I've noticed a few posts that presumably contain the same content in both English and a secondary language (most frequently Spanish).

Sometimes the English translations are contributed by the OP in the original revision:

RETURNING id problem with insert Postgres 8.4

term by term division in python (division termino a termino en python )

Occasionally a translation of the original post is later added:

Integracion de Zend Framework con Propel [closed]

In the last example, I'm not sure whether the question was closed due to its original lack of English content or due to its lack of a real question. (Note that I'm not asking how we should handle (monolingual) non-English content in general; I merely linked this question because it fits the multilingual pattern.)

If Stack Exchange's official language is English, should the non-English content of such posts be removed via edits, or is the multilingual content acceptable so long as English is represented in parallel?

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This has already been discussed in parts. –  Time Traveling Bobby Oct 11 '11 at 20:55
Hmm, Spanish is close to English though.. just a thought –  Adel Oct 11 '11 at 22:08
@Adel They have more in common than English and non-Indo-European languages, but English isn't particularly close to Spanish within that group. English is a Germanic language and Spanish is a Romance language. –  agf Oct 11 '11 at 23:22
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3 Answers

up vote 22 down vote accepted

Yes. Remove non-English content.

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When someone has a clear question is some language not English (which is what's used on SE) and has a translation to English: I'd fix the translation and leave the original. Maybe someone bi-lingual will see that the translation is a bit wrong, or some subtlety has been missed.

If there is a lot of other language, and a really poor (incomprehensible) translation: I'd probably flag it as too poor.

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If someone is willing to do the work of providing a translation, then it should be allowed to stay. As long as they have a clear question in English, then it's not hurting anything to have a translation in another language alongside.

Note, the English should be first, so that's what's seen in the excerpt.

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