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Comment by thecleaner | Hacker News Reader

Germany really needs to start documenting their work in English. This is good stuff.

Or more people need to learn German? The community is already there, obviously — if others want to join, that's how they do it.

Not everyone has the time to learn yet another language. Besides, learning a language to understand content like this takes a lot of time. (I speak 4 languages already.)

Have you ever tried to communicate in beginner/intermediate-level German with a German speaker? They'd most likely insist on switching to English.

It's a natural reaction in one-on-one conversations to switch to the language that least impedes communication. That's annoying when you're trying to learn a language but wouldn't be too bad as an outcome if your actual problem is just the lack of English documentation.

But in the case of a larger online community where German is used by default, you'd be unlikely to get everyone to switch to English just by posting in bad German. After all, you might just as well be a Kazakh whose English is even worse, and as just another anonymous newcomer, there's no reason to accommodate you in particular.

After many attempts to speak german with germans, it seems to be a consistent theme that they prefer english if you are incompetent.

OP brought up English because it’s one of the most widely used languages in the world, thus a translation would make KNX more accessible to everyone. Standards are created to make things interoperable across manufacturers so expanding the market to include other countries ( and competitors) is good for consumers everywhere. Unfortunately German isn’t as far reaching a language and asking the majority of inhabitants in other countries to learn it may be too high a barrier to entry

A lot of negative replies to this which don't make sense.

We're talking about software which is used to make money. Translating it to English would help with that, because English is the default for software development (yes this is changing, but it's true at the moment).

It's not like we're talking about a work of art, it's a tool the creators sell.

I mean I said this out of appreciation. I suppose its just much easier to not get involved with the German software ecosystem at all since the impression is that they dont need attention from people who don't speak German. I don't see any reason why more people would have a professional reason to do so.

Germany is fine with you not being able to ingest their documentation. If there is ever a need to do anything it would be the need for you to learn German and the need for anyone monolingual to learn a second language. The more balance in the world the better place it would be.

I agree with your point on principle, but to balance a bit: I'm trilingual but don't (yet) speak German. Yes there's no fair reason why English should be the standard language, but there's value in a standard language and that's the closest we have.

Edit: I'm not American and English isn't my native language

I empathize with you. But I reject that it should fall upon Germany to learn English for your convenience or that the task of translating their texts should fall upon them. I guess I reacted (perhaps poorly) to GP's statement that Germany "really should start documenting their tech in English" which to me sounded rather preposterous.

Germany already learned English. There is approximately no-one in Germany under 30-40 who doesn't speak a little English.

How does Germany ingest technologies from outside Germany? Is all tech in DE home-grown?

Authors addendum: This post was a mistake on my part. Please downvote this post. Thank you! I would rather have a retract option, but there is none here on HN.

Original post:

Apologies to you on behalf of people who made you feel uncomfortable.

Full disclosure:

I had (still have?) negative biases/sentiments/stereotypes towards Americans: being ignorant, self-absorbed, reckless, careless etc.

And this almost made me have a knee-jerk reaction to the expressed desire to make the content in question available in English. As if I am tired of you Americans Americanizing everything you touch[2]. This sentiment is also expressed in Ramstein's song "Amerika"[3].

But that's why it is called a "stereotype". I shouldn't stereotype a population of +300 m out of a small sample size (that includes YouTube/Twitter too). I lose a lot of potential good/bad experiences if I continue to do that. And even if, for the sake of the argument, 90% match my silly stereotype, I still should have an optimistic modus operandi. Pessimism/cynicism is a counterproductive trait. You should be an optimist[1].

But putting all that aside, what makes you think that the inquirer is an American? He could be a French person knowing Japanese and Russian besides English.

Anyhow, we shouldn't follow protectionist policies. Nothing good comes out of that. We should be thankful/appreciative to people who are willing to share content with others (open source, creative commons, etc.).

References:

[1] Algorithms to Live By

[2] https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2021/01/04/report-plays...

[3] https://youtu.be/Rr8ljRgcJNM

Edit: for the people who take issue with my post here: I would appreciate a feedback on why my post is counterproductive/bad. Thank you!

I am not sure you meant to answer to my comment, because I didn't mention feeling uncomfortable, and didn't take any guess about anyone's nationality. Also I'm not American, I edited my comment to clear that up.

You're right, benhurmarcel. My input here has come to nothing, and it wasn't a good input to begin with. I wish there was a retract option.

Learn German, Dummkopf!

We beat them in 1945 just so we didn’t have to do that!

Oh god, please don't.

So, the OP asks about non-english sites, and the _first_ reply is a "you should do that in English". WTF?

It says software out of Anglosphere not software not in English.

Please post software out of Anglosphere --> reply --> you need to do that in English. W.T.F.???!!!

What's so WTF about suggesting that a software protocol, that would be widely beneficial in most of the world, should have English documentation?

English is the closest thing we have to a common human language.

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