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I have been using french.stackexchange to ask answerable questions concerning French grammar. I'm a beginning learner. This website has been helpful to me so far in motivating me to continue learning French!

My understanding from reading some meta posts is that French is considered to be the main official here, and that it is certainly not English. Am I welcome to ask my beginner questions here, as I have been doing thus far?

Also, I feel lots of stress in trying to read French responses. The stress is so strong that it impairs my cognitive ability to digest the meaning of the response. Is it rude to indicate in my questions that my preferred language for responses is English (but to welcome French responses if the person has a strong preference for not responding in English)?

J'étudie le Fraçais pour quatre semaines. J'ai demandé les questionnes ici qui peuvent lui donner un résponse. french.stackexchange a m'aidé; je l'aime beaucoup!

J'ai diré des autres posts içi. Il semble que le vraiment langue de french.stackexchange est le Français.

Mais j'ai l'anxietié quand j'ésaye lire les résponses qui écrivent en Français. Je ne les comprendre pas.

Est-ce qu'il faut de ne demander pas tout le monde qui réspondent à mes questions à écriver leurs résponses en Anglais, donc je comprend leurs résponses?

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    Je pense que dans ce cas particulier, il ne faut pas corriger ses fautes dans la partie en français car ces lacunes soutiennent sa demande.
    – Knu
    Commented Aug 20, 2015 at 18:25
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    If a person is a beginner, obviously, they should be allowed to ask the question in English. How do we know this? By the mistakes you make: to do something SINCE a particular time: étudier le français DEPUIS quatre semaine. And, to ASK questions is POSER des questions, not demander. So, since you are a beginner, which is great, which is fine, I say yes, ask the questions in English.
    – Lambie
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 18:20

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Our language policy is summarized on the FAQ page:

Should I ask/answer in French or English? Both languages are accepted. If you are learning French, we suggest that you learn by doing and ask in French, but there is no obligation. Note that some contributors prefer to answer in French, so you may get replies in French. On the meta site, we try to provide at least a summary of each post in both languages.

So it's ok to ask in English if you aren't comfortable enough in French. Most questions asked in English get answers in English anyway, and it's ok to request (but not require) it if you aren't comfortable enough with French to understand answers in French.

At the moment, a majority of our regular contributors are fluent in both French and English, but not everyone is. Both languages are allowed.

It's also ok to request a translation of a question or an answer. Ideally every post here would be bilingual, but it's unmanageable. You can request a translation from the author by commenting on their post (this requires 50 reputation points unless the post is an answer to a question of yours) or in chat (requires 20 reputation).

P.S. I've just added a link to this FAQ to the English blurb on the tour page (it was only linked from the French blurb).

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    It's not OK to refuse to accept an answer just because it's in French though.
    – Knu
    Commented Aug 20, 2015 at 18:28
  • Many will take notice that the OP asked in French, and may likewise; however, this is not always the situation, though do not fret, because many will respond in English, even if you don't ask in English.
    – Mason H. Hatfield
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 1:53
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I'll take this a step further: I think it's preferable for users to write in a language they're comfortable with right from the start when asking a question. Translating a question is excellent practice, exactly like you're doing, but submitting only the translation could lead to miscommunication unless the person has bilingual proficiency.

Additionally, most contributors on french.stackexchange automatically answer in the language the OP initially used. It's not uncommon for native Francophones to ask questions; one could easily assume the OP's first language is French if they seem fluent--and if they're not, it can easily result in an partial understanding of the answers provided.

As of right now, I'd say there are fewer questions asked in a day than there are people ready to answer them. Even if you specified for your answers to be English-only, you would not really be limiting your options.

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Si tu écris en français, cela t'aiderai l'améliorer. Voilà pourquoi, j'essaie d'écrire et d'utilise le français autant que possible pour améliorer. Au cas où, tu es un débutant, ça se pourrait que tu as envie de l'écrire en anglais aussi. Si tu penses qu'il y aurai difficile de comprendre ce que tu as écrit alors tu devrais l'écrire en anglais aussi et les autres te corrigèrent peut-être.

Également voilà pourquoi il vaut mieux que tu l'écrives en anglais et français, parce que tout le monde ne parlent pas anglais couramment.

If you write in French, it would help you to improve it. It is why, I try to write and use French as much as possible to improve. In case, you are a beginner, you may feel want/feel like writing it in English too. If you think there will be difficulty understanding what you have written then you should write it in English too, and others might correct you.

Also this is why it would be better that you write it in English and French, because not everyone speaks English fluently.

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I think it isn’t rude if someone requests that they prefer answers to their questions to be in English language. The reason is, one needs a great and an intuitive understanding of (in this case) a French sentence/grammar in his/her own mother tongue (English in this case) (or the language he/she feels comfortable speaking in) before being able to confidently say it back in the foreign language (French).

But what if the one providing the answers has issues with writing his/her answers in English (which is very common ) ?

I personally would provide answers in both French and English to help the learner have a deeper understanding of what he/she is learning or trying to understand.

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