AVSIM used to run international language forums; that is, German, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese and others. They were not used, and died due to lack of use and interest. With membership in the forums now in excess of 13,000 folks, many who visit daily, it may be time to reconsider and bring back international forums here. So, what do you think? Should we open up specific language forums?

I am German, but speak English rather fluently. Although there are a lot of German speaking forums on other sites I rarely use them. The reason is simple. The amount of knowledge and ideas that are exchanged is proportional to the amount of people using the forum. I think our community is still too small to really make an only German, or only Italian forum work. You only have to take a look on the number of posts in the native speaking forums of other sites. Another reason why I like the English forums is that it can really open up your horizon for other parts of the world other countries etc.. I even made a friend with someone in the US here in this forum whom I visited in NC earlier this year.Of course international forums would make a lot of sense to people who don't speak English. So I think this is maybe the wrong place, or at least the wrong language to ask that question :-).Alex

I dont think there should be, call me arrogant if ya want, but surely english is the language of aviation?, unless your french of course :-lol.Man, I bet that would be a complete pain to monitor all those different language forums, also, I feel its better to have all relevent information in one place.If not, you could get the french speakers finding an excellent way to do something, and unless theres a cross over, the english speakers mis-out and vice-versa.If there are some "other" language speakers, its pretty simple to browse using babblefish or another translation service, thats what I do when I browse french, german, italian, japanese forums and websites.Here is a screenshot of me browsing the forums in japanese.Dan.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/78566.jpg

Although my mother language is Portuguese, and besides English I can understand French, Spanish and Italian, I think the Forum should be in English for everybody. The rationale behind my opinion is that it is the only way of fully sharing the knowledge of the largest audience possible. Forums in other languages would result in spreading that knowledge over smaller "islands", only accessible to a sub-set of the simming community.Regards,

I believe everyone can benefit from learning languages besides their own. I took Spanish in high school, and learned "Mexican" in the process, as I was in Arizona at the time. When I moved to RAF Lakenheath to finish high school, I adapted to the Brits' English. In the 80's, I learned plenty of German during my tour at Sunny Zwei.Every country has its culture and its language, which they, understandably, protect and promote. (Well, it is not chic for Americans to promote English or defend their culture, so who knows what language we will be speaking in the future?) In many parts of the US, English-only won't get you through the day, and may even keep you from getting a job. I have even heard a German complain about having to learn Spanish in order to get around in parts of California. Meanwhile, English is, for now, the accepted world-wide language of the air. Having flown in Europe and the Far East, as well as in my own USA, I have heard many versions of English, and I have spoken my level of their languages as well. We all got by, and, at least, we all ended up where we wanted to go safely. Well - we DID get violated in the UK...I agree with those above who say that there are not enough forum users to support additional versions of the forum. If someone can come up with a good alternative to English as a common language, let us know. I love the way we all (generally) get along on this forum, considering the true diversity of the members. It is a testament to what a common interest can do. Let's keep it up!

Perhaps it might be useful to run a poll that asks specific language users if they would use such forums?I speak English, French and Italian, and spend some time in forums in those languages, but would have to say that the English language forums are by far the larger and more used (and useful) ones.I must say that I admire those people who make the effort to write in a language that is not their mother tongue....Mike F.

Hello Tom,I have not answered the poll because I think that there is not really a good answer to this question.Obviously, most of the world does not speak English, and this will not change anytime soon.And, there are many simulation fans who cannot participate in the AvSim fora because of the exclusive use of English.So, it would seem that a few fora in a handful of major languages of the world would open up AvSim to many.On the other hand, these people would be participating in a very small subset of the large AvSim community. None of the English speakers would spend much, if any, time there. So, the amount of information exchanged or community feeling created there would be rather small.It is too bad, but at the moment, most of the users of computer games in general are to be found in English-speaking countries. So, obviously, the major fan sites will be in English.As you mentioned, your previous efforts did not give good results, unfortunately. Since nothing has really changed since in the number of non-English speakers that visit AvSim, you could probably expect to get the same results today.This situation is sad, because it tends to create "ghettoes", small and often isolated communities of fans that do not get to share their enthusiasm with others in the world. As the creation of a large and enthusiastic community seems to be one of your goals with AvSim, it is commendable that you should try to extend a hand towards the rest of the world.Just a note to those who think that all the important things are going on in the English-speaking world. I am always surprised to find so many innovative and original contributions in non-English web sites. Scandinavian, Brazilian, Mexican, yes, even French web sites that are doing things that would surprise and startle those who only visit the English-language web sites.Luckily, many of those wonderful add-ons also make their way here. But, not all.Best regards.Luis

I voted No. Here's why...Everyone deserves a forum in their native language, but AVSIM may not be the best place for it. It won't hurt anything to have these forums here, but if they will not be used then I kind of wonder "why bother". My impression is that there already exists elsewhere forums devoted to various types of Flight Simulation that cater to the specific needs of specific-language speakers. For example, you will find a few Thai language speakers here on AVSIM, but if you wander over to www.thaiflight.com, you will find a very active community that is already well established. They offer forums for several different flight sims, including FS2002/4, IL-2, LOMAC and even Falcon 4.0. I really don't think that they are going to give that up to come here. I imagine that websites/forums exist for other languages also.Of course, if someone wants to post to an existing forum on AVSIM in their native language, we should allow that too, but I don't think there's a need for seperate forums. On the other hand, if there are a large amount of German/Japanese/etc. speakers that really feel they need a sperate forum, then maybe we could give it a try on a case-by-case basis.I totally agree with Luis when he talks about the innovations on non-English websites, since I have seen this also on www.thaiflight.com. But I think these communities will continue to flurish away fro mAVSIM, due to the reasons I outlined above.One compromise may be to utilize an online-translation tool, but due to the sometimes technical nature of our discussions here, this may not be ideal.- Martin

English is most suitable, though obviously not very fair.(I believe English is also the international medical language).Actually, Australian should be the international language. YouAmericans, & English have such funny accents in certainparts of your countries!! Wink!Peter Sydney Australia

Not wanting to ruin the party, I must however point out that French is the recognised international language. If you don't believe me, ask a diplomat. So Tom, let's have the new and improved "freedom" forum! :-badteeth Having said that, my native language is Greek and my English is better than my French, but, my motto is, never let reality get in the way of a subversive political statement :-halo Regards,

I dunno- voted no opinion. Don't know why I did that. Why is that option even there?

English is the language of aviation worldwide, let's not be different.There's local portals aplenty for every language area where there's a userbase large enough to support it, let's not dilute the discussion here into a cacaphony of languages.One of the strengths here is that you don't have to look through a thousand fora to find what you are interested in, implementing special language fora for every language out there would mean a lot of knowledge becomes locked down in languages you don't understand and thus inaccessible to you.

I think that creating non-english language forums in Avsim is not going to add any significant benefit to the non-english speaking users, because there are already a lot of non-english flight simulation forums on the internet, and because the non-english speaking users won

Okay, by vote and comment, the community comes down heavily on the side of keeping it English only. Poll closed and thread locked.