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There was this post Asking questions completely in Chinese (~8 years ago), where there was a conclusion that asking and answering questions in Chinese is fine. It was subsequently affirmed Your input: Do we allow questions and answers written completely in Chinese? (~6 years ago) and To suggest that Chinese SE questions be written solely in English (~3 years ago). (And also Can I Answer Questions by Chinese ~6 years ago.)

However, I feel there's a hidden assumption in all of these posts that the authors' Chinese levels are unproblematic. But what if instead, the author is not a native Chinese speaker, and their Chinese is buggy.

Question: Is it a problem if a learner asks/answers wholly in broken Chinese?

For example, I think I could manage to write questions in Chinese, but they would be far from perfect.

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I don't think it's a problem itself, the rules are just the same for question/answer both in Chinese or both in English.

But I won't suggest you to do so if you haven't mastered Chinese enough to express question clearly. Unclear questions might attract wrong-direction answers which won't benefit future users, and unclear questions might be closed. And, you may not be able to get the answer you wanted, which should be the fundamental purpose we're here.

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  • Hmm... it's difficult to recognize one's own incompetence. Various sites have question sandbox meta posts where you post a future question as an answer to get feedback before posting on the main site. Maybe this is possible here...
    – Becky 李蓓 Mod
    Nov 8, 2019 at 11:36
  • @Becky李蓓 Well, if one think it's more clear and appropriate to ask in Chinese, and it's more likely to get better answer, then just posts in Chinese, it's quite fine. And yes, it's not easy to determine by oneself, especially for non-native speaker. Anyway, sandbox sounds like a good idea, it might help OP find the border line of most people.
    – user4072
    Nov 8, 2019 at 13:11

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