"We are not allowed to speak English."
Translation:我们不准说英语。
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I hope the context that first comes to mind is in a classroom for learning Mandarin...
Yes, since they are pretty much the same. I would say that 英语 and 英文 are synonymous.
How does one say "we don't allow (a third party to do something)"? Cause this is self reflective. Is it just context?
我们不准说英语 is not correct. It literally means "we do not allow (someone else) to speak English".
Actually 我们不准说英语 can translate to both "we are not allowed to speak English" and "we do not allow (you) to speak English"
Both translation is correct, so you need some context to fully understand which is the one they mean.
Another example like this is 喜欢上一个人. This sentence can be translate to:
I fall in love. I like a man. I like my ex. I like to be alone. I like to fxxk.
Chinese is complicated (´・ω・｀)
If you want to say "we are not allow to speak in English", then your are incorrect. 在 cannot translate to "in" in the sentence above, you can just ignore it, then you have a correct sentence. I dont know how to explain it in a more detail way, sorry if you dont understand it (´・ω・｀)
不让 Means to not allow (让 is a transitive verb: To make (someone do something) or To allow) 他们不让我们讲英语 (They don't allow us to speak English) 不准 Means to not be allowed (to do something) 我们不准讲英语 (We're not allowed to speak English)