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In How do I learn which verb to use with an object?, a user with a medium amount of rep asked why I asked it on meta, rather than main.

The closest thing I could get to an off-topic reason in What questions are not allowed on Japanese Language SE? was the answer We don't do "how do I study X?" questions. The first paragraph of which is:

We are focused on the language itself, not educational methods or study systems. We'd rather not talk about flashcards vs sentence-memorization. We are particularly harsh on "how do I keep myself motivated?"-type questions, as these are well beyond the limits of the language.

However, the paragraph seems to be talking about how to memorise a piece of information, or how to motivate yourself, and not about how to learn something.

Are questions about learning suitable for the main web site, or only meta and chat?

Related question: Is the "learning" tag misleading?

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  • I guess you're referring to my comment. I wrote that because honestly I don't know what is the answer to your question above. Your original question was for me in between: it was partly about the way you can learn some rules, partly about the rules themselves. +1 for asking this follow-up question and let's see what others say.
    – Szymon
    May 24, 2014 at 10:28
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    I think you can make the question perfectly valid on the main site by rephrasing some words like “how … learn” ...
    – Yang Muye
    May 24, 2014 at 10:33

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IMO, questions about learning and studying should be entirely suitable for this website. The purpose of an English language website dedicated to a foreign language can only be: to assist someone in learning that language. So if a website has that function, why not encourage questions about it? It's like turning up to a cooking class where they tell you all about how to bake cupcakes, but when you ask "How can I speed up my egg-whisking process?" or "How should I practice this recipe?" they say to you "Sorry, we don't deal with that here." People can ask about how to use language here, why not questions about how to study language?

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    I think I generally agree, but it is probably worth brainstorming what some example good questions would be, and have some advice for people on how to make questions of this type not be "primarily opinion-based".
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Sep 11, 2014 at 18:05
  • Okay. The thing that got me on this was when I asked 'Is it better to practice reading or writing the kana first?'. Possibly opinionated, but answerable I think, if there are studies to be found. Thoughts?
    – Lou
    Sep 11, 2014 at 18:09
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    Not sure. That sounds primarily opinion-based to me. I think there would need to be some significant text in the question body to suggest that you're looking for answers only based on objective evidence like large studies or similar.
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Sep 11, 2014 at 18:20

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