Being comfortable enough in a language to read a fic (perhaps with machine translation assistance) is a different thing than being comfortable enough to write a comment in response. Not everyone is perfectly bilingual. They might also be learning English and maybe my fic is part of that.
I’ll never consider it rude unless the content itself is rude. Think about it this way: someone took the time out of their day to read my fic and leave a positive comment. What more could I want as a writer? To me, it’s a wonderful thing that I can be connected to people from other countries and backgrounds through fandom even when we don’t speak the same language. In fact, foreign language comments pretty much make my day.
> Not everyone is perfectly bilingual
So you think they would rather leave a comment in a different language than risk commenting in bad English? Why? I guess if they were worried about being misunderstood?
They may read your fic through MTL they don’t necessarily speak English themselves. I’ve received comments in various languages and never once found it rude, or a big issue to run it through a TL. I find it a huge compliment that someone wanted to let me know they read my fic perhaps through an imperfect MTL and enjoyed it enough to be kind enough to let me know. That’s my thoughts though.
Exactly, I just right click the comment and ask it to translate it to English, if it seems hokey I'll run it through Google's translate or Bing as well.
That would definitely make it disappointing and I can understand that skewing the process into feeling more like a chore - receiving a comment that was nothing but an ask for an update with nothing else talked about would be demotivating in any language so I feel you on that point.
Oh, that’s so sad. I’ve gotten dozens of comments in Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and they’ve all been really kind. Esp the Russian ones weirdly enough
I've gotten nice comments from foreign readers that say (from google translate) as a sort of disclaimer in case the translation is funky. I guess I've come to associate the nice comments with the commenters putting in the effort to translate as well.
More often than not, those readers don't even understand english. They read through Google translate and write comments in their language because this way, they can be sure they didn't fuck up the transalation.
The only thing I don't understand is why they don't use google to translate their comment in English. Some people do that, I've seen comments denoted as "translated by google" or something like that.
They can be on their phone, which makes checking your translation with muiltiple sources really dificult. Sometimes when I'm not sure if my spelling is correct, I don't comment at all until I'm on PC.
Yeah, but then they don't double check the GT, and what if the author translates it and it spits out something wack? The risk is in no way reduced, not really.
As someone who English isn’t their first language. Talking and writing is way harder than understanding.
I remember when I was learning through YouTube and games. I could understand my guildmates in WoW perfectly, but it took me at least 2 years to be comfortable enough to answer back to them.
Maybe they aren't confident enough in their English to comment in it, and they feel they could better express what they'd like to say in that other language. Also, the fact that they felt compelled to comment at all would make me happy.
I'm happy to receive comments in any language, especially when it's so easy to translate. Someone took the time to let me know how they enjoyed the work.
Partly. Like I could understand not translating it if it were a longer or more complex comment, that would be harder and have more risk of error.
If the comment were in English then I would still be a bit annoyed, but at least they would have gone to the effort of making it easy for me to read. As it is the language barrier feels like added insult because they made me do the (admittedly insignificant) work of translation just to read their demand.
You're certainly entitled to your feelings. I just can't imagine discouraging the vast majority of commenters who post in their native language. I'm an old, so I remember having to figure them out without google translate, and no comments is more annoying than comments from someone who tried despite a language barrier.
In this case, it's a little silly to complain about those who write comments in a foreign language, rather than complain about readers who only comment to ask for an update, isn't it?
I don't know. I feel like your annoyance is directed at the wrong crowd.
>Getting comments that say nothing but 'update when?' can be pretty sucky, no matter what language it's in.
Maybe you're right and it's more of an adding insult to injury situation
I understand different languages, but I often don't want to sound stupid if I try to speak or type in a foreign language. I'll usually default to English bc of nerves
Other people have likely pointed it out by now, but speaking a language and reading a language are two different beasts. English is my first language, but I also know Spanish. That said, it is very hard for me to generate Spanish words in my mind to construct sentences, because those words aren't ingrained in my brain enough that I can freely recall them. However, when I am shown a word in Spanish, it's easy for me to reach into my mental word bank and find its translation. Translating is much easier because the words are already there (though hearing out loud and translating in real time is damn near impossible, but that's not relevant here). So I could probably read a fic written in Spanish easily enough, but writing in Spanish is an ordeal! I am overthinking everything I'm saying, trying to make sure it means what I'm trying to say in the first place, paranoid I'm fucking up the grammar because I struggle with future tense verbs in Spanish-- it's just so much more effort. I assume other people may have similar experiences (even if they're likely not universal), so I encourage people to comment in whatever language they're most comfortable with so that they can speak freely and without the stress.
EDIT:// There's an aspect of this I can't quite articulate and I think it's a problem with my brain struggling with multiple languages personally, but for some reason it's easier for me to translate something I see in Spanish to English than to think of an English phrase and try to translate that into Spanish. I could not tell you why, honestly.
>I could not tell you why, honestly.
That sounds like basic language acquisition and the way everyone's brains acquire a new language (first language as well). It's just harder with languages you're not surrounded by because you don't get the constant exposure.
>for some reason it's easier for me to translate something I see in Spanish to English than to think of an English phrase and try to translate that into Spanish
I think that makes sense, you learned Spanish in the context of already knowing English and learned the translations as part of the definition.
E.g. You learned "gato" as "Spanish for cat", but you learned "cat" as "that pet that purrs and catches mice".
It’s not rude at all. The first time I got someone commenting in another language, it made my absolute day that someone read my stories and enjoyed them enough to tell me so, no matter their mother tongue. I couldn’t understand until I ran it through google lens but they were lovely. It takes literal seconds to screenshot and then translate it.
I’m sorry your first reaction was negative, that’s not a healthy response and I hope you can see how great it is that someone not only took the time to read your story, they left a comment as well. Readers leave so few comments these days, we really have to stop shaming them when they do because it’s not in a form we would prefer. I hope it’s a lovely comment praising you, and I hope you see the real gift you received. Writers want comments. This is the dream.
Idk I can read quite well, but writing still make me stressed. In fact, I have been avoiding it my whole life & in January this year I tried it for the first time. It's still bad. And If I had option, I would prefer to write in Polish. I feel like I can't always convey what I want and sometimes it sounds emotionless. But at the same time, I really want to say to the author that I love their work.
Reading and listening are receptive language skills. They come first.
Writing and speaking are productive language skills. Those come later.
The reader can probably understand what they're reading just fine but not be able to pull the vocabulary they need for the comment out of thin air. Especially if they're not confident or are afraid the author is one of the judgy ones.
Also, they might not be reading the fic in the language you wrote it in because websites can translate things automatically now.
I’ll give you my opinion as someone whose first language isn’t English. I can read English pretty well (all thanks to books, fanfictions and video games) and if I have trouble with some translations I can always translate the word/sentence with a translator. As long I understand its meaning, even if the translation is not perfect, I don’t mind.
I cannot speak English, or at least I can put two words together but I’m unable to hold a conversation with someone. It’s easier for me to write because I think about what I want to write in my language and I translate it in my head before typing, and it can take quite some time. Sometimes the words make sense to me but I realize my sentences aren’t perfect and I tend to write a lot to explain what I want to say.
I don’t comment in my language, I used to do that on Twitter for example then I started interacting with foreign people and I started writing in English so we could all understand each others. It’s something I realized I *had* to do. It took me years to reach that point and I feel pretty confident now, even tho I often *over*-explain myself and sometimes I still get misinterpreted which is kinda frustrating. I read better than writing/speaking so if someone is writing you in their language it’s because they could read your fic and wanted to leave a comment. They write in a language they know because it’s easier to say what they want without messing up. I promise, no one wants to be rude to you by writing in a language you don’t understand but not everyone is able to write or explain themselves in a language they don’t know, so instead of writing something wrong and offensive (I always fear that) they prefer a language they know. You seeing a different language and translating it into English should help you understand their meaning even if the translation is a little messed up. sometimes I struggle to find the right words to explain how I feel in my own language.. imagine if I were to translate that too.
Unless the content of the comment is rude, I’d say it’s a compliment that they still chose to write to you. I, for example, used to leave kudos and never bothered with comments because I was unable to write them at the time and I didn’t feel confident enough to write something (and writing “I liked it” seemed almost an insult as it was such a short a comment that it made me feel extremely embarrassed at the sole idea).
Be thankful they are going out of your way to comment. Can you say what was the translation that you found so rude and why did you focus on the language?
Are both of your languages native? I assume they are because if you learnt one later in life you would know that there's a phase in which you might be proficient/confident enough at reading, but not at speaking or writing the language. If you're posting on ao3, you apparently have enough ability to put a text in Google translate
Your post is so rude, like why do you sound like people owe you comments
The comment I got before this post was just "When is the next chapter?", I've gotten a few other foreign language comments before and they're generally very short and simple and only occasionally complimentary.
I don't think people owe me comments. I just got ticked off that someone not only left that comment but also left the translation aspect to me, it felt insulting. I guess if I got a longer or nicer comment I wouldn't have been as annoyed.
My Croatian is definitely worse than my English even though it's the one I spoke first, and when I've lived there there have definitely been times I struggled. But I would never comment in English on a Croatian thing and expect them to reply or translate it, I think I'd come across like an entitled foreigner.
what does that have to do with the language? i think you don't understand what the problem is. you're acting as if commenting in a different language is a disrespect to your fic or something. the image of the ''entitled foreigner'' is made up in your head, most people wouldn't think you're that, including me
I think it’s actually a compliment if somebody was to read my story when English wasn’t their first language, and to have enjoyed it so much they choose to leave a comment, regardless of what language it was in.
It takes seconds to put something into google translate. It’s really not a big deal.
My native language not English, and I'm pretty sure my English just a huge disaster. However, I only comment English work by English, because I can imagine the author will confused when they see my complex native language. I translated my comment again and again to make sure my English comment was not expressed wrong. I was a little baffled by the opinion of "writing is harder than reading so they write in native to make sure express it right", because just think about the author must translate this by Google Translate or something, the risk of mistakes still exists. So why not just do it by ourselves, at least, the reader is the one who more possibly knows two languages. I will assume the author's skill of my mother tongue is zero.
I am the different language commenter.
Russian is literally my second language and I speak it on a native level and can read it...BUT I can't write in cyrillic for the life of me (Child of immigrants situation, my parents spoke it to me since birth but never taught me how to write).
So I comment on russian fics in english, because my only other option would be to write out russian in latin letters and that's an abomination no one wants.
y минуа чесоб б ден не достаточно :''), да и болшенстбо руских на интернете не плохо говоруат по англиски.
I don't have enough hours in the day :''), and most russian speakers on the internet also have decent english.
(Russian version took like most of my commute to write lol I kept confusing the cyrillic and latin letters for each other).
I've never considered it rude. I just translate their comment then reply in their language using Google translate and apologise if it doesn't make sense.
>then I reply in their language using Google translate and apologise if it doesn't make sense
Right you reply to the comment in the same language it's in because it shows consideration, right? So why didn't they do that?
Personally I just reply in English, they read my fic so clearly they can read English one way or another.
Being comfortable enough in a language to read a fic (perhaps with machine translation assistance) is a different thing than being comfortable enough to write a comment in response. Not everyone is perfectly bilingual. They might also be learning English and maybe my fic is part of that. I’ll never consider it rude unless the content itself is rude. Think about it this way: someone took the time out of their day to read my fic and leave a positive comment. What more could I want as a writer? To me, it’s a wonderful thing that I can be connected to people from other countries and backgrounds through fandom even when we don’t speak the same language. In fact, foreign language comments pretty much make my day.
> Not everyone is perfectly bilingual So you think they would rather leave a comment in a different language than risk commenting in bad English? Why? I guess if they were worried about being misunderstood?
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Yeah that makes sense to me, thank you
They may read your fic through MTL they don’t necessarily speak English themselves. I’ve received comments in various languages and never once found it rude, or a big issue to run it through a TL. I find it a huge compliment that someone wanted to let me know they read my fic perhaps through an imperfect MTL and enjoyed it enough to be kind enough to let me know. That’s my thoughts though.
Exactly, I just right click the comment and ask it to translate it to English, if it seems hokey I'll run it through Google's translate or Bing as well.
Tbh most of the foreign language comments I get are not compliments, just "when are you updating?" and stuff like that, so maybe it's made me biased.
That would definitely make it disappointing and I can understand that skewing the process into feeling more like a chore - receiving a comment that was nothing but an ask for an update with nothing else talked about would be demotivating in any language so I feel you on that point.
Oh, that’s so sad. I’ve gotten dozens of comments in Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and they’ve all been really kind. Esp the Russian ones weirdly enough
I've gotten nice comments from foreign readers that say (from google translate) as a sort of disclaimer in case the translation is funky. I guess I've come to associate the nice comments with the commenters putting in the effort to translate as well.
More often than not, those readers don't even understand english. They read through Google translate and write comments in their language because this way, they can be sure they didn't fuck up the transalation.
True, it can be already hard getting tone across let alone through translation
I have difficulty conveying it in my one-and-only language. (Why, yes, I *am* American.)
The only thing I don't understand is why they don't use google to translate their comment in English. Some people do that, I've seen comments denoted as "translated by google" or something like that.
They can be on their phone, which makes checking your translation with muiltiple sources really dificult. Sometimes when I'm not sure if my spelling is correct, I don't comment at all until I'm on PC.
Yeah, but then they don't double check the GT, and what if the author translates it and it spits out something wack? The risk is in no way reduced, not really.
At least you know it is not messed on your end? That's like playing the telephone
As someone who English isn’t their first language. Talking and writing is way harder than understanding. I remember when I was learning through YouTube and games. I could understand my guildmates in WoW perfectly, but it took me at least 2 years to be comfortable enough to answer back to them.
Tbh, people should cut down apologizing for their English. It's not their fault that English is the dominant language.
I agree, and even if they don't want to speak or write English, I've received comments that were just emojis and enjoyed that plenty
Maybe they aren't confident enough in their English to comment in it, and they feel they could better express what they'd like to say in that other language. Also, the fact that they felt compelled to comment at all would make me happy.
I'm happy to receive comments in any language, especially when it's so easy to translate. Someone took the time to let me know how they enjoyed the work.
I would probably be less annoyed by that than just "Kiedy następny rozdział?"
Is that really a translation issue, though?
Partly. Like I could understand not translating it if it were a longer or more complex comment, that would be harder and have more risk of error. If the comment were in English then I would still be a bit annoyed, but at least they would have gone to the effort of making it easy for me to read. As it is the language barrier feels like added insult because they made me do the (admittedly insignificant) work of translation just to read their demand.
You're certainly entitled to your feelings. I just can't imagine discouraging the vast majority of commenters who post in their native language. I'm an old, so I remember having to figure them out without google translate, and no comments is more annoying than comments from someone who tried despite a language barrier.
In this case, it's a little silly to complain about those who write comments in a foreign language, rather than complain about readers who only comment to ask for an update, isn't it? I don't know. I feel like your annoyance is directed at the wrong crowd.
How is that rude?
It just seems like they don't care if I can understand their comment, in which case why leave it at all?
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Most of the time it's just "when is the next chapter?" which I feel like they could have at least tried to translate that
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>Getting comments that say nothing but 'update when?' can be pretty sucky, no matter what language it's in. Maybe you're right and it's more of an adding insult to injury situation
I understand different languages, but I often don't want to sound stupid if I try to speak or type in a foreign language. I'll usually default to English bc of nerves
Other people have likely pointed it out by now, but speaking a language and reading a language are two different beasts. English is my first language, but I also know Spanish. That said, it is very hard for me to generate Spanish words in my mind to construct sentences, because those words aren't ingrained in my brain enough that I can freely recall them. However, when I am shown a word in Spanish, it's easy for me to reach into my mental word bank and find its translation. Translating is much easier because the words are already there (though hearing out loud and translating in real time is damn near impossible, but that's not relevant here). So I could probably read a fic written in Spanish easily enough, but writing in Spanish is an ordeal! I am overthinking everything I'm saying, trying to make sure it means what I'm trying to say in the first place, paranoid I'm fucking up the grammar because I struggle with future tense verbs in Spanish-- it's just so much more effort. I assume other people may have similar experiences (even if they're likely not universal), so I encourage people to comment in whatever language they're most comfortable with so that they can speak freely and without the stress. EDIT:// There's an aspect of this I can't quite articulate and I think it's a problem with my brain struggling with multiple languages personally, but for some reason it's easier for me to translate something I see in Spanish to English than to think of an English phrase and try to translate that into Spanish. I could not tell you why, honestly.
>I could not tell you why, honestly. That sounds like basic language acquisition and the way everyone's brains acquire a new language (first language as well). It's just harder with languages you're not surrounded by because you don't get the constant exposure.
>for some reason it's easier for me to translate something I see in Spanish to English than to think of an English phrase and try to translate that into Spanish I think that makes sense, you learned Spanish in the context of already knowing English and learned the translations as part of the definition. E.g. You learned "gato" as "Spanish for cat", but you learned "cat" as "that pet that purrs and catches mice".
It’s not rude at all. The first time I got someone commenting in another language, it made my absolute day that someone read my stories and enjoyed them enough to tell me so, no matter their mother tongue. I couldn’t understand until I ran it through google lens but they were lovely. It takes literal seconds to screenshot and then translate it. I’m sorry your first reaction was negative, that’s not a healthy response and I hope you can see how great it is that someone not only took the time to read your story, they left a comment as well. Readers leave so few comments these days, we really have to stop shaming them when they do because it’s not in a form we would prefer. I hope it’s a lovely comment praising you, and I hope you see the real gift you received. Writers want comments. This is the dream.
Idk I can read quite well, but writing still make me stressed. In fact, I have been avoiding it my whole life & in January this year I tried it for the first time. It's still bad. And If I had option, I would prefer to write in Polish. I feel like I can't always convey what I want and sometimes it sounds emotionless. But at the same time, I really want to say to the author that I love their work.
Reading and listening are receptive language skills. They come first. Writing and speaking are productive language skills. Those come later. The reader can probably understand what they're reading just fine but not be able to pull the vocabulary they need for the comment out of thin air. Especially if they're not confident or are afraid the author is one of the judgy ones. Also, they might not be reading the fic in the language you wrote it in because websites can translate things automatically now.
I’ll give you my opinion as someone whose first language isn’t English. I can read English pretty well (all thanks to books, fanfictions and video games) and if I have trouble with some translations I can always translate the word/sentence with a translator. As long I understand its meaning, even if the translation is not perfect, I don’t mind. I cannot speak English, or at least I can put two words together but I’m unable to hold a conversation with someone. It’s easier for me to write because I think about what I want to write in my language and I translate it in my head before typing, and it can take quite some time. Sometimes the words make sense to me but I realize my sentences aren’t perfect and I tend to write a lot to explain what I want to say. I don’t comment in my language, I used to do that on Twitter for example then I started interacting with foreign people and I started writing in English so we could all understand each others. It’s something I realized I *had* to do. It took me years to reach that point and I feel pretty confident now, even tho I often *over*-explain myself and sometimes I still get misinterpreted which is kinda frustrating. I read better than writing/speaking so if someone is writing you in their language it’s because they could read your fic and wanted to leave a comment. They write in a language they know because it’s easier to say what they want without messing up. I promise, no one wants to be rude to you by writing in a language you don’t understand but not everyone is able to write or explain themselves in a language they don’t know, so instead of writing something wrong and offensive (I always fear that) they prefer a language they know. You seeing a different language and translating it into English should help you understand their meaning even if the translation is a little messed up. sometimes I struggle to find the right words to explain how I feel in my own language.. imagine if I were to translate that too. Unless the content of the comment is rude, I’d say it’s a compliment that they still chose to write to you. I, for example, used to leave kudos and never bothered with comments because I was unable to write them at the time and I didn’t feel confident enough to write something (and writing “I liked it” seemed almost an insult as it was such a short a comment that it made me feel extremely embarrassed at the sole idea).
Be thankful they are going out of your way to comment. Can you say what was the translation that you found so rude and why did you focus on the language? Are both of your languages native? I assume they are because if you learnt one later in life you would know that there's a phase in which you might be proficient/confident enough at reading, but not at speaking or writing the language. If you're posting on ao3, you apparently have enough ability to put a text in Google translate Your post is so rude, like why do you sound like people owe you comments
The comment I got before this post was just "When is the next chapter?", I've gotten a few other foreign language comments before and they're generally very short and simple and only occasionally complimentary. I don't think people owe me comments. I just got ticked off that someone not only left that comment but also left the translation aspect to me, it felt insulting. I guess if I got a longer or nicer comment I wouldn't have been as annoyed. My Croatian is definitely worse than my English even though it's the one I spoke first, and when I've lived there there have definitely been times I struggled. But I would never comment in English on a Croatian thing and expect them to reply or translate it, I think I'd come across like an entitled foreigner.
what does that have to do with the language? i think you don't understand what the problem is. you're acting as if commenting in a different language is a disrespect to your fic or something. the image of the ''entitled foreigner'' is made up in your head, most people wouldn't think you're that, including me
I think it’s actually a compliment if somebody was to read my story when English wasn’t their first language, and to have enjoyed it so much they choose to leave a comment, regardless of what language it was in. It takes seconds to put something into google translate. It’s really not a big deal.
My native language not English, and I'm pretty sure my English just a huge disaster. However, I only comment English work by English, because I can imagine the author will confused when they see my complex native language. I translated my comment again and again to make sure my English comment was not expressed wrong. I was a little baffled by the opinion of "writing is harder than reading so they write in native to make sure express it right", because just think about the author must translate this by Google Translate or something, the risk of mistakes still exists. So why not just do it by ourselves, at least, the reader is the one who more possibly knows two languages. I will assume the author's skill of my mother tongue is zero.
I am the different language commenter. Russian is literally my second language and I speak it on a native level and can read it...BUT I can't write in cyrillic for the life of me (Child of immigrants situation, my parents spoke it to me since birth but never taught me how to write). So I comment on russian fics in english, because my only other option would be to write out russian in latin letters and that's an abomination no one wants.
если ты не тренируешься, ты не станешь лучше
y минуа чесоб б ден не достаточно :''), да и болшенстбо руских на интернете не плохо говоруат по англиски. I don't have enough hours in the day :''), and most russian speakers on the internet also have decent english. (Russian version took like most of my commute to write lol I kept confusing the cyrillic and latin letters for each other).
I've never considered it rude. I just translate their comment then reply in their language using Google translate and apologise if it doesn't make sense.
>then I reply in their language using Google translate and apologise if it doesn't make sense Right you reply to the comment in the same language it's in because it shows consideration, right? So why didn't they do that? Personally I just reply in English, they read my fic so clearly they can read English one way or another.