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I think we will not end up with a truly bilingual interface to our site, but since we're hoping to involve not only learners, but also native speakers of Japanese, we have tried to make the interface at least a bit more accessible for native speakers.

I just noticed again that we can change the introduction to our tour, which currently reads

Japanese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about the Japanese language.

and I think it might be nice to include a Japanese translation of this paragraph to make the site feel more bilingual for people new to the site.

The rest of the tour will be in English, but if at least the opening paragraph has a Japanese version, I think it would be nice. (There doesn't seem to be a character limit, although if it is too long, it will be cut off. Currently twice the length of this paragraph seems to fit though.)

What do you think?

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  • The alternative hack-ish way is to write/summarize the tour in Japanese on the meta, then linking it from the tour page.
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Jul 13, 2021 at 5:08

1 Answer 1

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Good idea, but I have a slight concern. Whilst it is certainly desirable to attract more native Japanese speakers, I worry that it will encourage more answers which are only in Japanese. That isn't a bad thing in itself but it may cause problems. If bilingual answerer sees such an answer they may be discouraged from writing their own English answer because they have seen that there is already a perfectly good answer in Japanese. This would make the site less useful for people of a lower Japanese skill level. I think we would need to add some text to encourage people to answer in English.

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    There's also the option that native-JA posters could post in JA if they're comfortable with that, and another site participant could translate.
    – Eiríkr Útlendi
    Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 6:25
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    @EiríkrÚtlendi In an ideal world that would be a great idea, but in reality I think it unlikely to work out. I suspect that those with the ability to do the translation well would, in large part, be the same people who are already providing great answers in English. That would be an extra burden on their already generous use of time. Of course I may just be being overly pessimistic.
    – user3856370
    Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 9:20
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    I agree with @EiríkrÚtlendi , I see no issue other users translating answers from e.g. Japanese to English (while of course keeping the Japanese text there, intact). Personally I often refrain from answering questions because I rarely feel 100 % confident that I am not missing some detail, simply translating a complete answer from Ja-En is however much easier. That is just me of course, but I think there might be more that would feel more confident in translations, rather than providing the original answers.
    – a20
    Commented Sep 11, 2022 at 12:26
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    @EiríkrÚtlendi it's a great idea, and if somehow it could be implemented in the system, for example, letting a translator of the question to receive a badge, or to receive some reputation points, I think it could work and mitigate the issues pointed out by user3856370
    – jarmanso7
    Commented Sep 28, 2023 at 10:45

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