21

Should we use English or Portuguese on tags? Or should we use both as synonyms?

1
  • If we cannot get the tag length limit lifted on Portuguese, we may have no choice but to resort to English for tags. This is because the rules of Portuguese grammar very often result in tags that are too long under the current system’s constraints. The rules were made for English, so they don’t fit Portuguese very well.
    – tchrist Mod
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 3:20

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
15

You can get some ideas from the same question in spanish.stackexchange.

The current situation is that almost all tags are in Spanish, but descriptions are in both languages (spanish + english).

I think that would be the best for anybody learning portuguese.

3
  • 1
    I think this question is about naming of tags, not the contents of the tag wikis (which is the topic of the linked question).
    – Frank
    Commented Jul 14, 2015 at 21:09
  • @Frank This answer does cover it though
    – Tim
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 11:31
  • 2
    @Tim I agree; I just meant to point out that "the same question" is an inaccurate description, and likewise "the current situation" (with respect to tag language) on the Spanish site was not determined in the discussion on that question. This answer also skips over the question of synonyms (because it is arguing for disallowing them? it's not clear to me) and instead talks about descriptions/tag wiki text, which is fine to bring up but deserves a separate discussion, I think.
    – Frank
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 12:36
14

tag language on other language sites

Italian.SE   (English)
Russian.SE   Russian  
Chinese.SE   (English)
Spanish.SE   Spanish  
French.SE    French  
Japanese.SE  (English)  
German.SE    (English)

I'm all for having our main tags in Portuguese. The meaning of most tags should be obvious to English speakers and if necessary, we can create "tag synonyms". That way, if someone uses an English tag like , which is a synonym of the Portuguese , the question will automatically be tagged with the Portuguese tag.

By conforming to the new orthography, there shouldn't be much confusion as to whether we use European or Brazilian Portuguese.

Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to request a Portuguese UI (see comments on this answer), but at least Portuguese tags are one step toward the "full immersion" recommended in that answer.

3
  • I also think tag synonyms are the easiest way to go whenever we see a non-Portuguese tag pop up. Another related question would be what to do with tags requesting a translation to/from a particular language, like termos-em-inglês (only one question). I'd lean towards allowing such tags (since Portuguese learners like me would follow them), but in the form "tradução-{language}", since "termos" is quite limiting and would invite "frases-em-inglês", etc.
    – Frank
    Commented Jul 14, 2015 at 20:52
  • 3
    On French Language, we use French names for tags, plus accentless synonyms, plus English translations. So you can type the French word, the French word without accents, or the English word, but the French word is always displayed.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 18:10
  • Right, that's exactly what I'm suggesting to do here.
    – Earthliŋ
    Commented Jul 18, 2015 at 11:21
14

As a learner of Portuguese, having come from an English background, I believe the tags should be synonyms. As a person who has a question about something in Portuguese, I inevitably will tag my grammar question as , as I

1) Don't know that exists

2) If I do know, I may or may not have the ability to type the á (or any other accent) character on my keyboard.

Thus, having my question be automatically assigned to is immensely helpful in making sure it will be visible and, ultimately, receive answers.

1
  • I like this idea. The only downside is that it heavily depends on moderators.
    – bfavaretto
    Commented Jul 18, 2015 at 13:09
6

One of the solutions pointed out so far (actually in the form of a duplicate which was closed later on) is to go and restrain our set of tags to Portuguese names, burninating those in English (such as ) and keeping a description in both languages. Initially, I agreed to this approach. However, when attempting to place myself on the position of a learner, finding the right tags may be a bit too tricky, and either lead to more poorly tagged questions or extra effort from other users having to correct them.

Since it's unlikely that these tags will form a semantic collision, I would suggest keeping them as synonyms, thus keeping it friendly to learners without crippling the purpose of tagging. This should also apply to different forms of writing in Portuguese (the Brazillian Portuguese and the European Portuguese are synonyms), in which a decision for main tag is required.

2
  • By "one of the solutions", you mean Victor Stafusa's dupe? meta.portuguese.stackexchange.com/questions/75 Burnination hasn't been brought up by any other posts in this Q&A. On spanish.SE (mentioned in Blas Soriano's answer), they do actually synonymize rather than burninate, looks like: spanish.stackexchange.com/tags/pronunciaci%C3%B3n/synonyms Note that when the Brasil & Euro spellings clash, only one can be chosen as the "main" tag (displayed on questions)... not sure how that determination will be made.
    – Frank
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 23:48
  • 2
    @Frank well yes I did, thank you for pointing that out. Ther other matter of choosing main tags deserves a meta question of its own IMO, but it might conclude with the rule of the spelling with the greatest number of users (in this case, Brazillian).
    – E_net4
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 23:52

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .