Foreign language forums

[Beverly]

So let's say your native language is English but you want to start a forum about Japanese culture, history and language. And, you will likely get many native Japanese speakers on forum as well as English speaking members. You can't simply mandate that everyone speak English just because you don't speak Japanese. And, there are likely to be entire conversations held in Japanese rather than English which could pose a conversation gap for the English speaking members.

Let's talk about ways you could bridge the language gap so that non-English speakers and native English speakers could enjoy the forum experience.

One idea would be to hire native speakers who understand and can converse with the members on the forum. These people would summarize what was said in the previous posts for the benefit of non-Japanese speakers (or whatever language is being spoken on the forum) and other English speaking members could respond. And, then it would be translated again.

Look for forum language translation plug ins, such as from Babelfish that would automatically translate or offer to translate a page to a selected language.

Of course, this concept could be applied to any language forum, not just Japanese.
Please suggest other ways a site owner could start a forum in a language he doesn't speak.

 

[Migi]

I personally do not recommend creating a forum/website in language you are not familiar with, or providing a section for a group of people who talk in different language. I agree with your suggestion that hiring one or a group of members who speak in that specific language to report and translate the content back and forth can be helpful, but there are also many risks. Discussion may gone off-topic or overboard without you realize, and it becomes hard to take decision since you do not know exactly what happened. And translating content back and forth can be annoying over time.

Unless you have fellow administrator(s) who you really trust and excel in that specific language, I do not think that this is a good idea.

 

[Kaynil]

I speak two languages and I drive people nuts in my facebook wall because of this. I have a forum in English and Spanish. What I can recommend you from my experience is to keep both language separated.

You can make more than one area for Japanese if you'd like. To bridge you could a 'practice' area so no Japanese natives can practice their japanese and get tips & help from the other members. Same about an English for the japanese learning the language. I think finding common ground, breaking the ice with some global contests and activities, could help. I know it did during the good times at my forum.

I agree with phio_chan: I wouldn't recommend you start something like that if you don't know already some of the language or know people that is fluent enough to help you patrol.

 

[Migi]

You can make more than one area for Japanese if you'd like. To bridge you could a 'practice' area so no Japanese natives can practice their japanese and get tips & help from the other members. Same about an English for the japanese learning the language. I think finding common ground, breaking the ice with some global contests and activities, could help. I know it did during the good times at my forum.

That is possible. It will definitely beneficial for both language sides to have one area in which they are on equal ground, and create activities to keep that strong and improve it. Although I imagine there will be difference in activity, it can indeed provide variety. The key is to bring both side together.

Glad to know it worked on your forum, Kaynil. 😀

 

[Chadook]

I have thought of having an Arabic side of my forum, however it's going to be hard to re-create a clone of everything, it'll take much more time as well.

 

[Mrs. Marie]

Personally, the best bet is to have a plugin installed that allows people to select the language the would like to see when browsing and posting to the forums. By doing this you are making your forum accessible to people in different countries and are able to converse with them as the plugins should automatically translate every post on the forum to the correct language chosen by the user. Though, I am not sure if all forum software allow this as of yet.

 

[buysell-browse.com]

We have a dedicated forum under General --> Foreign Language Ads where every post that is not in English gets moved to, regardless of the topic. For blog articles, we require that an English translation be posted alongside as well.

Strangely, this seems to be working rather well, as some uses return and post again in a foreign language. Posts written in kanji or arabic characters get deleted - too complicated.

 

[Soapbox]

The market is right there, and language is the key.
I find that a language group in a foreign city, like NYC
or London, are better candidates for a dual language
forum. They will appreciate talking to people in their
mother tongue sometimes more than people living in
their own nation. The other side is that people are more
keen sometimes to identify with their own people when
they are abroad.