do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language?

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - Printable Version

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do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - nest0r - 2009-12-01

jajaaan Wrote:
nest0r Wrote:I don't think anyone's treating it like it's a huge faux pas. Personally I think if we've a bunch of language learners with varying levels of English on a forum, it should be kind of automatic and acceptable to occasionally, jokingly or neutrally correct basic mistakes in spelling and/or punctuation, typo or not, for mutual benefit. No need to make a big deal out of it...
I don't want to derail the thread, but surely there are better places for people to improve their English spelling than the forum for a community of people learning how to write in Japanese.

Well, that's your prerogative, but I think you ought to find other causes to champion on the Web than pooh-poohing the occasional pointing out and/or correction of consistent, elementary mistakes in English on an English-language forum that consists of users of varying backgrounds interested in learning languages. I think you'll find this forum mature and diverse in that regard, and filled with tangents.

To be honest, I've always found those who nitpick about nitpicking to be as overzealous and overgeneralizing as the nitpicker archetype that they often misguidedly project onto others. You could say I'm a nitpicker of nitpickers of nitpickers. Ugh, never realized how grotesque a word that is, 'nitpicker'. Unexpected side-effect of semantic satiation, I suppose.

Now if you'll excuse me, I don't wish to perpetuate the word 'beleiving' in the 24h box by posting here again, it's become an eyesore. All your fault! ^_^

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - captal - 2009-12-01

When I saw this thread yesterday or the day before I thought how I rarely come across words I don't know (well, I thought so at least) but realized I do tend to just skip over stuff, especially since I can infer the meaning.

This popped up in my reading today:

"The top of the wall had crenels and merlons, and a walkway broad enough for two men to pass one another as they defended the grounds."

Ironically, crenels and merlons shows up as a spelling mistake according to firefox. Now, clearly we're talking about the top of a wall in medieval times (it's a fantasy book), so I can imagine what crenels and merlons are, and I'm not unfamiliar with the word crenel, but I'd be hard pressed to define it out of the blue. A merlon I'd forgotten:

"the solid part of an embattled parapet between two embrasures."

I had to then remind myself of what an embrasure was:

"a small opening in a parapet of a fortified building, splayed on the inside." (the small window archers shoot from)

All of this I could have skipped looking over, but this thread made me curious. I was trying to read a fantasy book in Japanese last year and no wonder I was frustrated- there are so many words that are very rare and have very specialized uses. Believe it or not I'm having FAR more success reading Murakami in Japanese than a 小学生 level fantasy book.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - jajaaan - 2009-12-01

No need to get offended, nest0r. There's nothing I can do to make you stop flaunting your superior knowledge of English spelling, so you've nothing to fear. I'm just trying to find out why people do this on this forum.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - nest0r - 2009-12-01

jajaaan Wrote:No need to get offended, nest0r. There's nothing I can do to make you stop flaunting your superior knowledge of English spelling, so you've nothing to fear. I'm just trying to find out why people do this on this forum.

I'm really not interested in your personal attributions of my feelings and motivations, your generalizations about my actions or the forum in regards to spelling/grammar, or how you work out your, in my opinion, 'grey vampire' (as k-punk so handily labeled it) tendencies with these querying projections. I've made my general case on the topic, hopefully someone casually reading, if they made it through my convoluted style, managed to get something out of it.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - jajaaan - 2009-12-01

I'm getting trolled here, aren't I? Alright, I'll stop posting.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - frlmarty - 2009-12-01

Hashiriya Wrote:managerial, recognizing, and believing were all spelled wrong.. (FYI)

recognizing?
only from your point of view and as long as you say American English is the only true English.

colour
organise
catalogue

all spelled correctly.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - frlmarty - 2009-12-01

Hashiriya Wrote:I am an American, therefore I use American spelling... I also use bad American grammar

well, sure you can use it as long and as much as you like to. as long as you dont impose it on others, uncle sam.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - mentat_kgs - 2009-12-01

Spelling could be one of the least important aspects of a language. Btw, portuguese spelling norm is changing this year and I have no intent of following the new, stupid rules, I wonder what people from Portugal think about this.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - ueshiba - 2009-12-01

don´t even get me started on that agreement, i completely agree with you mentat, i think it´s stupid and have no intentions of adopting it. It was made because portuguese isn´t unified, like portuguese from brasil, portugal, mozambique, angola, etc., so they somehow decided to change such a big aspect of culture,language, without having a referend, were people could vote. The percentage of words that are gonna change in brasil is less than in portugal, because i guess, it has a heavier position in the portuguese language, having the most speakers. Some Tv shows already use the new rules, it just feels wrong, and it makes me sad, because it feels like we´re losing a part of our country.

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - Rooboy - 2009-12-01

It's Brazil in English Wink

(Sorry - bad attempt at humour. No offence implied, intended or taken i hope.)

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - ueshiba - 2009-12-01

good attempt at humour you mean=P

do you trick yourself into beleiving you know a language? - mentat_kgs - 2009-12-01

We share the same indignation.