A kind request - let's consider using English

Verfasst am: Fr Feb 25, 2011 12:30

[I deleted my original post from a few days ago due to lack of replies, and I've changed the subject to be more precise]

First of all, thank you so much for making MyPhoneExplorer free! I am a human rights activist and for privacy and security reasons, don't wish to store my data on the cloud. Since MyPhoneExplorer can connect directly to my phone, this makes it essential.

I would now like to make an observation: here on this forum, there is a lot of information that people have shared. Half of it is in English, half in German. Unfortunately, I don't speak German, and I had some trouble registering, since the registration form was in German.

Human right activists all over the world most likely don't speak German (my friends from Egypt come to mind), but they do speak English.

On the other hand, Germans are generally educated people, and understand English reasonably well. Germans who own Android phones are even more likely to know English. Furthermore, German Android owners who joined this forum are Internet savvy, and very most likely speak English well.

I would like to kindly ask every to consider posting new threads on the English section. This will help new users find more answers to their questions, since most of the world speaks English nowadays, but by comparison, German is less popular.

Don't get me wrong - I have the deepest respect for the German language and culture. I'm just thinking that to make MyPhoneExplorer more popular and easier to use, it will help to use the more popular language.

Also, by asking in English, there are more users who can potentially answer your questions. I bet there are many questions that have been asked in both languages, which means that people wasted time searching for an answer, not finding it, then posting their question.

Please, let's think about using English, even if we're not native speakers (I'm not). It doesn't matter if our English isn't perfect - what's important is to communicate information, and most terms are software-related English terms anyway.

Thank you very much for your time,
Dan

Verfasst am: Sa Feb 26, 2011 13:46

MyPhoneExplorer comes from Austria and so it has the most users in german countries. Many german people also do not speak english.

The forum-software should detect your browserlanguage and switch to english if you are have not set the german language in your browser. There is also a english section in the forum.

Verfasst am: Sa Feb 26, 2011 14:42

FJ hat Folgendes geschrieben:

MyPhoneExplorer comes from Austria and so it has the most users in german countries.

While the origin of MyPhoneExplorer is clearly Germanic, that also means the market is closer to saturation there. This means more and more new users will come from non-German countries.

FJ hat Folgendes geschrieben:

Many german people also do not speak english.

I like this Spiegel article on the topic - Germans are fond of saying they don't speak English. Don't believe them. Even the beggars can panhandle in a foreign language.

The Eurobarometer 2005 report shows at page 4 that 51% of the general German population and 53% of the Austrian population speak English at a conversational level. And that's the general population. Android users who are members of an Internet forum are clearly way more likely to speak German, as I explained in my first post.

FJ hat Folgendes geschrieben:

There is also a english section in the forum.

I know, and it has more posts than the German section.

FJ, I'm sure you've answered questions on the forum twice, once in German and once in English. All I want is to save everyone time and effort. By using one language, we don't have to ask the same question twice, we don't have to search in two places, we can unite instead of splitting the community by language, and we can focus on using or developing MPE.

I would like to respectfully ask for this thread to be made a Sticky.

Those users who agree with the points above, may post in English; others who are more comfortable with German can post in German.

Site Admin Anmeldedatum: 15.02.2006 Beiträge: 32025 Wohnort: Tirol

I think you misunderstood me. i did not say that german is better or more important. It was just a explanation why there are so many german threads (and i don't think that german user will translate their problems if they are on a german page). i am able to read/write/listen/speak english. not perfect but i think its enought. I will answer english threads not later than german threads. There are many posts with the same topic in german and in english but there are also many double topics just in english (cause even if the topic already exists in english forum the users do not use alsways the search-button)

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