command line vs gui
in [General Linux]
|
Prev: micro solution backpack cd-writer hell
Next: "...error while loading shared libraries: libg2c.so.0"
From: Lee Sau Dan on 20 Dec 2005 00:52 >>>>> "blmblm" == blmblm <blmblm(a)myrealbox.com> writes: blmblm> To try an example that I know less about but that might blmblm> raise fewer hackles: I have heard that English speakers blmblm> trying to learn Chinese often have real problems with -- blmblm> "tones"? So spreads the rumour. blmblm> i.e., there's some aspect of the spoken language that blmblm> English doesn't really have and that apparently is hard blmblm> for English speakers to master. I have heard that in blmblm> consequence they are apt to make mistakes that result in blmblm> their meaning being garbled. Maybe that's the equivalent blmblm> of what I'm talking about. Many Westerners, having lived in Hong Kong for years AND devoted time & effort to learn the local language, have mastered the tone system of Cantonese. It's hard to tell them from native speakers without looking at their face! There are also people from mainland China, speaking Mandarin or Shanghainese natively, who cannot speak Cantonese without a typical Mandarin- or Shangainese- accent, even after staying in Hong Kong for a few decades. blmblm> If most of them started out at a young age, as you did, I blmblm> claim that this doesn't tell us much about people who blmblm> learn new languages as adults. I learnt German as adult. blmblm> Native speakers "just know" when to use these little blmblm> words. >> >> They have to learn it. >> blmblm> Sure. But they don't learn it by studying rules. I'm blmblm> fairly sure about this: You don't learn riding a bike by studying physical laws governing motion, do you? It's like that. Neither can you learn typing by solely studying the keyboard layout for years. And do you think it's impossible for an adult to learn riding a bike, if he missed it during childhood? Skill is different from knowledge. Language is a skill. Linguistics is knowledge. blmblm> I think I also use articles properly, but I certainly blmblm> don't have in my head a list of explicit rules about when blmblm> to use them Neither do I. blmblm> -- the right usage just "sounds right" to me. Me too. blmblm> I think this is how childhood language acquisition works blmblm> -- whatever usage you hear a lot as a child comes to blmblm> "sound right". But the same thing happened to me for German when I was already in adulthood. Only through immersion can you master the highly irregular and complicated rules such as when to use which type of articles, which words/phrases to place before others, etc. blmblm> So there's some kind of mental model in the back of the blmblm> brain (built by some process that's outside the person's blmblm> conscious awareness or maybe control), but it's not a set blmblm> of explicit rules. Agreed. But I don't think that can only happen to children. blmblm> When I hear people talk about rules for when to use blmblm> articles, they seem like contrived attempts to turn this blmblm> mental model into a checklist. The list is a good way to recap who one has absorbed (subconciously) through immersion. It is not a way to learn the skill. blmblm> Starting at about age five, right? At 3. But I learnt German 25 years later. blmblm> I know you said you learned it in school, but surely at blmblm> age five you were learning in a way that approximates how blmblm> people learn a first language, rather than being taught blmblm> grammar rules? You're wrong, I'm afraid. At schools, we're taught rules, and forced to memorize length lists of vocabularies (with spellings), irregular verb, prepositions, phrasal verbs, etc. Not very pleasant, but effective! blmblm> I don't think you can really use yourself as an example blmblm> here, unless with a language you only began learning as an blmblm> adult. German. blmblm> However, I suspect that you are correct in saying that blmblm> with enough practice one can develop this sense of what blmblm> "sounds right" as an adult. I have developed such a sense with German, in particular concerning the word order, use of articles, as well as use of tense/mood. blmblm> One advantage I think people learning a language as an blmblm> adult have over those learning it as a child is that they blmblm> *can* be aware of the underlying structure and rules, Well... only when the target language is similar to a language that this learn is already familiar with. E.g. knowing English helps learning German. I rote-memorized "see, saw, seen" at school, which turned out to be useful to help me remember "sehe, sah, gesehen" when learning German. Or "give, gave, given" -> "gebe/gibt, gab, gegeben". Also, since I'm already familiar with the concept of article, it helps with understand what functions are served by articles in German. Of course, the rules of using articles are slightly different, which takes effort to learn. But knowing English won't help me learn Japanese. The grammars are so different. e.g. English doesn't have "past tense" for the adjectives; Japanese does! But the abundance of English loans in modern Japanese does mean the knowledge of English helps -- once you've figured out how the Japanese would convert the English sounds into Japanese syllables. -- Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~} E-mail: danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
From: Peter T. Breuer on 20 Dec 2005 03:18 In comp.os.linux.misc izzy <cohen.izzy(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Peter, "kick the bucket" needs to be a euphemism (nicer way to say) > "he died". Most idioms of this type really are the > target-language-ification > of a foreign phrase. Why is that "completely unbelievable"? Because it is. What a load of mystic nonsense! There are instances of foreign (mainly roman and norse and germanic) aphorisms passing into english, but there is no adoption route into english from hebraic (you might get some arabic sayings brought back by the crusaders, but that's it). Next you'll be suggesting that "to take a powder" has an origin in a mistranslation from the dead sea scrolls! If you want to understand "have an axe to grind" (i.e. have a complaint to discharge), you would naturally look to mis-hearings of the words spoken originally in perhaps french or norse or latin. I know of many words which came from german that way (e.g. english "horse" is a misspelling of the german "hross", a knight's charger; and we all know about pork, beef, etc. from the norman french). Peter
From: blmblm on 20 Dec 2005 07:21 In article <1vhi73-4hp.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>, Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote: >In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote: >> I wasn't sure that you understood that I had in mind examples of >> requests for information, to which "soothe away the doubt" just doesn't >> seem to me to apply. > >It's a pattered circumlocution. To avoid launching straight in with a >demand for information they introduce their failing as the subject. >I.e. "Doctor, I have a pain", instead of "Doctor, give me a >prescription". But it is also (and by now) a pattern, whatever its >origins. Ah, okay. Got it, I think. Interesting. [ snip ] -- | B. L. Massingill | ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
From: blmblm on 20 Dec 2005 08:06 In article <87y82ggvsn.fsf(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de>, Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote: >>>>>> "blmblm" == blmblm <blmblm(a)myrealbox.com> writes: > > blmblm> To try an example that I know less about but that might > blmblm> raise fewer hackles: I have heard that English speakers > blmblm> trying to learn Chinese often have real problems with -- > blmblm> "tones"? > >So spreads the rumour. > > > blmblm> i.e., there's some aspect of the spoken language that > blmblm> English doesn't really have and that apparently is hard > blmblm> for English speakers to master. I have heard that in > blmblm> consequence they are apt to make mistakes that result in > blmblm> their meaning being garbled. Maybe that's the equivalent > blmblm> of what I'm talking about. > >Many Westerners, having lived in Hong Kong for years AND devoted time >& effort to learn the local language, have mastered the tone system of >Cantonese. It's hard to tell them from native speakers without >looking at their face! You seem to consistently ignore the weasel words I try so hard to put in -- "often", "most", "many". I'll try not to do the same. I think the point I have been trying to make is that learning a language as an adult is difficult and time-consuming, and many people do not make a success of it. Certainly there are exceptions. Maybe in fact the people who are successful are the rule, and the ones who aren't are the exception, but they stand out more? It is useful and interesting to hear that Westerners *can* learn to speak Cantonese intelligibly. I notice, however, that you say "many" and mention time and effort. In your experience, are there also Westerners who have significant problems with the local language? whatever the cause? [ snip ] > blmblm> Native speakers "just know" when to use these little > blmblm> words. > >> >> They have to learn it. > >> > blmblm> Sure. But they don't learn it by studying rules. I'm > blmblm> fairly sure about this: > >You don't learn riding a bike by studying physical laws governing >motion, do you? It's like that. Neither can you learn typing by >solely studying the keyboard layout for years. > >And do you think it's impossible for an adult to learn riding a bike, >if he missed it during childhood? I think it's impossible to about the degree I think it's impossible for people to learn a new language as an adult. In other words: Not. It might be more difficult, though. Maybe it would help to say that I'm basing some of what I say about adults learning languages on my recollections of the way I was taught (Spanish and German) in high school, some decades ago. It seemed to involve a lot of study of rules, and not so much immersion. Possibly that's all one can do, in the few hours a week one spends in each class in high school. The first semester of German, the teacher actually tried to start out with something like immersion, just speaking to us in German and playing tapes of others speaking, and refusing to give us books showing correct spelling. That didn't work well for me; maybe it would have if I'd stuck with it. In any case, after a few weeks she abandoned the experiment. Possibly my experience is atypical, and most people who learn a language as an adult take some other approach. The ones who are successful almost surely immerse themselves in the language to some extent. I think we agree about this. [ snip ] > blmblm> I think this is how childhood language acquisition works > blmblm> -- whatever usage you hear a lot as a child comes to > blmblm> "sound right". > >But the same thing happened to me for German when I was already in >adulthood. Only through immersion can you master the highly irregular >and complicated rules such as when to use which type of articles, >which words/phrases to place before others, etc. "Only through immersion". I think that's the key. Studying rules doesn't give you what you need. [ snip ] > blmblm> I know you said you learned it in school, but surely at > blmblm> age five you were learning in a way that approximates how > blmblm> people learn a first language, rather than being taught > blmblm> grammar rules? > >You're wrong, I'm afraid. At schools, we're taught rules, and forced >to memorize length lists of vocabularies (with spellings), irregular >verb, prepositions, phrasal verbs, etc. Not very pleasant, but >effective! At age five? Really. Well, maybe the rumors about how dumbed-down U.S. education is compared to the rest of the world are truer than I thought. You were being given lists of words to memorize, and being taught explicit grammar rules, at age five? In the U.S. I don't think they teach that sort of stuff about any language until somewhat later. I'm not saying I'm surprised you were taught explicit rules. I'm saying I'm surprised if it started at age five. But maybe it did. Like I said, I'm basing what I say on the U.S. educational system of a few decades ago. > blmblm> However, I suspect that you are correct in saying that > blmblm> with enough practice one can develop this sense of what > blmblm> "sounds right" as an adult. > >I have developed such a sense with German, in particular concerning >the word order, use of articles, as well as use of tense/mood. Now this is a nice counterexample to the claim that it is impossible to master a language as an adult. (I don't know that I've made a claim quite that strong, and if I did I shouldn't have, but I'm trying not to argue for the sake of arguing here.) > blmblm> One advantage I think people learning a language as an > blmblm> adult have over those learning it as a child is that they > blmblm> *can* be aware of the underlying structure and rules, > >Well... only when the target language is similar to a language that >this learn is already familiar with. E.g. knowing English helps >learning German. I rote-memorized "see, saw, seen" at school, which >turned out to be useful to help me remember "sehe, sah, gesehen" when >learning German. Or "give, gave, given" -> "gebe/gibt, gab, gegeben". >Also, since I'm already familiar with the concept of article, it helps >with understand what functions are served by articles in German. Of >course, the rules of using articles are slightly different, which >takes effort to learn. > >But knowing English won't help me learn Japanese. The grammars are so >different. e.g. English doesn't have "past tense" for the adjectives; >Japanese does! But the abundance of English loans in modern Japanese >does mean the knowledge of English helps -- once you've figured out >how the Japanese would convert the English sounds into Japanese >syllables. I agree with all of this, but it's not really germane to the point I was trying to make, which was this: "Adults can be taught by some combination of immersion and explicit teaching of grammar. Young children learn by immersion only." I think you're telling me, above, that children as young as five can be taught by the same combination of immersion and rules that works for adults. This surprises me, but your experience seems very different from mine, so it may be true. I also think that once a person has learned two languages and reflected a little bit on how they have different "feature sets" (or something) -- i.e., one language has gendered articles and the other doesn't, or one has very regular spelling and the other doesn't -- then subsequent languages are easier to learn, even if they are quite different from the ones already known. Simply realizing that word-by-word translation doesn't work is a start. Or that's my claim, and I also claim that it's a lot easier for adults to realize this -- at least consciously -- than it is for children. -- | B. L. Massingill | ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
From: Tobias Brox on 20 Dec 2005 11:31
[blmblm(a)myrealbox.com] > It is useful and interesting to hear that Westerners *can* learn to > speak Cantonese intelligibly. I notice, however, that you say "many" > and mention time and effort. In your experience, are there also > Westerners who have significant problems with the local language? > whatever the cause? I was paying attention to a bilingual families mailing list for a while, and I learned that there were several cases where the immigrant parent after several years hadn't learned the local language to any useful level. I'm also believing that there are very few people that have learned a language at adult age to such a perfection that a native speaker could believe the person to be a fellow native speaker. I know quite some people that learned my native language/dialect at adult age, and none of them speaks it perfect. > The first semester of German, the > teacher actually tried to start out with something like immersion, > just speaking to us in German and playing tapes of others speaking, > and refusing to give us books showing correct spelling. That didn't > work well for me; maybe it would have if I'd stuck with it. In any > case, after a few weeks she abandoned the experiment. I think that for immersion to work, it has to be more or less full-time - that is, one really should stay in the country where the language is spoken while learning it. I don't believe "only" immersion would work out for the average adult, one would most probably have to do some studying of glossary and rules using dictionaries, books and/or teachers. I also believe the reason is that the adult brain is more hard-wired, but another plausible reason may be that it is immensily annoying for an average adult to be unable to communicate properly. A baby have to go through it, an adult usually have options. -- This signature has been virus scanned, and is probably safe to read Tobias Brox, 69?42'N, 18?57'E |