(no subject)

[farla]

Proofreading a chapter of an OT story.

The fact that someone who isn't a native speaker has better spelling and grammar than most of the pokemon category scares me a great deal.

Comments

heh heh

[archerofdarknes.livejournal.com]

My dad did always say he learned more about is own language when he learned German than taking English classes...of course he did think that sioux was pronounced Si-ox...HEEEEEEEEEE!

Gouramis are better...they kill each other *Evil grin*

Are you goldfish gold, red, orange, yellow, black, or white?

Re: heh heh

[farla.livejournal.com]

If I tried to write something in Spanish...it'd be so bad even I could see it was awful.

::shudders:: And this is a good thing?

My goldfish are red-orange, but one has white fins and another has a white belly. Plus there's one that's either silver or still stuck in his baby colors (there are two possible fathers, one a white goldfish and one a silver-black one, so I'm not sure).

[razorleaf.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the compliment. :)

[jaxmalcolm.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly.

The only thing that can possibly be used as justification is the fact that the Americans are behind other countries in education. Then again:

1. I'm not completely sure if this is actually true.
2. It doesn't explain why the English folks I know apparently don't know how to speak the language which bears the name of their own country.

On the positive side (if there is one, given the major downside that is the stupidity of the people who share our fandom), fodder can serve as amusement.

I'd also like to take the time to say I've added you to my friends list, simply because I'm a stalker I admire your work.

Re: heh heh

[archerofdarknes.livejournal.com]

YES! Gouramis are kinda like siamese fighting fish, they cheww up the tail of the weakest, but completely ignore the coreys...weird.

Your goldfish sound cute, our neighbor had to put up chicken wire over his pond to keep the birdies from eating his!

[farla.livejournal.com]

I don't know about other English-speaking places, but I do know that spelling and grammar are no longer taught where I live, and so the teachers can't grade their students off for it. Although kids my age were given rudimentary lessons in spelling (ended by fourth grade) and grammar (short lessons in fifth and seventh grade), so we can still be graded on it, I think the maximum amount I can lose for that on an AP English essay is five or ten points, and I'm pretty sure all my history teacher can legally do is write in the margins that I made a mistake. (Ironically, the poor ESL kids get graded on grammar and spelling.)

I have a theory on that, actually...

[(Anonymous)]

I believe that when people learn a language through reading and writing it rather than through speaking it, they are more likely to develop accurate spelling and grammar. They don't make the same errors as native English speakers, who are likely to confuse words that are pronounced similarly; when you learn English from reading books, the errors you'll be making are things like adding or missing letters or syllables. Such errors can easily be corrected using a normal spellchecker, and you end up with very good spelling.

Of course, that's just my theory.

- Dragonfree

Re: I have a theory on that, actually...

[farla.livejournal.com]

Still, you'd think hearing the language since you were born, being taught to read that language, hearing nothing but that form of grammar, and going to school would give people some sort of edge. Especially in a language as freakish as English, and with so many words that are spelled almost the same.