Guidelines for asking questions in the italki-forum It is very nice that students have the opportunity to ask questions in this forum / platform and others answer them.&nbsp;I know such a forum in a d

Alex 알렉스

Professional Teacher

Guidelines for asking questions in the italki-forum

It is very nice that students have the opportunity to ask questions in this forum / platform and others answer them. I know such a forum in a dictionary called Leo and there are guidelines for asking questions such as category (noun, verb etc) and domain (law, medicine, psychology etc). Most important of course is the context (in the form of an example sentence or the source). This is the precondition for any good translation. I think it would be a good idea if students (or anyone having a question) would mention these things in order to help the person answering the question.

Oct 22, 2018 12:16 AM

Comments · 2

I concur. I'd further add that, at least as a personal guiding principle, doing a Google search of the relevant terms should precede asking a question. A Google search is often actually preferable to asking a question. There are scarcely any questions that haven't been raised by learners of the language (especially when we're dealing with fairly popular languages such as German or Spanish) and answered by native speakers elsewhere. It'd actually be quicker to find the answer online than to wait for a native speaker or a competent non-native speaker to answer it here. I imagine that bringing up other answers you found elsewhere and explaining why you didn't find them helpful would also be of help to potential helpers on this platform.

October 22, 2018