I am a Chinese user and I learned International Journalism back in University, during school class, I gradually developed an intrest on translation, but there is no such language-oriented QA community in Chinese websites, so I find it quite intriguing when I find english.stackexchange.com ;
but, when I read the FAQ about "what questions can we ask?", I found it forbidden asking questions about translation, I really want to know why,
can any of the admins here offer an explanation?
This is a site meant for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. If we open the door for translation, it would then be flooded with all kinds of translation questions that are not what it is supposed to be used for. Nonetheless, you may ask a question asking for a word or phrase provided you define exactly the meaning the word or phrase is intended to have. You may also ask questions about whether a sentence is grammatical provided you do some research first and show clearly what the cause of doubt is.
The basic reason we don't do translation is as ЯegDwight commented: in order to do a proper translation, you really need to know both languages well, perhaps even fluently. If we were to accept translation questions, we'd need to dig up experts for every single language, and that's almost impossible to do. And then we'd need to find additional expert or near-expert speakers of each language, in order to vote on answers, because you can't judge the accuracy of a translation if you don't know what the original said.
That said, you can ask translation questions here, as long as you can state them as a different type of question. In other words, translate the word or phrase yourself — describe what it means and in what context it's used — and then ask about the part you're not sure about. For example, ask if there is a more idiomatic equivalent, or whether the word you came up with is actually correct for the intended concept (sometimes words or phrases don't mean what they sound like they ought to mean).
As with all questions, do your research — look things up in a good dictionary and/or thesaurus, make sure your question isn't covered in the first chapter of your grammar textbook, etc. — and, just as importantly, describe what your research found. We're not mindreaders.
你好Jenny and welcome to EL&U.
What Will said is important, providing research effort is the key. This way, even an apparently simple question would be accepted, because it would mean that despite this "easy" factor and your efforts, the question could not be solved easily.
Note also that asking for a translation of a long text, it might not be the case. If you have a long translation, don't ask for all of it. Try translating it, and then come here to ask for assistance for the most hard parts, (again) provided:
Enjoy your stay. :)
