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This policy discussion is now out of date. Critique questions are off-topic on Writers.SE. Please look for more recent posts on this topic.

According to this, critiques about our work are now accepted if we ask for it under some conditions, clarified here.

Second point, non English speakers contributions are accepted too, and even welcomed as @Standback said here.

But what about a critique on a non English work? I suppose it's accepted too, but what we have to do to show our work when we can't translate it ourself? Translate it with Google Translate or similar, leave it in our language or both?

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Any critique would depend on how many people could understand the text. While you could paste in a translated (or likely, transliterated) version of it, the critique you receive would be on the transliterated version of the work. Subtleties tend to not carry over so well, so there's a good chance that you'd lose something there.

I begin to wonder how useful such critiques would really be? I'm not saying that rhetorically, I really can't tell if they'd be very helpful or not.

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  • It does seem like a case of the extremely long tail -- eventually somebody may come along who can provide a good answer, and somebody else might come along who'll benefit from it, but you're not likely to get quick turn-around.
    – Monica Cellio
    Sep 8, 2013 at 20:11
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    A critique could be very helpfull. If it's not for the people who asked for it, it can help someone else like Monica said. Of course, a critique on a transliterated text won't be as good as a critique on a 'original' text, but it could be enough for some points.
    – Shkeil
    Sep 8, 2013 at 20:57
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    Transliterated? Are you sure that's what you mean?
    – TRiG
    Sep 9, 2013 at 11:15
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    I don't think anybody would volunteer to critique a transliterated text. (I am saying that in my capacity as someone who has to deal with transliterated texts quite frequently if not daily. It messes with your brain.)
    – RegDwight
    Dec 28, 2013 at 16:08
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Never use to translate anything. It works for a few things, but most of times it just makes a huge mess. Only use Google Translator if you are able to review and fix the final results of Google Translate but, to have that much work, is better to translate yourself.

My opinion as a non English writer is that it's no use to ask for critiques on my writing here. This is not the write place.

First, if you do not write in English, English readers won't probably be your primary target. I think it would be better to have people that could speak your language giving such kind of feedback.

Second, people here will be judging a translation that is far from the same thing as your manuscript. It's quite impossible to get what you want from a translation, specially a not really well done one.

In my humble opinion, if you write in English, it makes sense to ask for ask for critiques; otherwise, use this site only for specific doubts related to writing and publishing.

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  • I know a Google Translation isn't really good, but it can always make a base to work on it to have a better translation. I'm not good enough to make myself and alone the translation. However, you're right when you said English reader won't be my primary target. A feedback from people speaking my langage will be better of course, but anyone can see all errors and I think other people can help to improve a work, even in a foreign language. Anyway, I have the same global opinion, even if it could be interesting. I ask here to clarify the position of writer.SE about this kind of question.
    – Shkeil
    Sep 12, 2013 at 8:08
  • @shkeil No, Google translations are horrible. I constantly compare English <-> German, English<->Dutch, English<->Greek. In the vast majority of the cases, the translations are not only bad, but the language equivalent of a shredder. Even for simple things like "I have a box of rocks" it can get it wrong. Add in some ordinary colloquialisms and your translation is sure to be toast. "I am dumber than a box of rocks" (Hey, no agreements on my mental status, it's an example!) comes out with a different noun for box, if you say "pebbles" instead of "rocks" ... it's downhill from there ...
    – Howard Pautz
    Sep 14, 2013 at 1:19
  • There's a Brazilian joke on this, because "Time flies like an arrow" becomes "The weather flies looks like an arrow" when translated. Like I said, this site is good for specific answers but if you don't have your writing in English, it won't help with specific writing aspects.
    – Psicofrenia
    Sep 15, 2013 at 11:04
  • I know it. We can find a joke like this in almost all countries and languages I think. It's impossible to trust absolutely Google translation, but I take less time to rewrite a translation by Google than translate all by myself because I use too few words to make a correct translation.
    – Shkeil
    Sep 16, 2013 at 8:46

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