A language learners’ forum

Posted: **Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:18 pm**

I’ve noticed an increasing number of posts simply asking for help in English, and a couple of users who seem to exclusively use the site in order to get help with specific problems in English. Is this a direction we can afford to let the site go in? Considering the number of English learners there are out there, we could easily get flooded out...

Posted: **Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:03 pm**

There is an English study thread. Perhaps they can be moved there?

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =26&t=5804

Posted: **Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:14 pm**

I have noticed this as well. However, I don't think it's disproportionate to the number of English learners on the internet compared to learners of other language. If it starts to take over Practical Questions and Advice, then maybe we could make a Grammar Questions forum and leave PQ&A for more general learning questions.

I'm encouraged that so many English learners are coming onto an English-language site for tips. Since most regulars of this site are either native English speakers or have been fluent for longer than they can remember, it's easy to forget that learning English is often the first stop in the language learning hobby. They are an integral part of our community.

I'm not particularly concerned with English learners flooding the forum because there is a minimum requirement to even understand enough English to make a post. You can't just start using an English forum after a week of Duolingo.

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 7:36 am**

Learning languages for no reason is fine, but how dare someone actually learn a language like English here which doubles their job prospects in lots of places.

Maybe we should change this to the 'learning random languages for no reason whatsoever' forum. :roll:

But yeah, obviously there's no problem with people learning English, a language, on a language learners forum. If the posts need to be moved to a specific subforum or thread, that's another topic.

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 8:25 am**

Feel free to report any posts that should be in a different subforum. Erm, I'm moving yours too

I definitely think that the General discussion is overused and has always been

I think part of the problem is that the title doesn't always make it obvious that the question is about English, as opposed to a FIGS language. (nobody would ever ask a question about Finnish grammar/usage and not mention in the title which language it's about)

And questions from newbies mean that we're doing well in google's rankings, which is great

If we were to start a separate subforum, I think it's better to name it English learning rather than Grammar questions. But this is not up to me to decide. However, questions that can be applied to other languages (such as the one about twitter) should be left alone, in my opinion.

Also, don't forget it's the time of the year when people who are taking obligatory English classes at school/university may have to prepare for exams or just take a break from other languages to improve their English grades. In summer there are generally more posts about learning for fun.

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:00 pm**

trui wrote:Learning languages for no reason is fine, but how dare someone actually learn a language like English here which doubles their job prospects in lots of places.

I wonder where you read in Cainntear's post that people shouldn't learn English or ask questions about it. Or why you seem to think that learning any language other than English has nothing to do with job prospects, or that "no reason" is the only alternative reason to "job prospects". Perhaps I'm misinterpreting you.

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:20 pm**

Saim wrote:
trui wrote:Learning languages for no reason is fine, but how dare someone actually learn a language like English here which doubles their job prospects in lots of places.

I wonder where you read in Cainntear's post that people shouldn't learn English or ask questions about it. Or why you seem to think that learning any language other than English has nothing to do with job prospects, or that "no reason" is the only alternative reason to "job prospects". Perhaps I'm misinterpreting you.

Cainntear said:

"Is this a direction we can afford to let the site go in?"

What does this even mean then if not asking if we should ban questions about English grammar, etc?

I said:

"Learning languages for no reason is fine, but how dare someone actually learn a language like English here which doubles their job prospects in lots of places."

Note that I said "like English". So there's also other languages which would be practical to learn, depending on someone's situation. I also said "here", meaning this forum.

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:37 pm**

trui wrote:What does this even mean then if not asking if we should ban questions about English grammar, etc?

Cainntear wrote:and a couple of users who seem to exclusively use the site in order to get help with specific problems in English. [...] Considering the number of English learners there are out there, we could easily get flooded out...

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:45 pm**

Cainntear wrote:I’ve noticed an increasing number of posts simply asking for help in English, and a couple of users who seem to exclusively use the site in order to get help with specific problems in English. Is this a direction we can afford to let the site go in? Considering the number of English learners there are out there, we could easily get flooded out...

Back when I had the time to moderate, my general rules of thumb were:

If somebody creates an account and does nothing with it but ask lots of beginner grammar questions, then I might eventually point them to a site like English Lanugage & Usage StackExchange or the WordReference forums. This forum is a bit more a community site—it's OK to ask questions, but if you ask, say, 15 easily-Googled grammar questions in a row without participating in any other way, then probably there are better sites with deeper Q&A archives.
Beginner grammar questions normally belong in "Practical Questions and Advice", or an appropriate thread. And if one person wants to ask a huge number of questions, I might occasionally ask them to keep everything in one thread.

At least that's how I used to do it.

Posted: **Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:09 pm**

trui wrote:Learning languages for no reason is fine, but how dare someone actually learn a language like English here which doubles their job prospects in lots of places.

Maybe we should change this to the 'learning random languages for no reason whatsoever' forum.

But yeah, obviously there's no problem with people learning English, a language, on a language learners forum. If the posts need to be moved to a specific subforum or thread, that's another topic.

Participation in a community is about give and take. As Saim pointed out, I was talking about people who use the forums exclusively for asking for helping (i.e. taking) without getting involved in any other activities (giving).

I could have just dropped a PM to the mods pointing out the users I'd noticed doing this, but I thought I'd start a conversation about it first and see how other people feel about it, because I see that there are various people happy to answer these questions. (I'm not, and I've avoided posting in any such threads.)

A language learners’ forum

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