I answered an English question in German, what should I do?

Question

My answer got upvoted and was even accepted, so I'd leave things as they are. Still, I wanted to hear what the community says. Should I add an English version or maybe rewrite it?

Answer 1

From our help section, and from several related posts here on Meta we agreed that this site should allow both, German and English posts:

• What language should the questions be written in?
• What language should be preferred for questions?
• In what language should we answer if the question is translated?

There was some discussion regarding bi-lingual posts, i.e. offer a German and an English version by translating a post but this is done rarely and to my opinion should not be the rule as it unnecessarily bloats posts, and adds additional editorial work from correcting errors in both languages.

It may be more polite to answer an English question in English if we felt the poster was a beginnner and may have difficulties understanding a German answer. Still, most people posting here will likely have enough basic knowledge of German to understand a German post.

In summary, I believe it does not matter much in what language we post any question or answer as long as it is clear and helpful. Just talk English or German, wherever you feel more comfortable.

As the Stack Exchange network is primarily an English speaking site Meta posts, tags, and tag wikis should always be in English.