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2005-12-10 22:36:50
From: qian
(cleveland)
just as the subjct,
let's wait for the real english speakers.
both in the betadouban and our group.
anyway ,here is mostly for the foreigners all the world.
qian
| 2005-12-09 18:28:26: brant
(Strasbourg)we r the world.
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| 2005-12-10 02:35:57: Sissy
(Philadelphia)lol.. has it public in north america...
err..
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| 2005-12-10 06:38:14: aeeboo
(beijing)chinese!
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| 2005-12-12 02:15:24: kaola
(wurumuqi)waiting for……
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| 2005-12-26 14:54:47: afu
(Milwaukee, WI)real english speakers can't spell@!
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| 2006-02-05 14:35:08: Eric B.
(Urbana, IL)A minor subset of native English speakers can spell just fine, thank you. Our other superpowers include proper use of the semicolon and the ability to critique, at least on the level of one of Eliot's "second-order" minds, classic English poetry.
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| 2006-02-06 19:25:21: Orpheus
I hate to release my inner pit bull terrier, but isn't this thread stupid?
Who are "the real English speakers"? Folks like George W. Bush? Who is your "real English speaker", between Bush and Nabokov? Or between Brittany Spears and Salman Rushdie?
Dear Qian: I am sorry that your US immersion has not freshened up your mind with a teeny wiff of cosmopolitan air; maybe you should move away from Cleveland. And, what do you call someone who is condescending to himself? You see, we "fake English speakers" have such an inadequate vocabulary......
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| 2006-02-07 22:04:53: Eric B.
(Urbana, IL)If your panties have really become quite that bunched, replace "real" with "fluent".
(It's "Britney" and "whiff", by the way. Though I must admit that I don't really understand what you meant to say by your "cosmopolitan air" comment.)
Being a "real English speaker", if there is such a thing, is not contingent merely on the possession of a large vocabulary. Dictionaries have large vocabularies; so do computers. Yet a computer would be hard-pressed to write poetry on the scale of Eliot's Four Quartets. A "real English speaker", if there is such a thing, is a person who understands English on a more basic level than that of a large collection of words and grammatical constructions. He or she is a person who moves with English, takes stock in it, owns it, feels a secret exhilarating mastery of it: in short, loves it. The language itself of necessity submits to such masters; theirs is the power and authority to change and to mold it however they see fit.
There are in the world today, and indeed in the canon of history, very, very few "real English speakers". I would be quite surprised if douban ever counted one among its members.
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| 2006-02-08 20:27:43: Orpheus
Nice try, Eric. I guess mastering the names of particular pop icons is not among my "super powers".
As to yours, reading comprehension, I am afraid, seems not among them. All the ingenuity of a native speaker cannot change the fact that the original "real English speaker" remark was made based on the observation that "here is mostly for the foreigners all the world". Therefore, your defense of it, though valiant and original by itself, is a lost cause.
Let me also elaborate, for your benefit, on "cosmopolitan air", as the aura that surrounds someone who (whom, if you prefer) is "so sophisticated as to be at home in all parts of the world or conversant with many spheres of interest". Our friend here, by characterizing English proficiency by the speaker's nationality, seems blissfully free of such charges.
Back to your definition of "real English speaker": although I may pretend to know what you meant by "a person who moves with English, takes stock in it, owns it", I must confess that I find preciously little information content there. Maybe speaking in ambiguous clichés or tall rhetoric is among the entitlements, nay, "super powers", of a native speaker?
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| 2006-02-09 11:30:22: Eric B.
(Urbana, IL)1. Saying, "Nice try, Eric." at the beginning of your rebuttal is a rather lame and ineffective way of insinuating that I failed to make my point. I didn't; and even if I had, it's spiteful, bad form.
2. I was never defending qian's original statement as it was originally meant. I was redefining the term "real English speaker" to mean something else entirely - not "native English speaker", not "fluent English speaker", and not what qian meant when he used the term, but a person possessing the qualities I mentioned. My comment had very little, if anything, to do with the argument you seem to think we're having.
3. The part of my first post that was really directed specifically at you was merely the first couple lines. I apologize for correcting your spelling mistakes; I admit that I did it out of meanness and I also admit that your spelling ability has nothing to do with the point you were making; your point would still be valid if you couldn't spell your way out of a plastic bag.
4. In my conception of what a "real English speaker" might be, the requirements to be such do not include being a native speaker. I certainly agree with your observation that Nabokov, as a non-native speaker, probably had a much better grasp of the English language than, say, Britney Spears will ever have. A person could make a case for Nabokov being just such a "real English speaker" as I've described.
5. In the vast majority of cases, a person's proficiency in a given language (not just English) is _very_ highly correlated with what languages are official or most popular in their country. Qian isn't wrong to assume that, on average, someone in the US probably has a much better grasp of English than someone in China. Obviously, someone in China is likely to have a much better grasp of Chinese than, say, me, for example: my Chinese is laughably atrocious - and I know quite a bit more Chinese than the average American, who knows "你好" pronounced some horribly wrong way if they know anything.
6. Yes: Speaking in clichés and grand rhetoric and doing so well and without cause for ridicule are certainly among the justly earned entitlements of a "real" English speaker. Not necessarily of a native speaker or a fluent speaker, but, using my definition of "real", a "real" speaker. See T. S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (available at http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html ).
7. I never claimed to be a "real English speaker", though it seems you've gotten it into your head that I did and therefore somehow insulted your own ability with the English language. I am not a "real English speaker" right now; I can hope and aspire to be one some day. Based on the evidence of your posts, I'd venture to say that you aren't one, either. That's not an insult, though; it's roughly equivalent to me stating that neither one of us is Shakespeare. I can live with that.
8. Finally, I want to say that I've understood very well everything that's been said so far. My reading comprehension is just fine, thank you. No need to go angrily spitting at it.
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| 2006-02-09 18:34:38: Orpheus
Let me resort to "bad, spiteful form" one more time: Eric, does the word "cheek" figure prominently among adjectives people apply to you in the past?
It did take some cheek to whine about others' "spiteful, bad form", for someone who started a post with patronizing clichés like "if your panties have really become quite that bunched". Well, mine are fine, thank you. But what about your panties---oh, "panty", the singular: I almost forgot you are a HALF-ASSED intellectual.
Even when you quite unnecessarily "apologized" for your correction of my misspellings, you did not forget to expand a typo ("wiff") and a matter of pop trivia into a broader challenge of my "spelling ability". Incidentally, I can spell fine, and on the rare occasion when I split an indefinite, it stays split (we ARE in cliché mode, aren’t we?). And I have built some knowledge of Milton that is, I suppose, slightly beyond simple quotes and anecdotes.
On the other hand, besides writing humorless, cliché-packed, pretentious posts, you seem to take vulgar delight in petty condescension. Imagine how you would put Conrad in his place; after all, he was a mere Pole. Do you really have no other accomplishment to be proud of? Wait: there is your T.S. Eliot proficiency, of course, which you never tired of telling us about through repeated (and tiresome) references, as in: "Our (native English speakers’) other superpowers include ...... the ability to critique, at least on the level of one of Eliot's 'second-order' minds, classic English poetry." What a privilege!
This, and other characteristically patronizing statements in your posts, betrays an intolerable provincial snobbery of a small-town English major. I got news for you: in the bigger world out there, non-native speakers have sometimes "usurped" the cultural authority to critique English poetry and poets. Yes, some of us pull ourselves up from the “third order”.
And don't flatter yourself, really: nowhere in my post have I ever suggested you are a "real English speaker". I hate to hurt you like this, but your vanity is becoming a public embarrassment. Your sad misreading provides further evidence of inadequate reading comprehension. That's not an insult, either: for you do read T.S. Eliot, don’t you?
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| 2006-02-10 02:35:22: Orpheus
^ A lazy English major, at that, with a parting shot that is timorously provocative; or is it provocatively timorous? Food for thought, there.
Join the Peace Corps. You may improve your English that way, such as: "'Touché', as they say in Texas".
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| 2006-02-10 22:08:31: Blinny
(Chicago)Orpheus, what are you even talking about? Where do you see the cowardice or timidity in Eric B's post? Why should someone who's obviously fluent join the Peace Corps to learn English? And what the hell does "'Touché', as they say in Texas" supposedly mean? Your post just seems to be a pile of non-sequiturs.
And this all argument started because someone suggesting that native English speakers are likely to be better with the language than those who learned it later. Surprise surprise, it's true. There may be the Nabokovs and de Toquevilles out there, but the vast majority of people who learn English as a second language will not be as good at it as those who have grown up in the language with a comparable education. And there's no shame in that, as it's a spurious comparison to try and equate one person's skills at a primary language with another's skills at their second or third.
And dude, what's with this assumption that Eric's an English major?
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| 2006-02-12 08:00:40: Orpheus
Blinny: do us a favor and read the thread again. Then you would at least not make silly observations like "this all (?) argument started because someone suggesting that native English speakers are likely to be better with the language than those who learned it later". Read it again if necessary.
"Why should someone who's obviously fluent (?) join the Peace Corps to learn English?" Whatever you wished to say with this beautiful sentence is beyond me; from what I could gather, you didn't really get Eric's point, either. So I am wondering why you have bothered to participate in this little argument, and, given your English writing ability in evidence in the post above, what made you feel you could shed any light on the matter under discussion, apart from providing further fodder for Yours Truly.
I applaud your earnestness ("sincerely", as Eric would put it). But frankly, allow me to observe that a sardonic sense of humor is perhaps not among your undoubtedly abundant intellectual gifts. I shall take the liberty of leaving those few points of sarcasm unexplained, maybe until your future encounter with a Peace Corps veteran called Paul Theroux.
I begin to find this whole discussion very dull. Do try to say something wittily derogatory or hilariously insulting. Please.
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| 2006-02-12 12:38:39: Eric B.
(Urbana, IL)OMGBBQ!!!11one
Dude, Orpheus is hilarious. Someone poke him with a stick and make him post again. I'd write up "something wittily derogatory or hilariously insulting", but I'm writing this on my phone right now and it'd take too long. I'm in a room full of people trying hard not to burst out laughing. For real.
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| 2006-02-12 17:08:05: Orpheus
Eric: this is not even close, you dull-witted boy. For real.
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| 2006-02-12 17:27:39: Eric B.
(Urbana, IL)Awww, that was disappointing. ::poke poke::. Where's that inner pit bull terrier when you need it?
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| 2006-02-12 17:39:36: Eric B.
(Urbana, IL)Okay, okay. I'm just being childish and mean now. I'll stop for real this time. Orpheus, ... you probably won't know what I'm apologizing for, but all the same, I'm sorry. The rest of the Douban community, I'm sorry to you, too. I'm not normally like this. This thread is on its way from funny to cruel, and I don't want that. It would be neither kind nor fair.
Adios!
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| 2006-02-12 21:25:24: Blinny
(Chicago)Awww, it's over already Eric? But Orpheus was just about to show us more of his devastatingly acerbic wit! He was about to conclusively prove, on the basis of a couple grammatical errors and a perceived fault in the use of some idioms, that we are inferior intellects completely incapable of expressing coherent thought!
Oh well, I guess it's better this way. We don't want to endure another bruising round of verbal fisticuffs with such a pugnacious pugilist of prose. After all, someone familiar with Theroux must be a mind of the highest order. Let us scurry with our tails between our legs, lest he deduce yet more about our majors in college or our limited reading habits!
(And my apologies, Orpheus, if you are in fact female. It's annoying when the masculine pronouns and possessives do double-duty as the gender-neutrals, but what can ya do?)
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| 2006-02-25 18:54:12: sophusproles
(Chicago)(hahaha... it says "Let it out" but that would induce more headache to this already intense thread)
so many freaking words here. Has anyone ever heard of brevity? But I guess my asking that would be too "simple minded." Oh well.
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| 2006-05-05 12:08:17: publicpig
(Madison)So...
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| 2008-07-23 06:31:41: Silvia
(Changsha)Hey,guys!I'm a chinese.But I really want to learn english well,so,have anyonewho want to help me?You just need to send a doumial or a e-mail to me,then we can communicate with each other through this way.Please!Thanks you all!
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