Use of native language.

[atle.g]

There is an increasing number of both critique requests and comments

were people use their native languages, making it impossible to read.

Could it be a good idea to add some standard alternatives for

questions, so that the photographer could mark thoose he wanted to

get answered in a check box,.. like the unmanip box.

[basscheffers]

These are usualy left by people in that person's "critique clique"; they are not worth the read and are only written so 7/7 ratings can be given.

 

They usualy translate into nothing more than: "Another great shot, I love your work", "Wow, I wish I could do that!" and: "Your photography makes me so excited I am going to touch myself now!"

 

Move along people, there's nothing to see here...

[paulus]

I do understand your question, I can not read Italien, Polish nor Spanish or whatever other languages sometimes are used. I only understand three foreign languages; English, German and French.

 

However at the same time I am a litle bit offended. People that do not write your language (english I persume), are they not allowed to give some feedback? And if no native languages are allowed, than all the Americans and English are not allowed to write in English anymore? (I am provoking now, I know)

 

The checkbox would maybe help for the critique request, but never for the response. I think the best we can do is to ask every one to try to use one language so that most people can learn from the feedback given.

 

just my 2 cents.

[ivan colman]

Bas, U veralgemeent wel heel veel....

 

Bas, You generalize too much. I dare to use my native language (Flemish) when I am convinced the photographer clearly understands what I am telling. I am fully aware that our native language is hardly to understand by non-flemish (Dutch) speakers. But it is still the only language in which I can express accurately what I want to say. In many cases I swap to flemish when I want to express something I don't like too that particular photo, and certainly not when I want to praise it to heaven. In most cases I give these comments for the photographer.

 

I will take care to use as much as possible the english language. But I don't promise anything. On the other hand I sometimes use www.worldlingo.com to translate some comments. And I discovered that a lot of these native comments are given with the same purpuse as I use my native language. I fear that on an international site, with this amount of contributors, this problem can not be overcome unless non english comments are deleted.

 

 

.... Ik beloof echter niets.

[bobatkins]

While there's no prohibition on posting in languages other than English, I think posting in English is greatly preferred for two reasons:

 

(1) By and large it is the most widely spoken language used by photo.net visitors. Indeed, if you can't speak or understand English, there's not much point in visiting photo.net.

 

(2) By and large the language spoken by the site moderators and administrators is English, so it makes life much easier if posts are in English. Some speak French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch and a few other languages, but if someone is swearing and cursing or posting spam in, let's say, Flemish, it's not going to be obvious to most moderators!

[beatrice_flowers]

I thought Flemish was just Dutch with a weird accent.

[basscheffers]

Oh, no, Bee, it's clearly a dialect. In a way actualy more pure as it's not quite as contaminated with Englishisms. I always found it really pathetic that on Dutch TV, many flemish programs (or speakers on news programs) are subtitled, as for any Dutch person with a brain and a pulse, it's quite easy to understand. But what do you know, it works both ways as a couple of years ago I saw the Dutch show "Baantjer" in the BRT, subtitled in Flemmish!

 

Now "Afrikaans", that's a funny one. Basicaly 200 year old Dutch that has never evolved since and they all sound like 4 year olds. Aaahhh, bless... ;-)

 

(PS: maybe that was a little over generalizing, but I am a sucker for standards and think everything on this website should be in English)

[bobatkins]

Well, here in the US I've seen TV programs from the UK with subtitles!

 

Now I know that some of the UK regional accents can be pretty strong, but subtitles? What's next, dubbing them into "American"?

[dglickstein]

Bob, the show Cops has sub-titles.

dG

[john falkenstine]

Bas: Good commentary. Growing up in Maastricht, the various dialects were bewildering, but I remember Flemish as being quite different from Dutch in many aspects, including pronunciation. But, speaking a Maastricht dialect (or now considered maybe a separate language) perhaps helps in having a bit more respect for other languages. However, on photo.net I have noticed quite often that when things go awry for a photographer, a fallback on their own language and the immature name calling and cursing that goes on is a privilege that those who communicate solely in the English language do not have, so they tend to be more polite....

[neild]

John, I don't see it as a privilege if someone feels they need to suddenly use a different language for name-calling - surely this means they've lost the argument and they themselves know it!! Let them throw tantrums if they want to - it only reflects badly on them!!

[atle.g]

To Bas: Yes, most of the comments are of that nature, but i have seen an increase in longer ones lately, that conatained more than the ordinary praise.

 

To Paul: english is not my native language, but is the international language #1, and IMO on a site like this... the only language that should be accepted.

 

To Ivan: The problem with using your native language is that other contributors can't use your critique to disagree,..agree.., get an idea from you comment and see other ways to enhance the photo...etc.

 

The best critique threads are those that contains a lot of ideas, opinions and different views, and could benefit not only the photograper and commentaters, but also other people, who might read it.

As mentioned, a good step could be to urge people to use English.. and see what happens.

[sacha_de_carlo]

WHOAAA. I am really getting upset here. I thought we're in a free world, obviously I'm totally wrong. Sorry if you feel some frustration because you can only read/write in English. I think we should not have any misunderstanding here. There's no discrimination, only freedom. People here should feel free to use their own native language whenever they want.

In general I try to write in English, I think 98% of all comments I made here on the site are indeed in English. Sometimes I feel to write a personal comment to photographers I admire in their native language(s), if I can do that. There is already a problem with foreign accents, they are not correctly displayed here on Photo.net, please avoid any other stupid request. Cheers and happy holidays, Sacha :)

[bobatkins]

If you see "name calling" in any language, a note to "abuse@photo.net" or the appropriate forum moderator would be appreciated. One of the problems of not using English, as I pointed out above, is that the odds are that moderators won't speak or understand it.

[lex_jenkins]

My impression has been that many of the folks commenting on photos are natives of the same countries as the photographers so they are naturally inclined to use a familiar language.

 

I'd bet that one reason some folks for whom English is not their native language avoid using English to make comments is because even a slight slip of the idiom will generate sarcastic remarks from a few intolerant people.

 

I've noticed that photo.net has generated several subcultures, sort of the equivalent of Chinatown and Little Italy. The participants trade critiques or comments pretty much only amongst themselves and nowhere else. I don't know how that could be avoided. Like many Western nations photo.net has already established a pattern of accepting this in exchange for artistic diversity. It's too late to go back now. But that's gotta be a good thing. I can't even conceive of photography in the manner I see presented by many photographers from other cultures yet I enjoy and appreciate their work. The site would be poorer without them.

[mottershead]

The main problem in posting comments in the language of the photographer, other than English, is that it assumes that the comments are for the benefit of the photographer only. I know I've said the "comments are for the photographer; the ratings are for the site", but it is not literally the case that the comments are for the photographer ONLY. The comments are for the community of people who are seeking to LEARN from the photograph and the discussion of it. As the Gallery on photo.net is currently conceived, the photo comments are not a "guest book" for complimenting the photographer, and only intended to be read by him or her. They are a discussion. The language of the site is English, and carrying on discussions in languages other than English tends to exclude most visitors (including most of the regular members of the community) from the discussion. Therefore, while it is (barely) tolerated, I tend to find it a bit rude, or at least clueless, and if it were to become more of a trend, something might have to be done about it. Certainly, people who CAN write a reasonable comment in either English or the language of the photographer should choose English.

[__kibbel_zinbitz]

You can ask a question in any language you want. If you expect help; well you'll figure out the rest.

[root]

Although the diversity Lex refers to benefits all of us, one could argue that the pendulum has swung the other way, judging by the images selected for visibility in the TRP. Anglos don't have a default peer group that has the same attraction that a minority group would.

[bobatkins]

Since this is a site for English speaking users, and is designed as such, maybe the best compromise would be to require that if a poster posts a message in their own native language that they also post an English version of the text. It doesn't have to be in perfect English (it could even be a machine translation), but that way at least all readers would be able to understand at least part of what was being said.

 

Highly imperfect machine translations follow:

 

Puisque c'est un emplacement pour les utilisateurs qui parlent

anglais, et est conçu en tant que tels, peut-être le meilleur compromis devrait exiger cela si une affiche

signale un message en leur propre langue maternelle qu'ils signalent

également une version anglaise du texte. Il ne doit pas être dans l'anglais parfait (ce pourrait même être

une traduction automatique), mais cette manière au moins tous les lecteurs pourrait comprendre au

moins une partie de ce qui était dit.

 

Da dieses ein Aufstellungsort für englischsprechende Benutzer ist, und ist als solcher entworfen, möglicherweise würde der beste Kompromiß das erfordern sollen, wenn

ein Plakat eine Anzeige in ihrer eigenen Muttersprache bekanntgibt,

daß sie auch eine englische Version des Textes bekanntgeben. Es muß nicht auf vollkommenes Englisch (es könnte eine maschinelle

Übersetzung sogar sein), sein, aber diese Weise mindestens alle Leser würde in der LageSEIN, zu

verstehen mindestens Teil von, was besagt war.

 

Aangezien dit een plaats voor Engelstalige gebruikers is, en als dusdanig wordt ontworpen, misschien zou het beste compromis moeten vereisen dat als een affiche

een bericht in hun eigen moedertaal post dat zij ook een Engelse

versie van de tekst posten. Het moet niet in het perfecte Engels (het kon zelfs een automatische

vertaling zijn) zijn, maar die manier zou minstens alle lezers minstens een deel kunnen

begrijpen van wat werd gezegd.

 

Puesto que esto es un sitio para los usuarios de discurso ingleses, y se diseña como tal, el mejor compromiso sería quizá requerir eso si un cartel fija un

mensaje en su propia lengua materna que también fijan una versión

inglesa del texto. No tiene que estar en inglés perfecto (podría incluso ser una

traducción automática), pero esa manera por lo menos todos los lectores podría entender por

lo menos la parte de cuál era dicho.

[almagnus]

Let's change the odds a bit. OK, english is number one language, but most people speak something else than English. Now just imagine two americans in Italy being forced to speak to each other in Italian! They will end-up speaking English even if they master the language. So I don't think you should (can)enforce or restrict the use of any language. Photo.net is victim of its success, and thats the way it is. Photo.net reflects the people using it and so it should remain. The PN webmasters could be proud of that.. just think of it, people comminicating in so many language on their site.

[mottershead]

Al Magnus: you are missing the point. The photo comments thread is a dicussion not between the photographer and his countrymen but between the photographer and any person who visits the site who wants to discuss the photo. Your example is like two Italians putting up signs in some international meeting place, in English, inviting everyone to come and discuss something (lets say their photographs). When people get there, they find the discussion is in Italian, which they cannot understand.

 

Surely there are plenty of Italian photo sites where Italians can post their photos to be discussed by anyone who can speak Italian, in all likelihood, by other Italians. photo.net is not one of those sites.

 

photo.net is a world-wide photo site, and it uses the current world lingua franca, English. It is very convenient for native English speakers that their native language is the lingua franca, and it is very inconvenient for people who don't speak English. It may not be entirely fair. But that is the reality. If you can't write a coherent English sentence, and you want to leave a comment for a photographer in some other language, I'm not going to stop you (for now), but that is not what the site is about. If you can write in English, I consider it somewhat rude or clueless to carry on a little side-conversation in some other language that others can not share in.

[bobatkins]

Latin est omnimodus lingua. Is est pariter difficilis pro sulum.

 

Gauisus Feriae. Pacis in Terra.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Oratio difficilis facile?<br><br>EOS focus erratum?<BR><BR>Superabunt focus MF?<BR><BR>Nikon paris Canon?<BR><BR>Gravis amicus mereo bonus cibus.<BR><BR>bona fortuna; bona vita!

[john falkenstine]

Europeans have a habit of often discussing other people or situations openly right next to them on the assumption that those parties don't understand their language, or frankly doing it as an insult. I have experienced this phenomenon quite often, both in Europe and in the States and surprisingly, in upper level corporate meetings as well. It definitely is a cultural habit, and despite growing up in Europe, it is one that I have never liked. The treatment ranges from cursing in Cafes in Antwerp (assuming you're German because of the license plates on the truck) To Lufhansa execs who think American managers are stupid. The tolerance for the behavior on photo.net for this behavior pattern certainly is more than generous.

[Landrum Kelly]

The dysfunctional effects of the sometimes use of other languages besides English are grossly overstated. The site seems to want to enforce English by making it impossible to use accent marks ("diacritical marks") that can be formed with ALT + Numeric Keypad. One has to use HTML just to offer the occasional friendly comment in someone else's language--usually harmless and trivial enough, and not a high enough percentage by English speakers to account for more than a tiny fraction of typically banal praise.

 

At the risk of being misunderstood, let me remind that uniform language codes have been historically associated with dictatorial tendencies: Franco's imposition of Castellano and banning of Basque and Catalan dialects, etc, throughout Spain for the thirty-six years of his dictatorship; the whipping of Welsh, Scottish, and Irish children who dared to speak Gaelic in the classrooms of their English-speaking school masters; the almost exclusive use of either Spanish or Portuguese over most of Latin America because those areas were dominated at the point of the sword, in the same way that the common Latin was imposed by the Roman Empire not only over all of Italy, but over Spain, Portugal, France, Rumania, etc.--as most of North America became a matter of "Use English or don't survive in the market."

 

Lest anyone think that I am saying that this attitude on PN represents dictatorial tendencies, I do not think so. I respect Brian and Bob--broadly and very highly-educated gentlemen--far too much to suggest such a thing. I do think, however, that it is an unfortunate fact that our "international site" seems to feel threatened on a number of levels by the occasional appearance of something besides what is effectively the "official" language of English.

 

I really don't think that we are in danger of a Tower of Babel explosion of unintelligible commentary, and I also think that there is a note of hospitality in welcoming these occasional remarks in other languages--and even encouraging it with the enabling of the ALT + Numeric Keypad, which helps with languages using Latin or modified Latin alphabets (most European languages).

 

This quasi-mono-lingual policy, though not resulting from authoritarianism or xenophobia, nonetheless might give the unintended result of giving the sense of trying to enforce an "English only" policy on the site. The fact is that most visitors can write Engish and typically do, in the same way that English speakers cannot typically write in another language and typically do not.

 

I think that this attitude is short-sighted and provincial, bespeaking or at least suggesting a certain lack of cosmopolitanism--certainly not the international flavor that we really do want to promote on the site. The site is not going to collapse any time soon due to an overwhelming surge of those who use languages other than English.

 

I say, Let it be, don't worry about it, promote the ease of communication in whatever language persons choose to communicate, and watch the site go on pretty much as before--but without the anglocentric and xenophobic atmosphere that goes with disabling the ALT-Numeric Keypad characters.

 

We're bigger than this here. I frankly am reminded of efforts in Florida and California, for example, to pass legislation declaring English to be the official language. Neither Florida nor California has collapsed because many immigrants continue to speak Spanish (they learn English also), for example, and PN is likewise secure from any imminent terrible consequences. I recommend a laissez-faire, open door policy here.

 

If PN is an international site, then let it have an international, cosmopolitan, and open-door flavor. If that means that no one can possibly understand every comment offered, then so be it: the sky is not going to fall. English will still predominate, thanks to the cosmopolitan orientation and multilingual capabilities of our many educated visitors, who will continue to use English most of the time anyway.

 

There is nothing to fear in opening the gates on this one. I feel that we are perhaps sending an unfriendly message, even if unintentionally, with a focus on English only. English has, after all, become the lingua franca of the contemporary world--more due to open markets than monolingualism imposed at the point of a sword. That is just a fact, and one that almost ensures that English will continue to predominate voluntarily on PN, and ensures as well that persons will be able to communicate when it really matters, usually in English but occasionally in other languages as well.