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I have reformulated the question "I'm dying to learn Chinese" as "How to get started learning Chinese". The question was closed because it was seen as off-topic, with a link to another question about resources for learning Chinese.

However, the question's description was not formulated as a resource request. Instead, it asked for advice on how to get started. I don't understand why such a question would be off-topic. Please explain whether the reformulation as "How to get started learning Chinese" is sufficient to get the question reopened.

(This is my first question on Meta; I hope I'm doing it right.)

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Sorry for the late response: You're doing it right, Meta is good for asking clarifications.

There are some problems with the question:

  1. It's asking for resources, since it states "where to learn Chinese". This is off topic at this moment, but even when the question was posted, the situation was similar since we already have a question about collecting resources. And keep in mind that even that question is not exactly allowed either. I just thought it was the best compromise to stop the many requests for resources.
  2. It's asking for advice. Now, advice is OK if you're asking for example how to write a piece of code with some parameters because the resulting solutions are very limited and are more objective in nature. In this case, advice means opinion-based since, even though there are some constant methods for acquiring languages, the methods can very greatly for different people. And in any case, the choice would be just personal preference, rather than objective reasoning. And indeed, the question has 9 answers only because it's closed. If it were open, you'd see many more.

I don't think the question, being old and due to its own nature, can be salvaged and/or reopened. Completely changing the scope of the question is out of... question, because it already has answers and they would be invalidated if the question was edited to have a drastically different purpose.

Therefore, because of all these reasons, the question deserves to stay closed.

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