A question on English.
I know English very well. I even have a B.A. Degree in English. But I don't think that I will ever totally master American English.
There are many many people who ask a question on this site beginning with "So."
Examples:
"So I'm learning Spanish and I wanna know a few things."
So my Spanish teacher said that my sentence was wrong, can you correct it pls?
So I'm learning Spanish verbs and I don't understand conjugations, anybody help?
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I thought only proper English was to be used on this site. Why are "questions" beginning with "So" or "OK permitted? Are these now accepted as proper? I would appreciate hearing from English teachers.
6 Answers
I have railed against this for years.It is like walking up to a stranger and saying,
So I have this project translate it I'm in a hurry
try that on in OZ and sparks would fly. I believe it is coming mainly from students
from the US , they do not introduce themselves via a profile and just expect the
world to obey their command .I do not say this as anti US but out of a studied
observation of our students who are mainly from the U S , also I know that our
students OZ do not use that speech pattern , they may in the UK, but we do not
have many on SD , and Europeans make themselves more obvious.
--
In Melbourne we have 30 percent Asian mostly Chinese who own a great
deal of businesses, if we walk up to them we will open with ,"G'day how yagoin,
but they just say "whadya want"they have not learned the art of repartee, I had
to teach their children this in school , even our African Australians who are being
Taught English here have picked up very quickly our speech patterns sound
like typical Aussie kids . What I am trying to convey to you ( rather badly ) is that
if we want all of our students here to treat each other with respect and civility
then it behoves us to convey to them exactly how we wish to be addressed.
Hi guys my name is "Hilary" I need my thesis translated , thank you in advance"
Is OK ,But not -,"So translate this pronto ". Trump .
Thank you Daniela it was good of you to point this out to us.
While I understand the desire to have well-written questions and responses that communicate effectively, some responses (not questions) are man-on-the-street in nature, like reactions to picture of the day, and so I hope this will not spill over into responses that are conversational in nature, as ordinary people don't speak the king's English. How do you get people to understand the difference? That's more difficult.
Having run off at the mouth about all of that, I understand you; I am amazed at how lazy some of those who transit through our website are about forming questions they hope to have answered.
Long live complete sentences!
Here are links to a few commentaries about beginning sentences with "so":
So Here's Why It's Okay to Start a Sentence with So
Do you use “so” to manage conversations?
So Here's Why Everyone Is Starting Sentences With The Word 'So'
Perhaps most relevant to our discussion is this quote from the last linked article:
"So" at the start of a question often marks the beginning of a new topic that one of the parties wants to discuss, often called an "interactional agenda," according to Bolden.
"When I ask — 'So how did your interview go?' — I indicate that I've been meaning to ask this question for a while, that it's been on my mind, or incipient," she explained.
So? What can I say? 
It is "so" bad.
"(So) I'm learning Spanish and I wanna (yuck!) know a few things.
The "So" is completely superfluous."
Almost as bad as "Like, I don't now what to say (like)."
I had a Spanish teacher who started virtually every sentence with pues o entonces, it's basically the same thing.
My 14 year old son's friends have begun to start every sentence with 'Dude'. I can't tell you how much I am hoping that they grow out of this before the end of the summer.
I agree with Ian but I especially agree with Jr. I am convinced that there needs to be a distinction made between an acceptable standard of correct English required in order to answer questions in the forum about vocabulary and grammar and the street talk which can be incorporated into captions for picture of the Day!
Yes, it is certainly true that most people on the street don't usually talk to their friiends and other people using grammatically correct sentences. The sentences would probably sound stilted and unnatural. The sentence structure of normal conversations has been considerably adapted to suit the needs of the communicators to make conversation flow much more easily. You even hear phrases like, "We was walking down the street when ...." (which is enough to make a dedicated English teacher wince with pain! lol)
University assignments (homework) would almost certainly be marked down by professors and lecturers in most of the prestigious universities in England and the UK if students were to submit assignments with the kind of informal English spoken on the street!
I love conversational language or street talk but I agree with you Dani and Ian, that it is not appropriate to use such words like so and like in a casual, lazy way.that is superfluous to requiments. We do need to uphold and maintain very high standards in both Spanish and English on Spanish Dict! I would defintely support you in this. 
