can see what you're saying and I know that it's not easy. Just don't discard the idea completely. Perhaps do a little research, perhaps learn what other forums have done (Like Björk's messageboard which is run by the Mad Web Carpenters). Perhaps even after that research you'll find that it can't be done or perhaps you'll leran that it can. Just don't discard it. I know that english is an international language but I've been to several latin american countries and the people who speak english are the "vast" minority.

It's worked for other forums. In fact I've seen more trouble in the english parts of Björk's messageboards that in the "foreign talk" forum.

But, like I said, maybe it can't be done as you say. But perhaps you should talk to those who have done it and how they do it and if it has really benefited their messageboards or if it has affected them in a negative way. After all, this forum doesn't have to be "pioneer" in that area and suffer the concequences of being the first. You can learn from those who have already done it.

[Jukebox]

Originally posted by nicholaswhite
I know someone at my school from Malaysia, he's a (mild )Ferrari fan as well...

Great to hear that nick ...i think i'm a bit more than mild when it comes to supporting Ferrari

[Neil C]

Sacrement! The only non-English words I know are swear words!

But that's ok. I, like others in this Forum, need to concentrate on English as a first language before trying to communicate in another tongue.

[ljakse]

I think I'll back Carrie on this. There are two 10/10's member here speaking serbian. Therefore, we could go into discussion. How would you find someone to translate that?
Bear in mind that there's no dictionary for swearing in serbian - we have the largest number of cursing words in the whole world, and those are only 'official' - slang is yet to be counted.

[Neil C]

ljakse, for what it's worth, my mother is Serbian. She did teach us a few words, but no writing or spelling.

And, being the good mother she is, no swear words either!

[FastJoel31]

C'est une bonne idee!

No hotkeys for accents on my computer...

[ljakse]

Originally posted by Neil C
ljakse, for what it's worth, my mother is Serbian. She did teach us a few words, but no writing or spelling.

And, being the good mother she is, no swear words either!

I guess I should take it as a warning to 'watch my mouth'.

[Bononi]

...or... we could all start to speak\write\read in Esperanto !!!!!

[Sharky]

BTW Bononi. What does "Verbum sapienti sat est, et puri sermonis" I think sapienti has something to do with knowledge and est is to be...but....just wondering