Rule: Languages

[PyTom]

The common language of the forum is English. While the use of other languages is allowed, we ask that you provide a short synopsis of your message in English, so that the bulk of the forum can understand it.

Forums for other languages exist. In no particular order:

German: http://forum.no-neets.de
Polish: http://www.visual-novels.pl/forum

[georgmay]

where is democracy ?

[Adorya]

A forum is not a democracy, it's a royal hierarchy

[MaiMai]

Hey, you still get to type your language, just make sure we English-speaking folks understand as well

[JinzouTamashii]

Democracy is dead, killed by xenophobia. All forums are monarchies or oligarchies.

What's the rule on mixing words or talking about translation?

What about untranslatable words and concepts? 萌え? 物の哀れ? 根回し? 仲間? Machine translation gives me fascination, beauties of nature, spadework and friends, respectively which don't even come close to the original shades of meaning....

There's a reason immigrants to America kept a lot of their native words for certain foods or concepts when there wasn't one in English. In fact, it's the reason why English has such a rich etymology at all...

My dictionary doesn't even have 荒らし in it, but this idea is widely spread on the internet (trolling) and yet even that doesn't quite translate directly since it means vandalism, making waste, breaking things, inciting violence like in a riot... the first kanji is also the root of other words like 荒れ (tempest) and 荒い (rough, rude).

[Wintermoon]

If you used ローマ字 (roumaji), many of those words would be comprehensible to most board members. 萌え (moe) and 仲間 (nakama) in particular are ubiquitous in anime fandom.

[PyTom]

Liberty is when you can have your own things, choose to freely share them, and (if you want) impose some conditions on how you share them.

Tyranny is when someone says "you can only share things if you follow these rules".

Democracy can go either way.

[JinzouTamashii]

If you used ローマ字 (roumaji), many of those words would be comprehensible to most board members. 萌え (moe) and 仲間 (nakama) in particular are ubiquitous in anime fandom.

That's why I used them as examples. But even with katakana, sometimes it's confusing which word is meant sometimes, even with context, unless for some weird reason one wants to use spaces. If I say iki, do you know which one of the ten words or just kanji with that reading that I want to use?

It could be chic, abandonment, spirit, tone, freshness... but in this case, I want the "threshold" or "limit" meaning. But it's unclear outside of a given context. I could use another word, like hodo, but maybe I like iki because it's a little more uncommon and lyrical. I could throw out ikinotaikei and would you know whether I meant the threshold of overwhelming joy or abandonment's overwhelming joy?

[Tsundere Lightning]

I think in this case it would be a good idea to include notes as to the meaning of those phrases. They are untranslatable as a word, true. But you can translate them as a sentence.

Nakama = friends and allies that always have your back.
Moe = affection you feel for characters you want to protect or emotionally repair.

And so on.

[PyTom]

I'll point out that when you use the Kanji, I can't narrow it down to even those ten meanings. Part of the point of the English rule is to ensure that there's a common language that everyone on the forum can understand.

[Wintermoon]

That's why I used them as examples. But even with katakana, sometimes it's confusing which word is meant sometimes, even with context, unless for some weird reason one wants to use spaces. If I say iki, do you know which one of the ten words or just kanji with that reading that I want to use?

That's why I prefer to use the 漢字 (kanji) spelling followed by the ローマ字 (roumaji) spelling in parentheses. It's a pain in the ass to write, but it's also the clearest, most comprehensible way of including Japanese words and short phrases in an English text for an audience who may or may not understand Japanese.

[georgmay]

2ALL:
hey hey, it just a joke
relax and be happy!

[LVUER]

I completely agree with PyTom about this one.

This is an English forum where most people only understand English. So it's only appropriate to post something in English. Even if there is no English words for those words, you should write the English word (or even a short summary) about the closest meaning. You say there is untranslatable word, if you write it in non-English language, most people here won't understand it at all anyway. It will even probably bug them.

(Or you could just insert some meaning or words so that English reader could at least vaguely know the meaning. Like the word 'motainai' which doesn't have english word, but translated as "Recycle Reuse and I forget the third R" spirit)

Even if you don't mean bad by writing those word, or even if that word itself is not bad, do not understand the meaning could make who read them feel uneasy. Well, just by writing them make you mean something, didn't you?

And this one probably just in my culture, by using different language commonly used here (or deliberately using language that most folks don't understand), is considered very rude (to the point of almost or insulting). It's the same with whispering in discussion or a meeting, or talking about someone on their back.

[WiseSilent]

I agree with PyTom, MaiMai & Wintermoon. Besides, English is an international language used worldwide to understand each other. It has nothing to do with democracy...it's more understanding what is presented.

[IceD]

You might want to add our forum about visual novels for polish users: http://www.visual-novels.pl/forum We're planning to co-operate with visual-novels.net