Talk:I don't speak Bulgarian

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I don't speak Bulgarian

Formation of similar sentences can be seen at translations of I don't speak English. If we allow others (=other than English) then some arbitrary criteria will have to be made for which languages we can duplicate it into. (my vote is for delete in case that's not clear) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey look, if you scroll up a bit, this is a hot topic :D #I don't speak Middle French — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't speak Anglo-Saxon

I don't speak Arabic

I don't speak Armenian

I don't speak Belarusian

I don't speak Chinese

I don't speak Czech

I don't speak Danish

I don't speak Dutch

I don't speak Esperanto

I don't speak Finnish

I don't speak French

I don't speak Galician

I don't speak Georgian

I don't speak German

I don't speak Greek

I don't speak Hebrew

I don't speak Hindi

I don't speak Hungarian

I don't speak Icelandic

I don't speak Irish

I don't speak Italian

I don't speak Japanese

I don't speak Korean

I don't speak Latin

• Deleted as spoken Latin is dead.--Jusjih 01:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't speak Macedonian

I don't speak Mandarin

I don't speak Norwegian

I don't speak Occitan

I don't speak Old English

I don't speak Old French

I don't speak Polish

I don't speak Portuguese

I don't speak Russian

I don't speak Serbo-Croatian

I don't speak Sogdian

I don't speak Spanish

I don't speak Supyire

I don't speak Swahili

I don't speak Swedish

I don't speak Thai

I don't speak Turkish

I don't speak Ukrainian

I don't speak Vietnamese

...While we're at it, I think we should kill Daniel.. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 02:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I oppose any threats to my life; and still abstain the maintenance of such entries. They are so well organized, kept in one place, that I consider them easy to delete at once. Although, at the "hot topic", I presented suggestions to generally handle phrasebook entries, which if applied would probably keep most of these instances. --Daniel. 03:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I would keep phrases for modern and common languages. I don't think we need all versions of all languages and dialects, like Middle French, Old English, simply because there won't be much use for them. I have created the FL phrases for Russian (я не говорю по-русски), German (ich spreche kein Deutsch), Arabic (أنا لا أتكلم العربية) and French (je ne parle pas français), planning to do for Mandarin and Japanese, perhaps others. Maybe we could keep the number of languages low, for which we have contributors and are likely to have phrasebooks? --Anatoli 12:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we need more than one. Someone can find I don't speak English and see how the phrase is constructed - then look up the name of the language they want to use and make the appropriate substitutions. I *might* not have as big a deal with having the others, if we could get ONE of them done first. People here don't seem to have the ability to focus on or support one little project... it always has to be something huge that they can never do themselves. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 13:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with Opiaterein, especially the last observation. We may need some big projects, but successful demonstration subprojects can win support for the big ones. Also, as Anatoli points out, there is rather little need for a phrasebook for ancestral and extinct languages. DCDuring TALK 14:20, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Delete for every one of them, with the possible exception of I don't speak English. Add phrase I don't speak. The nuances can be treated in the entries for translations of "I don't speak". --Hekaheka 14:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favor of deletion. However, the best reason I can come up with to keep them is the 'no harm done' principle. They're not misleading, damaging or harmful, they're just of very very little use. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Hm.. If "no harm" is sufficient to pass CFI, there'll be no limit. --Hekaheka 14:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. That's why I'm in favor of deletion. Let's spend our energy on I don't speak. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem I have with I don't speak is that direct translations won't demonstrate the grammar of the "X language" part, which is why I prefer I don't speak English. It gives you all that... and we have one thing to focus on, and then maybe later we can add the myriads of others. But we need to learn to finish one project before expanding it to unnecessary degrees. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 16:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't speak English is already translated into 62 languages. This, when compared to English terms that can't be found in a Swadesh list, especially water, is usually a good number; so I think the criterion of simply displaying grammar of each language is reasonably fulfilled. Other translations will be added eventually. --Daniel. 16:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

"Eventually" in this case is not good enough for me. There are still tons of trreqs, and a lot of the ones I put in (for fun) were removed. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:37, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

"Eventually" is not only an excuse for arbitrarily labelling I don't speak English as a finished project; that adverb conveys the fact that all Wiktionary entries have space for improvement as long as someone wants to constructively edit them. Unless you want to suggest some concrete limit to qualify a project as successfully completed - which you actually suggested: we need to learn to finish one project before expanding it to unnecessary degrees, referring to the focus on the English version, before the possible creation and maintenance of various I-don't-speak-that-language entries. Then you mentioned the trreqs, but I don't see how they are counted on that decision. Any user could add trreqs for Woiwurrung, Haitian Vodoun Culture Language, Papiamentu, etc. at I don't speak English, without compromising the quality of that entry, since I don't consider a complete translation box as an achievable goal for now. --Daniel. 18:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Strong keep. I think it would be very useful, probably one of the most useful parts of the phrasebook, for any user to be able to simply look up "I don't speak language X" and be able to see how to say it in that language. What French phrase would be more useful than "je ne parle pas français", what Portuguese phrase would be more useful than "eu não falo português"? I'm strongly in favor of keeping these just for that, and if anyone wants to add translations in other languages too, there is no harm in it, even it's not that useful. What would be the point of the phrasebook if we didn't even include such clearly basic phrases? --Yair rand 17:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

redirect/delete Given that the translation is only really useful in one language, I'd redirect all these (except English) to Appendix:I don't speak. I suspect that if you know how to say "I don't speak English, and I don't speak X" in X, then you can work out how to say "I don't speak Y". Conrad.Irwin 17:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete nor redirect them, but I like the appendix suggestion. Then I made a start on Appendix:I don't speak. --Daniel. 18:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

One very positive thing about having separate entries for each language is that the most common phrase in the language, like "je ne parle pas français" can be linked directly to I don't speak French and the user can look up how to say this phrase in other languages if they have this communication problem. Another thing (a weak argument but needs to be addressed if we make the phrasebook generic, working for all languages) that applies to Russian and some other languages - the pattern for "I don't speak ..." + language is NOT always straightforward.

• 1) If a language name is based on an adjective, then it's по- + -ски/-цки: по-английски, по-немецки, по-чешски, etc.

  2) if it is a noun, then the pattern is different, it's на + language name in prepositional case, e.g. на иврите (Ivrit-Hebrew), на санскрите (Sanskrit), на латыни (Latin), some language names are not declinable: - на эсперанто (Esperanto), на путунхуа (Putonghua-Mandarin), на суахили (Swahili), etc. If you don't think it's important, please copy all missing translations before deleting. --Anatoli 00:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

But some languages don't base this on a adjective or a noun. Latin, for instance, uses an adverb to express the identity language, as in "I don't speak Greekly". In that situation, if we lack the adverb entry (as we often do, and how would you go looking it anyway?) then a user cannot determine how to construct the phrase. --EncycloPetey 06:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was my point too. In Russian, it's also adverbs (the first case), not a direct object and an indirect object in the second. These type of adjectives are usually restricted to languages or the way things are done, like French à la. --Anatoli 00:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• No, but in that case – as in billions of others – you need to know some of the language's grammar to be able to construct your sentence. Which is perfectly reasonable, a dictionary isn't there to build every sentence for you. Ƿidsiþ 05:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep The whole point of a phrasebook is to help people not sound like morons in a foreign language, as you would if you compounded я не говорою по- (ja ne hovórju po-, “I don't speak”) + українська (ukrajíns’ka, “Ukrainian (language)”), because the result means something like “I don't speak by a Ukrainian woman.” You can't just toss together words from an inflected language, and the average anglophone isn't even equipped to understand why. And if you're going to learn just one phrase in a language, is there a better one than this? (Maybe “I am worth more to you alive than dead.”)

And the question of whether Middle French belongs should be discussed in the more general context of the phrasebook project, not here. —Michael Z. 2010-04-29 20:33 z

Thanks for understanding (I would use "українка" for "Ukrainian woman" but that's not important). Perhaps, we just choose, which languages are worth keeping in the phrasebook? --Anatoli 00:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I would too. Well, по-українська = “Ukrainian (adj.),” “Ukrainian female”, or whatever else it might refer to. But I think it could be fun to learn how to order beers or get my face slapped in Middle French, Common Slavonic, or Proto-Indo-European. —Michael Z. 2010-04-30 04:54 z

• Redirect only Should be a redirect only to an Appendix, not a main dictionary entry. Remember this is a dictionary, not a phrasebook or translation guide. Is there a Wikiphrasebook?

  But such an appendix would have about 200 language-specific phrases, each with about 200 translations. We could make an appendix for each translation, but then that would be an entry. —Michael Z. 2010-05-15 07:08 z

  Redirect only: I agree with unsigned. This appendix is sufficient: Appendix:I_don't_speak Jiiimbooh 21:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Is it necessary to be able to say "I don't speak Ukrainian" or any other language in Icelandic or any other language? Wouldn't it make sense to translate "I don't speak English" but substituting the target language? Or at least narrow these down to combinations that make sense, like Thai/Vietnamese, or examples according to categorizations of gender or such. I don't have as much a problem with the entries above as I do with the idea that they're going to be translated into every language, which is an n-squared order of magnitude and a maintenance nightmare. 10:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC) Actually, considering all the other language Wiktinoaries, this is an n-cubed problem. If someone wants to say "I don't speak Thai" in Vietnamese, let them go to the Thai or Vietnamese Wiktionaries. 'Delete, not our problem, except for "I don't speak English" and "I don't speak (target language)". DAVilla 10:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Vote closed as delete, deletion pending. There seems to be consensus to have only I don't speak English, and Appendix:I don't speak to have all the entries like "I don't speak German" in German, since it is useless for anyone reading this dictionary to know how to say "I don't speak German" in Portuguese, similar to how we only do English definitions. -- Prince Kassad 15:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, hold on! I don't see a clear consensus here, there's quite a few keep votes! I myself vote keep too but only on the condition that we limit, by policy, the translations to only those languages for which the phrase is relevant. That includes at the very least the language the phrase is about, but also other languages of the area that the speaker might be expected to know. For example it's not hard to imagine being a tourist in Finland and needing to say jag talar inte finska to a Swedish-speaking Finn. —CodeCat 15:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Excluding yours, I only see two keep votes here, and about five to six delete or redirect votes, which is clear consensus to me. This is not a vote anyway, but anyway, all entries are now gone. -- Prince Kassad 15:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)