Bitcoin Forum

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3081595

I thought that rather than constantly criticising members who need to improve their english skills, we might provide a thread to give a bit of advice to those who genuinely want to improve their posting. I posted it on the beginners board, if that is the wrong place, then please could a mod move it to a more suitable board.

I would also like some help in this project, and any of you guys who have english as a first language are welcome to pitch in.

My main language is primarily not English.

Furthermore upon investigation to your thread it was a self-moderate one, additionally you specifically said in that thread we could somehow contribute if English is our first language.


Should I dive in to contribute to your thread? or You will only allowed a person whose first language is English to advice someone or ask a question?

P.S Enlighten me with this one.
it piques my interest to help anyone whose genuinely seeking to improve themselves.

What kind of bs is this???? I'm so mad at bitcointalk's bigotry.

You're talking about anonymity and decentralization, but you're trying to centralize btc as an English-major coin!

Bitcoin is international, and it should be global. Making a big fuss about English skills and acting like bitcoin is only in English demeans the effort to get bitcoin trusted worldwide,

Bitcoin doesn't need a language barrier on top of all its other current barriers.

This is an english language forum ( note the small "E" ), and many new members are being trashed because of their english skills, I just thought that I could try to help them and the forum. Of course Bitcoin isglobal, and the financial lingua franca is english, so it makes sense for the major focus of the board to be in english. Your rant at me doesn't help anything, why don't you rant at the people who trash the struggling posters rather than those who are trying to help.

How does the use of english mean that Bitcoin is no longer decentralised. Maybe you should try to get HTML converted to a multi-lingual script. It's emphasis on American obviously disadvantages non-english speakers.

Your response is nonsense if you carefully read the O.P you will not post/comment on a whim.
He doesn't making a big fuss or stating that Bitcoin is only for English speaker.

Thank you for your interest, and your case presents the difficulty that I thought I would have. I'm English, and of retirement age, so many modern phrases jar on the reading. You obviously have an extremely good command of english, but I am old enough to use "advice" as a noun, and "advise" as the verb, however this is not the American use of the words. As was pointed out in the rant above, Bitcoin is international, and therefore we should dopt modern Internet terminology ( much as it irks me to say that :) ).

This is a pretty long winded way of saying that I think your contribution would be useful, if only to moderate my possibly archaic views. What I hoped was that the thread could turn into discussions about members posts, and not just a number of didactic posts that replicated many other threads.

Nice idea mate, instead of criticising for those not English speakers or let say English is not their native language just like me I admit my self that it takes 15-30 minutes before I reply and post the topic. I'm not from the U.S or those countries that their main languages are English. I think this really helps those people here that hard to speak English on how to write grammatically very well.

I'm glad to see this thread that helping our community here to improve more the globally used skill language.
It really helps us, I always keep my eyes open on your thread mate thanks.

I would suggest using Grammarly extension for Chrome. Even free version is great, I can imagine that paid one is much better. So much better than Google's own spell checker, which is useless. It won't make you native speaker but certainly improves spelling skills and can catch typos pretty well. Not an advert, I just like it so much so don't hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

But not for that thread. I hope that we can improve members personal skills.

No, actually in America no one says "I advice you " so your command of the English lang is not perfect either!

Advice is the noun but Advize or Advise is the verb.

Isn't that what I said? Also, I refer you to most posts where "advice" is used as the verb.

I'm starting to regret that I ever started this project. It is creating so much negativity. It's not getting much support on the beginners board either. Does anyone want to take it over, because I'm getting a bit p'd off. There's whinging and moaning about post quality all over the forum, and when I try to do something to improve the situation, all I get is obstructionism, and attacks.

No, it's not just about OP. It's this forum in general. Everyone so touchy about English. I'm on many forums but this is the only one that gives me grief about English.

It extends further to making people think that btc is in English... and don't try to tell me you don't feel the same vibe.

You should be grateful someone cares enough for the community to fix those who doesn't have an "ok" English ::)
and he's talking about BTCtalk, not Bitcoin.

English are my second language so I don't think I would be able to help you, but I would suggest for those of you who still doesn't understand English decently to read or watch Kids Movie, Nick.Jr has a wide range of Kids Movie for examples. Kids Book or Movies tend to use Basic English for their show, both in Grammar and Vocabulary, it should be a great stepping stones.
I personally used this method to Learn Japanese for Basic Kanji and it worked quite well :)

This is an english language forum to talk about Bitcoin. The main boards are in english, and if you can't post in halfway decent english, then stay in the local language area. If you joined a French language forum, you wouldn't expect to be able post in Chinese. The real problem is that a garbled mix of words pollutes a thread, and make it difficult to read. Please have some respect for the people here who want to use and discuss about Bitcoin, and who don't want to have to wade through a load of off topic unintelligible rubbish.

Great idea fella. Will you also be the merit police and just reply with a standard one liner to anyone who is using google translate?

I'll probably just delete the post - that's why I made it self-moderating.

Are you going to be my rottweiler? :)

Mate I'm too rude for stuff like that, if it's in the right section and people are trying to help themselves then I'll come and spend some merits though bud

Well so far no new members have made a post, so you're probably right when you say that all we are getting are a load of pajeets. I had hoped that there were some good members who would post some samples.

Maybe they think I'm too pedantic, and perhaps I should hand the idea over to someone else. At the moment I'm getting involved with Steemit, and I want to post some videos about my new product branding site. If it's going to take a lot of time to build the thread, then I might have to resign. :)

The people that need help the most can’t read English and won’t seek your advice.

Take this example: every post he has is in Indonesian until he posted this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3082253.0  post was deleted


I have no idea what he is trying to get across, and chances are he can’t read what you are posting.
It’s obvious he used a translator, but can’t read the output to judge if it was accurate.

So… if you responded in english, and he translated, it would probably come out on his end as a bunch of garbage.

If you truly wanted to help people like this you will have to recruit members that are fluent in English as well as their native language.  In this case you need someone that speaks Indonesian to talk to masbro768, and offer to proofread before he posting in English again.

Sounds like a thankless job.

I left a link to this thread.

That is a very interesting idea and helpful thread. Many thanks therefore. Are the little typing errors in title and OP and missing punctuation marks in OP here already part of the english lessons? Anyway, I am always glad and thankful  for the opportunity to improve my english.

I didn't want to make this a major project, or to try to recruit transalators. I thought that it would help those members who have a basic command of english, but wanted to avoid the attacks from the merit police.

It certainly does look as if it's a thankless task, and one that is being ignored by the potential customers. I bet id I said I'd award a merit to the first 10 posters, they would all be flooding into it. Well I'm not going to. The thread isn't intended to be a merit generator, but it could help new members to get merit for improved posts in the future.

Fat fingers :)
Thanks for pointing that out.

I confess that I have what some consider to be a creative approach to punctuation. ( and a sticky keyboard).

That is also my problem on mobile device. :) And strange autocorrection and still learning english.
But I really appreciate your helpful threads.

Great idea, Jet Cash, I think this will be a valuable resource for the newest members among us. I look forward to participating, if it's appropriate.

Second, any American using the the word "advise" as a noun skipped the class that taught them correctly in grammar school. It is not an American thing to omit the word "Advice" from its proper use...it's (perhaps) an english as a second language thing, because the nuance of those words is too detailed for some to grasp early on.


Jet Cash, your advice has always been valuable and I look forward to watching you advise others on how to improve their language skills for this forum. Keep it up!

Well I'm not getting any takers, and this has surprised me given the heavy complaining that has been going on about new and junior members being ignored for merit.

Horses, water and drinking spring to mind. :)

I guess I won't be able to help due to English not being my first language either, although you should probably change that to people who are fluent in English. It's probably just better to send anyone with bad English to an actual resource which is fleshed out on the internet though.

English is probably the easiest in terms of accessibility online, and there's some real good sources out there which are free of charge. I believe the BBC even offers English courses.

There doesn't seem to be too much wrong with your English, and I'd be grateful for your help with that project. I'm trying to start my health and debt reduction project at the moment, and I'm having to learn the intricacies of Steemit as I'm not very politically correct. :) I'm not sure how much time I can continue to give to it.

I assumed you are Welsh, so I suppose that does mean that you aren't really English!

You are entering dangerous waters there. :)

I was born in England ( Surrey ), and my parents were also born in England, and they were married before I was born. However, it is considered racist for me to call myself English, although the Welsh, Scots, Irish, Cornish and many other regions are allowed to be proud of their heritage. British is such a debased term these days, that I try not to use it.

This is a good opinion jet, because in this world is in priority english, well if applied in trean english is better. Because almost everyone in this world can speak english depends on the person's way of speaking. Thank you for notices about the English language so that people in this world more familiar with English in everyday life is not here alone. To be more fluent in the language

I've posted a topic here in the forum with a minimal grammatical errors and some users began to correct my english in a harsh way. You know, english is not my major language but i think it is not right to say inappropriate words like i've posted a nonsense topic because of my LITTLE grammatical errors. And please dont degrade the new members for just posting topics with wrong english.

That's a good idea mate, I also notice several posts written in Thai and different languages posted in English thread. I don't understand how could someone post other languages in a purely English thread or board when it's one of the rule of this forum?? It's very basic, if you see a thread in english, then it's a must to post in english lang as well for you to be understood.

I found this link with basic english grammar that could help others and please don't take this negatively: http://www.talkenglish.com/grammar/grammar.aspx

This has no relation to bitcoin being decentralised whatsoever. This is something about the forum itself, everyone here has the right to express their own opinion and insights in a way that each of us could understand. If someone speaks French then she/he can post in french section same goes to other local boards. Everyone was given respect here, there's no discrimination or any negative impression about our languages.

It's really becoming quite a problem. I'm a member of several forums ( fora if one is a purist :) ), and I need to speed read  the threads that are potentially interesting. This involves recognising phrases rather than just single words or letters, and an unusual construction means one has to stop and analyse the potential meaning. One learns to recognise variations that are popular on the Internet, although the current fashion of dropping the negative in posts by some Americans stills throws me a bit.

You post is easy to scan and understand, and I wouldn't dream of criticising it in an international forum. I started the thread for selfish reasons really. I hoped that I could encourage posters to submit content that I can speed read. I'm also against the fancy formatting that is so beloved by the spammers who just want to post somebody else's opinion, and to pretend that it is their own.

I've become a lot more relaxed since I've started to put some posters on ignore, and there are a couple in this thread. This is why I haven't replied to them. :)

This kind of thread are valuable cause it help the forum and people who needs it too, (add me as one, not that good at all) nice idea by Jet Cash. I like sharing ideas because not all has the monopoly of knowledge, especially grammar and usage of English in posting or in verbal circumstances.

It seems to be that this thread is more appealing than the stated thread Jet Cash announced.

I don't have a proper lesson about advice as a noun and advise as a verb, it is just my personal knowledge and I concluded for a very long time that advise and advice is just similar and doesn't differ from itself. and I personally thanks Jet cash for pulling me out of that insatiable bliss.

P.S And I just want to add up, could you somehow add in your thread how to use figure of speech.

Somehow I don't understand TMAN, act, nullius, you, and other member when they are utilizing unfamiliar phrases/words regarding figure of speech. they are using term that is not well known in general knowledge. (e.g: Horses, water and drinking spring to mind.) but when I googled the phrase it is quite understandable only for an individual who also know the story behind the phrase.

Sorry about that, I posted it without thinking.

I don't think it would be possible to compile  list as they are country specific, nd some have long forgotten historic associations.

For example " pull the wool over your eyes" goes back to the days of highwaymen, and it describes the last action of the robber before he rides off. He would reach over and pull the gentleman victim's wig over his eyes. This gave him a precious few seconds before the victim could pull out his pistol, and aim it.

"let the cat out of the bag" comes from the old days of livestock sales in markets. A buyer would choose a piglet, and the seller would put it into a sack for ease of transportation. The seller would secretly switch the sack for one contining a feral cat. If he didn't keep the neck of the sack closed, then the cat could escape. "Don't buy a pig in a poke" is a realted expression - poke was an old word for a sack.

:-D For a better communication/conversation we need to at least use known/general idiomatic/Figure of speech.

Nevertheless I've learned another historical term I can use in speculation/trading. especially let the cat out of the bag.
So I think generally speaking if someone really want to improve in English language he/she needs to pull the wool over their eyes when they only come here from knowing that a free pig in a poke is available here while only posting, and before they knew the cat get out from the bag.

You have to be careful with cats and bags though. "The cat is out of the bag" is a nautical term, and it refers to the cat'o'nine tails, and this was used as a fairly severe punishment on the old sailing ships. Miscreants could get 100 or so lashes. The phrase comes from the fact that the punishment "cat" was kept in a bad, and just before the punishment was read out, the cat was removed from the bag.

"I don't give a dam" is another interesting one, and "dam" is spelt correctly. The dam was the smallest coin in the days of the Indian Raj.

Nice add up about the 'cat' I will also try to read the book and grasp more details.
The only thing I know about India is they have a fiat currency called 'Rupee' I discover that fact when I played Zelda (https://www.google.com/search?q=Zelda&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=VWGhWtXPFI2P8Qfwo5CwDg) game. seems a little bit Off-Topic.

From Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_(Indian_coin)

Now, wait for someine to create a DamCoin. :)

Interesting someine created an account with a username of damcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=214581), I don't know what language he/she speaks but it is evident that he/she was a miner back then.

additionally I've only heard dimcoin. and when you thought about it I don't give a damn can also pronounce as damn/dim sounds homonyms to me.  ::)

Well the English language thread has been an interesting experiment, and it hasn't gone the way I hoped or expected. What I hoped for was contributions from a number of new members with secondary english skills. I thought we could help them to create productive posting which would benefit both the forum and their ranking potential. In fact, they have been conspicuous by their absence, and those who did post for advice were really not that bad with their skills. I got a lot of support from established members, and I am grateful for that, and I hope that some of the newbies will read through the thread and benefit from the advice.

In view of the fact that the thread failed in its original purpose, I have been trying to think of alternatives. The only one I can think of is a restricted thread, where I take posts from elsewhere in the forum, and I post comments about them. I would restrict the thread so that I am the only person who can post in it ( apart from mods of course), and I believe I have found a way to do this. Do you guys think this is a good and worthwhile idea?

That is very kind from you to help people who's native language is not English with posting. Other users just say something like "go away from this forum! Your Ebglish is shit!" I got my own such comments to my posts.
I think some support in this point or just kindly paying of attention on this problem can help to many users. I already started to surf Eng grammar to improve my skills when I have some free time.

Is it okay to quote posts from other threads and use them as an example? I'm not a pessimistic guy or anything but I feel that other users will not agree with this, especially if you pick a post with a lot of errors, what if that user whom you use an example is so sensitive? On their part, it's like you are discriminating which might lead you to be racist even if that's not your true intention.

However, I do think your idea is really good. The only thing that I can think of to avoid what I have stated above is not only you highlight their errors, but also the correct thing that they did. Also, don't fully restrict your thread. How about those members (who are not moderators) that are willing to share?

Is it okay to quote posts from other threads and use them as an example? I'm not a pessimistic guy or anything but I feel that other users will not agree with this, especially if you pick a post with a lot of errors, what if that user whom you use an example is so sensitive? On their part, it's like you are discriminating which might lead you to be racist even if that's not your true intention.

However, I do think your idea is really good. The only thing that I can think of to avoid what I have stated above is not only you highlight their errors, but also the correct thing that they did. Also, don't fully restrict your thread. How about those members (who are not moderators) that are willing to share?
[/quote]

Good points - maybe I shouldn't include the member name or other details in the quote tag.
The problem with allowing other members to contribute is that the thread becomes a general help and advice thread. This is a good thing, but I have already started a thread which has developed into that resource.

I put an example in the test thread that I started here. Unfortunately I can't make that self-moderating, so I will wait for some feedback before I try that in the beginners forum.

Thumbs up to this! Much better than what I think of. Don't forget to put from where the post came, so that the users will have a basic idea on how to properly make a post in such section or topic within the forum.

Another suggestion, before you start filling up your thread with samples. Fill out your thread with basics, such as correct spelling, punctuation or grammar. Not the ones they teach in primary and elementary schools. Reminders, short info or summary will do. Posts will be much nicer if majority of the users became aware of it.


Do you mean making two threads with the same motive? One that you self-moderate and the other from random contributors? One thread alone can make a difference so to avoid confusion among members.

What I mean is to let them have an access through PM.

I'll leave the current thread alone as a community resource. It's still self-moderated, but there doesn't seem to be much abuse, so I don't really want to start imposing my somewhat traditional views on the thread supporters.

It hasn't become the thread that I intended, but people seem to find it useful. If you plant a crab apple tree, and then find out that it is a Kingston Black, you don't want to rip it out by the roots. :)

The proposed sample thread is really a result of virtually no posts being submitted by the members who could benefit most from some helpful comments. I don't think it would help by including posting guidelines, as there are enough of those elsewhere.

I shall contribute to your thread when I find the right time to do so. I've experienced unfortunate booting my windows 10.
It is not working correctly as it should be.

I saw the thread and other users are putting their initial effort which I deem a good sign of learning to walk again.

Not a bad idea, but in English adjectives derived from proper nouns (i.e. England -> English in your case) are supposed to retain their majusculation.

This is primarily and English language forum, you knockerhead.  And the reason it's become so shitty in the past few years is because the forum has been infiltrated by filthy, no-English-speaking idiots who are only here to post the same idiotic shitposts so they can get paid.  It's sickening.

While I respect JetCash's aim, there's no way I'm spending time giving English lessons to people who should be posting in the local boards.  If your English is bad, go seek knowledge elsewhere and come back when you've learned enough to be coherent.  I've got no patience for this, since most of the users here are so illiterate that they would basically go back and get the schooling they didn't get growing up...and I'm not getting paid to do that, nor would I want to.  Plus most of them are so two-faced and ungrateful that it would turn my stomach to make such an effort.  Good luck if that's your thing, but all you're going to get is more shitposting.

It's a real problem identifying as a Welsh person and having it as a first language, but whenever I have to state I'm from Wales I'll either get the response "Oh Wales in England so you are English?" or "Basically English then" it hurts every time.  :D Let's not mention how useless Welsh is in the modern day as less than 20% of Wales actually speaks the language and is decreasing every year (don't tell my Welsh friends that), but my family is quite traditional in that sense and I'm still glad I know it. Though, would of probably preferred to have English as a 1st language as I still find myself making basic mistakes when writing in English.

Anyway, I'll pitch in on anything that I can help with.

Thank you for your efforts, beggar buster Jet Cash. do you think it would be appropriate to teach about matrimonial intercourse in the next educational attempt? if people need to learn English to earn money, they should have something to earn money for a.k.a having a family.

I'm one step ahead of you. I'm giving merits to anybody completing simple tasks, whether you are fluent in English or not, you do have a chance in earning merits.

It's a great idea!! I agree so much. I think we need a thread talking about English, grammar, etc. Because it's our primary language to chat here, even we have another local languages.

It's great I'll go visit that thread everytime. Jet Cash is so generous thumbs up for his kindness to newbies and also for us who can't write english well. I think the thread is really helpful for me to improve my grammarizations and to know some idiomatic thoughts that I could see there. I hope many who is fluent in english would also help to promote this idea. 

It's okay to quote if quote contents are necessary for discussions. If not, posters should snip contents like my thread. Another situation is over-quoted thread, I mean sort of thread which quote older three, which in turn quote from earlier thread and so on. That one is called quote-over-quote thread ( I don't know how to call it exactly, hope that you understand what I mean). Those type of theses should highly avoid because they mostly will make reader extremely annoying. Users should delete unused contents to make i'their threads better.

Yes, and I use that when referring to English as used by the English, but there is a considerble number of sub-sets ( American for example ), and I use the word "english" without the majusculation as a generic term. I do the same with many other words. For example, "Hoover" refers to a suction cleaner manufactured by the Hoover company, but they became so popular that many people refer to any suction cleaner as a hoover.

As an Englishman, born and bred, I constantly have to fight against the debased description "British". The Irish, Welsh, Scots and others are allowed to use their country of birth to describe themselves, but if I describe myself as English, then I am accused of being racist. I'm not politically correct, and I want to keep English as an identity in the world. I would also like to see the word "European" used correctly, and not as a description of countries under the subjugation of the Keiser Reich division of the Deep State, but that is a different issue. :)

Congratulations on sticking up for your country of birth. I think people lose so much when they turn against their origins. I hate Richard Branson, and many others for doing that, and I respect Donald Trump for standing up against the deep state to protect his birth right.

I can understand your pain over the Welsh language, we have the same problem with English. The internet seems to have created a hybrid subset that is becoming the world standard, and it is losing the subtlety and potential for humour that is part of the "mother tongue". I'm having to adjust to the fact that many people don't understand the difference between words like insure, ensure, and assure, and they just use the single word "insure" to replace them. There are many other examples like this.

The use of sites like grammarly and Google translate just make matters worse in my opinion.