I have no patienceFollow

For people who are rude, demeaning or ignorant to people who have English for a second language.

Learning a new language, the vernacular, the ins and outs it, is probably one of the hardest things a person can do. For some ignorant f'uck who can only speak one language to **** on someone trying to learn their second just annoys the f'uck out of me.

Qué?

How about people who know multiple languages, who like to rag on people who can't even speak one correctly?


No fo'shizzle what I'm sayjin yo?

I hear you will learn Korean better if you drink bleach every day for a week.

It's not good for the throat Eldy. I'm told I'm to guttural as it is.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2007 11:50am by Kaelesh

You'd be wrong. For fuCk's sake, learn plain English.

Kidding! I kid because I love.

I love Turk.

I often think that we should switch to phonetic English. It would not only improve our literary rates but increase the appeal of English as a lingua franca, and it wouldn't be especially difficult (but it would look wierd to long time English readers).

The idea is simply that you spell words how they sound (much like the pronunciation key in the dictionary). Part of the problem is that the alphabet doesn't wholly accomodate such a shift. We have letters like "c" who often replace "s" and "k". For a phonetic alphabet, "c" could be reserved exclusively for "ch" which inconveniently had no letter (and "ch" really sounds nothing like a "c" then "h"). Minor things like this would need to be changed. Basically we'd need to have a letter for every consonant and vowel sound. Most of our commonly used sounds already have their own letter but there are some, notably "th" that don't. A transition that could be used, though not as pretty, would be to make "x" the equivalent of "th". "x" is a useless letter that can always be substituted for "z" or "ks".

The primary problem is with vowels, because the vowels we use can each make several different sounds. The practical solution to this is using vowel markings (which I guess most learned in elementary school) to differentiate which sound is being used. As word recognition improves, students and ESL learners can be weened away from the vowel markings, and they would probably be optional, especially due to the prominence of QWERTY keyboards and their inability to conveniently accomodate the transition.

Appeals for a unilanguage make me cry. Diversity in cultures (and language is an integral part of culture) is extremely important. Homogenized culture is as potentially susceptible to disaster as a single seed crop.

Will Shatner singing Lucy in the Sky in Esperanto is one of the signs of the apocalyspe. If you don't believe me go read Nostradamus, it is in there somewhere!

Let me ask you this: what is the purpose of teaching foreign languages? You could say it's for the practical aspect of communication, or for the cultural enrichment it provides, or you could easily say it's both.

So if, in lieu of a single foreign language, we taught a universal language as the elective language, here's what would happen:

1: Practical communication is increased, as one elective language allows communication with those who speak many varying languages.

2: Cultural identity remains intact, as students still learn the language of their culture.

3: Cultural enrichment is -increased- due to the ability to communicate effectively with many other cultures directly.

There is much more to culture than language, and it is a CRIME in this day and age that two people can meet on the street and not communicate with eachother verbally. The language barrier causes us more harm than it warrants us protection.

I was not even suggesting a universal language, though I would like to see it come to fruition eventually. What I was suggesting was refining the English language so that it is more intuitive and easier to learn. Traditional English is unecessarily difficult and reduces literary rates and decreases access to American citizenship for those legitimately seeking it.

I actually just posed the question to a friend of mine who is a professor of reading, and they thought it was a good idea with no insurmountable shortcomings. The largest obstacle would be implementation, which would not be cost inefficient for the benefits it would bring.

If youse all spoke what like we does, there wouldna be a farkin problem, innit...

I've taken 2 semesters of Chinese so far, and plan to keep going with it. It has always been one of my goals to become bilingual, if not trilingual, by the time I'm 30. I've been particularly interested in eastern Asian culture (probably due at least in part to my love of anime), and so when Chinese began being offered at my school this year I jumped at the chance (no other Eastern languages are yet being taught). It's fun, albeit challenging. I have the greatest respect for those who have been able to learn more than one language. I feel that it will take me another decade to truly become fluent in Chinese, which makes it seem that much more amazing that students come from other countries and can speak and understand English as well as most of the other people I know. One girl I know knows Chinese (her native language), French, and English, and she's also studying Greek!