Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foreign language

Foreign language

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Whatever this article might have once been, it's been rendered a useless slop puddle by LLM-crazed editors. Essentially the entire article is duplicative of Language acquisition, Language education, and Multilingualism, plus likely a couple of others in the "see also" list at the bottom, and those articles at least don't have "In summary..." at the end of every section. Get rid of the duplicated content and you have a WP:DICTDEF. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 12:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language and Education. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 12:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. There is just so much wrong with this article it could also even fit the criteria for blowing it up and starting over. CabinetCavers (talk) 12:58, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also be OK with WP:BLAR'ing it if we can't figure out how best to start over. Thoughts? Gommeh 📖 🎮 20:49, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: LLM, delete. We can't/shouldn't verify each and every citation given to even see if it's true or not, that is a waste of the editor's time here. No inline citations either, which doesn't help. Easiest is to delete. Oaktree b (talk) 15:31, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is a longstanding article since 2004; the very beginning of the encyclopedia. We have years of article history since before LLM editing was even a thing. Simplest thing to do is revert the article to the time from before any LLM content was added. What we shouldn't do is delete the lengthy history of contributors over the past 21 years in an article that is clearly on a notable topic. WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP, and LLM cleanup shouldn't be done through deletion in articles that have lengthy editing histories prior to LLM editing. That would set a very bad precedent.4meter4 (talk) 16:08, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to restore several sections that were marred by LLM editing, but unfortunately this article has not been in a very good state since before 2022. -- Recon rabbit 18:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a duplication of several articles anyway. It serves no purpose. Drafting a 20 yr old article doesn't fix the problem. Oaktree b (talk) 18:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Per nom. As an ATD, we could restore the article to what it was before LLMs turned it into slop, but I'm not sure how practical that would be. We'd need way better sourcing, and I haven't done any research on this so I can't say whether or not it would work, but it may be good to look into. Gommeh 📖 🎮 20:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep LLM additions have already been removed. The article is not a duplicate, it is a broad-concept article that should provide an overview of language acquisition, language education, multilingualism, and other topics. Kelob2678 (talk) 15:05, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep because the reversions have mooted the problem. As we go forward, we may have to do this more often. Bearian (talk) 03:39, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, utter trainwreck of an article without any clear topic. Consider this unsourced gem from it:
"Although significant differences between the definitions of second language and foreign language may be hard to find as the two terms are often taken as synonyms, research has been carried out to shed light on the differentiating traits of the two. The distinction between acronyms TESL (Teaching of English as a Second Language) and TEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language) shows the attention different researchers have paid to the concepts of foreign language and second language. "
What even is this other than WP editor commentary trying to justify this as a topic mid-article? We already have a fairly cohesive article at Second language, and there's no apparent reason why this should exist. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your yourself state that this is unreferenced. Here is a quote from RS:
Foreign language learning and teaching refer to the teaching or learning of a nonnative language outside of the environment where it is commonly spoken. A distinction is often made between ‘foreign’ and ‘second’ language learning. A second language implies that the learner resides in an environment where the acquired language is spoken. In the area of research, the term second language acquisition (SLA) is a general term that embraces foreign language learning and investigates the human capacity to learn languages other than the first language once it has been acquired.
The article is not only about learning, its scope includes topics of papers such as Foreign language effect in decision-making: How foreign is it? and Automatic processing of foreign language documents Kelob2678 (talk) 09:19, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: The LLM-generated content appears to have been dealt with, but is there is a viable topic here, or is it duplicative by definition?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Violates WP:MOS + reads more like an essay at best ~~and a potential copyvio at worst~~. -- in the club bumping that 09:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not copyvio, as the text in the article existed since 2011[1] and the preprint was published in 2014. So it is the latter that plagiarized the former. Kelob2678 (talk) 09:24, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete WP:N has two arms. A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets WP:GNG or a relevant SNG, BUT only if it is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. This article is a WP:DICDEF. What is it about? It can't be about languages in general, because it would be fork of all the language articles we have. It is specifically about a concept of a language that is foreign. But the only thing that makes a language foreign is that it is a language spoken by foreigners. There is no encyclopaedic subject there. It is all dictionary definition, and what we have in the article meanders into the subject of other pages, because there is no tightly defined subject here. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:48, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Doczilla _{Ohhhhhh, no!} 04:10, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: There is literally no reason to hold on to this article. As @Deacon Vorbis pointed out the absurdity of the unsourced portions, I noticed this fact included in the article with a citation:
An article from The Atlantic claims that only 1 percent of the adults within the US population consider themselves proficient in speaking a foreign language. This is in stark contrast to many other countries, where the percentage is much higher.
The article in The Atlantic makes no such claim whatsoever as to the percentage of Americans proficient in a foreign language, and I find it absurd to think that just 1% of Americans know a foreign language. aaronneallucas (talk) 06:08, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Good article BathTubJesus (talk) 14:48, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article hasn't reached good article status, and even if it had that isn't an argument that would stop it from deletion anyway. Plenty of GA's have been sent to AfD in the past. If you meant that we shouldn't delete the article because you like it, that would be an WP:ILIKEIT argument. What is it that you like about the article specifically? Gommeh 📖 🎮 17:09, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - If someone wants to properly revive it, I guess they are free to do after deletion so that all the AI slop doesn't stand in the way. Oakchris1955 (talk) 17:09, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Gommeh 📖 🎮 19:33, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per arguments around revisions. Regarding a comment from Gommeh, we could restore the article to what it was before LLMs turned it into slop, well I think "we can restore the article to what it was before LLMs turned it into slop". But WP:AFDNOTCLEANUP. Servite et contribuere (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]