Interesting to see TimLoal of China takes part to this discussion. I thought to connect few on Internet until next September. But this discussion deserves during this sunny summer to spend several hours with the computer to specify my thought. In fact, with the meticulous translation in English, that will have taken me more than some hours.
At first, I notice that if the language invented by Polish Zamenhof, Esperanto can be learned really 5 times faster than English (I learned it too few to be able to judge) and had been adopted as an international language with at least 2 years of lessons in the different schools of the world, this discussion there would not be usefull : inhabitants of the earth would have an international language that they could all speak with a very good level.
However, it is the language of the US population that was forced as international language, with for consequence the fact that native of several countries feel very comfortable with that language (even if it is the only one they can speak), whereas elsewhere in the world, the other populations must do as they can.
Regarding the on-line translators, Google one works by self-learning. Sometimes, this gives excellent results, but can be also very earthy errors : negations when they are not needed or the contrairy, parts of sentence ignored.
As to me, I think translators based on dictionaries and on "transfer rules" give more homogeneous results.
About integrating an automatic translator to bewelcome.org (as on couchsurfing and hospitality club websites), that would be a very good idea. The problem, when a user call these on-line translators on his computer is that the translator will examine the text as a not connected user and some messages of the forums will be masked and the profiles of several users inaccessible.
Integrating an on-line translator in the web server would resolve this kind of problem, but the latency time of the PHP script to wait for the translation coming from another website web could be a huge problem if 1000 users ask for a translation at the same time.
As bewelcome.org is based on free softwares, and as its servers probably work on GNU/Linux or another UNIX, there is a still better solution. Integrate on the hard disk of the server the free software of automatic translation Apertium. That should not present trouble and in case of need, one of the 5 main developer of Apertium is also on bewelcome. The main problem is that for now, the languages pairs validated for translations from or to the English limit to the languages spoken in Spain, to Welch and to Esperanto. But we could cover other languages (including French) with a corect quality level doing 2 consecutive translations, before other possibilities of direct translation become fully operative.
To comment the opinion of franek :
I do not know the case of Lithuanians and other inhabitants of east Europe. But regarding the Scandinavians, not only the Norwegians, it is sure that they consider the English as a legitimate international language and that they do not have problem tu use it curently.
But to consider that "those who do of the brainstorming in their local language are harmful to the rest of the community.", it's a bit as those who claim that "the illicit copy of protected works (songs, musics, films) kill the artistic creation".
The 2nd idea suporters avoid to consider that if the protected works were accessible only if paying, some people (probably the majority) would not get them instead of buying them.
As to brainstorming that would be only in English (as it is too much on this forum), it is perfect for those of which is the natal language, but it can be but can be tedious for the other especially when the discussions are long and technical. It is easy in that case detach considering that we only have 24 H each day during which we also need to eat, sleep and find of the money to pay the necessary, and that bewelcome is not the only interesting thing in the life.
I have an interesting experience for this kind of thing. From September, I have translated to French the 2/3 of the general pages of the Apertium free software wiki (a bit more than 100 pages translated). That was a meticulous work, but these translations allowed me to learn in detail how this software works and to appreciate the way it is conceived. If now to do it evolve, I need informations that I do not know by heart, my own translations explain a lot of things in a language that is perfectly accessible to me. And these translations may also be usefull to others, that can be humans more comfortable with French that with English language or on-line translators more effective to translate directly of a romance language (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian) into another, instead of from English.
If instead of that, I just as a lot other peoples surounded English pages of the wiki to do more quickly useful works with that software, I would have got less profit of it. And only surounding what is said in a language that we do not speak perfectly is a very natural human behaviour.
Moreover, English is a language rich in homonymies that make misundestandings.
If the word "race" can be used as well about running as about an ethnic group, it should not make confusion in a human translation, but it can already result comics in an automatic translation when the title of text "Join the human race !" about a "running of the nudes" in Spain is translated wrongly.
Free softwares suporters know the Richard Stallman sentence to distinguish in the word "free" the notion of freedom instead of gratuitousness. But in other languages than English, this kind of caution is useless because both concepts are carried by different words.
"right" in English means as well the contrary of left, than the contrary of wrong. As British people drive to the left, one can therefore claim that for them "The left side is the right side, and so, the right side is the wrong side. To be or not to be ...".
I trust in the sincerity of the creator of the group "gay and straight nudists" on couchsurfing.org when he claims having just wanted to say "homosexual and heterosexual". But for a not English speaking native (at least in this case), "straight" can also be interpreted as "not deviant", with all cents-heard by moral judgement that it drags. Using the word "heterosexual" that exists in the English dictionary would have been a no ambiguous choice. And this time, is an English speaking native who did a few wise choice in his own language.
Anyway, not depending on the language, there is a risk to have implicit low-senses for those of which it is the natal language that will not be evident at all for those of which it is a foreign language.
In the case of technical discussion, with some long interventions, more than for simple announcements of meetings expressed briefly, choose to limit to the English will create necessarily distortions between those who will be able quickly to understand the whole in the lower details and answer with as much of precision and those for which the big quantity of text in a foreign language will make the participation difficult.
A trick that can be well, is to be able to hang again from time to time in a more accessible language.
Regarding that, the website of bewelcome has of a very useful characteristic that allows to put an intervention in several languages, and the users will be able to choose in which of those languages they will see the intervention. Of course, there will be in the part English speakers who will be able to speak only in English. But for the other, writing the intervention in his natal language in addition to the English will not need much more efforts than to do it in English only. And in such a case, not to do it by simple negligence, is already grave. Avoiding to do it voluntarily, by personal choice of not exchanging except in English, it is this behaviour which is harmful to the rest of the community.
The fact that these technical discussions are in English only justifies even more the existence of spaces of discussions in other languages so that other contributors can also express themselfs without a big linguistic barrier. This does necessarily a bit apartheid between good English speakers and the other, and among the other, each language risk a bit of gather folks in its corner. So, there will be syntheses to do intending to internationalise ideas that come from a bit everywhere.
I think that there is another subtler reason to develop the multilingualism to take decisions.
The thought is carried by a language, the one in which we think before expressing himself. And the different human languages are not symmetrical. Some concepts exist in some languages but no in others for the simple reason that the words for talk about are frankly missing in the vocabulary. It seems for exemple that the inuit use at least ten words to designate white, what where they live can allow to describe more or less wet or iced snow. In France, since the sketch of Colluche about detergents, we know only 3 nuances of white: light grey which it is less white than white, white, and more white than white.
The interval may be weak between west European languages also spoken on the American continent, but if we think in Arab or in an African or Asian language, it is possible that we can more easily think about things on which the European and American do not think because their language are badly adapted to these notions. The reciprocal being well heard also true, but for different ideas.
It will be be necessary there also to finish by succeding to formulate again the ideas coming from everywhere so that their application benefit to all.
Fault to know a lot of foreign languages, this idea is especially a supposition for me, but TimLoal may have a more lit opinion about that.
More briefly, when acidrongeur claim "what would be this website without the French genius?", I think that is one of his numerous shots of humour. This contributor is used to do a bit provocative or at any rate surprising comments. I remember a reaction to one from my messages that did subtle tie between the words "peace" and "piss". So, let take his reactions as entertainments without tying an immoderate gravity.
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