I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I'm getting so frustrated. I've noticed recently that a few stories are being posted in French and German at the BB Slash LJ Community site and I'm having a nightmare trying to find out if there's anyway of changing the actual chapters to English?? The annoying thing is that the summary's are in English and this gets you interested, so it really bugs me that you can't understand them when you open the author's link. Does anyone know a way round this?? If not, would it be really rude of me to suggest that these stories not be posted as it seems pointless if no-one can read them.
Regards
Eve
As far as I know there's nothing you can do to be able to read those stories (except for learing those languages, lol
). There are translation programmes on the internet, but they don't make much sense.
To be honest, I have another opinion than you and the others who have repiled here. I've never seen a story in French at BBS, only Spanish and German. First, all the stories have stated the different language in the first line of their posting. Second, there are only a few authours who write in languages other than English and it doesn't take more than a few days to know their names. It's not difficult to ignore their postings, is it?
Third, at least one of them has asked for help to translate their story/stories to English. S/He would like for the English speaking people to be able to read her/his stories, but just isn't able to. One of her/his stories is now translated to English. This is a benefit for the whole community - and it wouldn't have happened if the story hadn't been posted in German first.
Also I don't think it's true that stories in foreign languages don't get read. For example, there are quite a few Germans on BBS and the stories do get FB. Therefore I don't think it's pointless to post them.
But the the most important point is, that there are people out there who aren't able to read fanfiction in English. I think we, who can read so many stories, should not begrudge them this possibility.
Bottom line is, I think it's good that there are stories in other languages and I think it's not truly a sign of liberality to ask the moderators that these stories should not be posted anymore.
About the summaries I'm a bit on the fence: one one side, it wouldn't hurt to post them in the respective language, on the other side, in at least one case it has led to an English version of a story --> benefit for all, like I said above.
