Re: Advanced English to become official!

On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:25:16 -0700, Muke Tever <hotblack@...> wrote:

>Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>>
>>> Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
>>
>> Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
>> I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
>> away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
>
>I don't think it would have to do with your ethnicity, merely with that
>you are working with a language non-native to you.  If an American-English
>speaker attempted a spelling reform of German, similar remarks could be
>expected.
If it were so, uch a concern could surely be expressed more cosiderately
without making such an ugly ad-hominem attack:

"Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect." -> that's a
rather crude and very unpolite sweeping stake about all Germans being
retarded (or otherwise being mentally incapable) and thus it's impossible
that they can come up with something really good.

About being a native speaker or not - that doesn't say ANYTHING about the
proficiency of the person in question! It's very well possible that a
non-native speaker is better than a native one. Just to name an example:
recently, all native speakers of British English at Oxford university (!)
were tasked to complete a simple "Basic Proficiency test for non-native
speakers" - originally intended to make sure that non-native speakers have
at least a basic grasp of English. However, a whopping 20% of the NATIVE
speakers miserably FAILED in this simple test!

About me not being able to take critic - I can, but not when it's initiated
with a personal attack at me (and not only me, but all Germans in General).
You can't expect me to sit still in that case!

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