What language is preferrable for answers to questions written in German?

Question

In the comments on this answer, the question arose whether it is a good idea to answer in English to questions written in German. Though there are some related questions here, this question has not been discussed yet. Thus I am asking:

What arguments are there for choosing the language of answers to questions written in German?

Note that I do not want to deduce any rule from this. If somebody is more comfortable with answering questions in either language, this is fine in my opinion (and if this leads to the asker not understanding the answer, he can still request a translation). This is just for people who are happy with either language.

Answer 1

I don't see why we should treat German questions different than English questions, so I will answer the more general question "What language should answers be written in?".

As a rule of thumb, answers should use the same language as the question. This is how we normally would act in normal conversations, too. It also makes the whole page, which can be considered to explore a certain topic, more homogenuous and so easier to read for everyone. E.g. it is easier to track usage of a certain term when questions and answers use the same word for it. IMO this will also make the page easier to index for search engines, leading to higher ranks in result pages. Note that a considerable amount of visitors come here via search engine hits.

But no rule without exceptions. So consider to use the other language

• when you think you could then write a better, more precise, more complete answer. The better your answer is, the better it is for the site in general. In particular it is better to write an answer in the other language than to not answer at all.
• when the language skills needed to read your answer are much more demanding than the level of the question, and you have reason to believe that the OP understands the other language better. For a possible example of this case see ...zum Verhältnis und im Verhältnis zum Verhältnis (according to his/her profile the OP is located in Toronto, Canada and hence is likely to understand English)

If, after considering all this, you are still in doubt, write a German answer. After all, this is German Language SE.

Answer 2

This answer contains some aspects already considered by Matthias, which I left in for completeness.

I think that answering in German is the better choice in most cases for the following reasons:

• If the asker uses German, it is most likely that answers in German are more useful to the asker:
  • If the asker speaks German better than English, an answer in German is more likely to be understood. While most (but not all) native speakers of a third language visiting our platform indeed speak English sufficiently to understand most answers, we should not neglect the existence of native speakers of German who hardly speak English, such as children who just started learing English or (mostly) older people, who never learnt English in school.
  • If the asker uses German to train his skills, he is likely to want to train his skills with the answer as well and thus prefer it to be in German. An exception might be wise though, if the answer is much more challenging than the question language-wise and we have good reasons to suspect that the asker is a beginner with German while being much better with English (e.g., I did so in this answer).
• Other language learners can also benefit from reading answers in German. This can even spark new questions (and has done so in the past, if I recall correctly). Also do not forget that there is a reason why second languages are preferrably taught in that language and not the learner’s native language.
• There are experts on the German language who do not speak English well and we do not want to miss their constructive input on answers. Consider in particular that the more expertise a question requires here, the more likely it is written in German.
• Most of our questions and the interface are in English right now. Unless this drastically changes, there is no big risk that new users think that they cannot ask questions in English here, in particular since nobody should be surprised by German content here. However, it can happen that new users get the impression that we only talk about the German language in English here, which might alienate some native speakers (who might ask interesting “expert questions”).

Answer 3

My rule of thumb for the German Language Board is very simple:

Use the same language for the answer that has been used for the question.

But there is no rule without exceptions:

When your skills in the questions language are too weak to write an appropriate answer, then use the other language. (We are talking only about two languages, German and English)

I think this are good rules for all other language boards on stackexchange (except English Language Board where only english is allowed) when you replace »German« by the boards language.