Sorry to those who suffered from me ;)

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

Sometimes, when I read a topic, I think I understand the question, I give an answer and finally after few explanations from the author, I realize that I was completely out…

Why ? Because I want to help, but english isn’t my native language, so sometimes, with the help of Google Trad, I completely mistake… :emo:

Now, this is the question : what should I do ?

  • A - “Buy a candle and go back to your cave !”
  • B - “Shut up ! You are already allowed to contribute to Java4K, so stop crying !”
  • C - “Come back in a year when you will have learned English !”
  • D - “Continue…, I like to laugh at you !”
  • E - “Continue to read topics without noise !”
  • F - “Don’t mind !”

Any idea ?

P.S. : I know it isn’t a very serious topic, but I realized that happens ! :-\

#2

F! I really don’t mind when people interpret the question a little differently because their answer sometime helps me solve my problems :wink:

#3

Maybe repeat the person’s question in your own words/understanding in the response post.
This way any misunderstanding is quickly found and the question can be modified by the original poster to be more clear.

It’s great that your are trying to improve your answers. Keep helping people and answering questions :smiley:

#4

^ This. English isn’t your native language? English is my native language and I still make mistakes like this, so don’t panic. Although yes, Google Translate is rather horrible.

#5

F: No one is suffering… I hope. :point:

Mistakes happen to everyone, even native speakers. As long as your intentions are that you are trying to help, it makes no difference to me how it is typed. As already said, the more variety people have when looking for answers, the better. :slight_smile:

#6

Honestly, non native speakers underestimate the amount of errors that native speakers actually make. Unless you actively trying to be literate (as I am now), you WILL make a mistake, rather often, might I add.

#7

F

English is my native language and sometimes I find that I can’t English. I just can’t.

I am terrible, along with many others, at any language, whether it be my native language or foreign.

So don’t worry! We really don’t mind and if anyone gives you a hard time about it ignore them, they’re being ludicrous.

#8

Coming from a noob developer himself, I would rather have someone atleast try to help me, instead of not trying. And like TeamworkGuy2, you should say something like “Well, If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you are having a problem with the main loop, right? Well, then…” And continue to explain :slight_smile:

As they say, it’s the thought that counts :wink:

#9

I think he’s referring to his own English…

#10

Your posts probably have better English than those of a lot of native English speakers. :point:

#11

In response to this - and to the new ‘experience’ system:

Maybe something similar could be implemented for the ‘english’ language. So you’d specify how long you’ve been learning english, or whether you’re native english speaker.

I often see people asking questions and saying “Sorry for my english, I’m not a native english speaker” or simply: “Sorry for my bad english”.

Maybe someone likes this Idea :slight_smile:

#12

C
or blame users for being incomprehensible

#13

I’ll say go with F:

You know, sometimes, I make silly mistakes but before posting, I’ll always double check my sentence. Never worry.

See, again unnecessary post about punctuation…

BTW, google translate is really horrible.

#14

Not always.

#15

I also dont agree.
Babelfish was bad. Remember that ? Its 2014 now, google translate is quite good by now.

#16

Thanks for replies !
In fact, reading english isn’t too difficult, but sometimes, a single word in a phrase could make me completely wrong in comprehension.
But I must say that Google Trad is a very good friend on JGO :wink:

#17

It’s good enough for Amazon :slight_smile: They use it to translate Shakespear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a couple other ‘classic’ writers. They even charge for it - even if the translations are really inferior…

On topic:

F - Because it’s a good chance that the person that wrote the question doesn’t have English as his/her native language.

#18

Hi

I’m obviously a non native English speaker, I admit that sometimes I don’t understand a few things written or said especially in the figurative meaning. Just improve your English a bit if you really think this is the root cause of your problems of understanding here.

#19

Your problem is the problem of all non-native English speaking people.

It is hard not to think in your language and then translate it into English. And, unless you live in an English speaking country (where your only chance is to speak in English all the time), this will be your (our) problem all the time.

I am a translator, mainly translating medical articles. Thinking in Turkish (my language) and then translating it into English is not a problem in medical area. Because medical vocabulary is more Latin than English or any other language. So I’m fine there.

But I’m somehow used to think in English. Especially when I try to remember the meaning of a word in English, I tend to ask the question in English in my mind. But that is not the case for most of the other topics.

And there’s the emphasis issue. Non-native speakers of any languages would place the emphasis on the wrong words most of the time, no matter how experienced they are.

I can guarantee that any article written by me will be understood better by a Turkish person regardless of the quality of the usage of English in the text. So, zero mistakes in English doesn’t mean that everybody will understand what you meant.

This is why most of the questions have long explanations, or subsequent questions. I am thinking that I asked just what is on my mind, but another person gets it in a whole different way.

So, that would be F for me. I don’t care. Probably as a non-native English speaker, I understand what you say better than the native English speakers :slight_smile:

About google translation, it depends on the language pairs. If sentence structures are similar between the languages, then it does a good job, but if the sentence structure is different, Google Translation is worse than your own words. I reject proofreading projects as soon as I realize that it is a machine translation :slight_smile:

Anyway, this problem would have less importance if we could set our primary language in our profiles. It won’t make it go away, but it would make it easier.