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Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:31 am
by jason
I've seen this done before on various forums, and the intent is to figure out if a person is a native English speaker or not. The idea is that a person whose first language is not English should be forgiven for certain spelling and grammatical errors, and that a native English speaker should be held to a slightly higher standard.

It's handy, because far too often I find myself reading comments and what not from people, and I struggle their their horrid English. I don't want to say anything, simply because I'm not sure of their language status. However, knowing that someone is a native English speaker lets me know that the person is simply being lazy and can act appropriately. A person who is not a native English speaker would get a bit more understanding, as it's clear that they are trying to write in a language that is not their native tongue.

The idea would be to put this on the signup of the forums, and make it a UCP option that a person could set. This information would be displayed next to their posts, letting people know whether they are a native speaker or not. This would let posts respond with a better understanding that the poor English is simply not just laziness on the posters part.

I'm posting this here for public discussion. Obviously.

As a note: This doesn't mean native English speakers would be held to some sort of strict grammatical code of conduct.

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:42 am
by AbraCadaver
jason wrote:It's handy, because far too often I find myself reading comments and what not from people, and I struggle their their horrid English. I don't want to say anything, simply because I'm not sure of their language status. However, knowing that someone is a native English speaker lets me know that the person is simply being lazy and can act appropriately. A person who is not a native English speaker would get a bit more understanding, as it's clear that they are trying to write in a language that is not their native tongue.

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:46 am
by Charles256
Irony anyone? :)

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:53 am
by aravona
jason wrote:The idea is that a person whose first language is not English should be forgiven for certain spelling and grammatical errors, and that a native English speaker should be held to a slightly higher standard...

A person who is not a native English speaker would get a bit more understanding, as it's clear that they are trying to write in a language that is not their native tongue.
This is true - but take in to context 4 additions to this:

1. English UK
2. English US (aka [to people I know] American)
3. Students of English in international schools may learn either of these versions.
4. Students of English abroad learn a different English to those in the UK - and therefore wonderful little things like colloquialisms often get lost in translation (same for other languages too, but the point here was English :) )

For example if I say ' I'm knackered, my brains sleepy and I've no clue what coding I'm even gazing at anymore, someone gimme a wee bit of help' (no joke I say stuff like that) its not cos I'm lazy or not talking horrid english, its cos I'm from the south east where we twist language into a morbid concoction of complete and utter random junk lol.

I've always liked language discussion topics (my fiance has a BA in English, so hes always moaning bout poor grammer, mostly mine), cos it shows a lot bout different cultures. But theres a line here, somewhere. And that line is when to say 'ok thats just bad typing / few mistakes etc' or ... 'Thats so incomprehensible we need to know their first language'

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:05 am
by AbraCadaver
aravona wrote: For example if I say ' I'm knackered, my brains sleepy and I've no clue what coding I'm even gazing at anymore, someone gimme a wee bit of help' (no joke I say stuff like that) its not cos I'm lazy or not talking horrid english, its cos I'm from the south east where we twist language into a morbid concoction of complete and utter random junk lol.
The southeast of where? That's not southeast Amer'can! :D

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:08 am
by Eran
I'm pretty sure Jason was referring to the blatant use of IM influenced abbreviations and the sort, and not specific types of English. Personally, I don't bother reading posts from people who can't use the full words out of laziness.

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:17 am
by AbraCadaver
pytrin wrote:I'm pretty sure Jason was referring the to the blatant use of IM influenced abbreviations and the sort, and not specific types of English. Personally, I don't bother reading posts from people who can't use the full words out of laziness.

Sorry, can't help myself now. 8)

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:34 am
by jason
pytrin is correct. There is a vast difference between local dialect and blatant laziness. Typos (as can be seen) do happen. However, there is a vast difference between typos and:

"i need help wit this thing hear and its not werking now wut i meen? so can u plz help me wit this!?"

Not that something to such an extent normally occurs. However, it does also go a long way toward determining the intelligence of the person involved as well. As I've said, I've seen this in practice in other places, and one in particular, and the quality of the content was stellar.

My initial concerns would be is this too much an invasion of privacy? Would people be turned off by this? Would the kind of people we want here be turned off by this?

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:00 am
by aravona
AbraCadaver wrote:
The southeast of where? That's not southeast Amer'can! :D
South East England ;)

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:28 am
by Apollo
+1, sounds like a good idea!

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:04 am
by papa
If someone have posted a bad spelled post I usually take a look at "Location" and see wether the person is from an English spoken country or not.

Don't think it matters much if you can see if the person is a native English speaker or not, if the question is not understandable I ask them to clearify or just ignore the post.

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:21 pm
by Weirdan
As long as it's not required field - why not? We could go as far as allowing to specify their first language - non-native speakers often twist English in a specific way influenced by their first language. I know I do :D

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:20 pm
by daedalus__
would be neat if there was a handy button to google translate something from their native language to english because there are a lot of cases where im sure that would be easier to understand than their english.

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:49 am
by Weirdan
daedalus__ wrote:would be neat if there was a handy button to google translate something from their native language to english because there are a lot of cases where im sure that would be easier to understand than their english.
Hmm, let's try:
A post from ru_php livejournal community wrote: Gentlemen
Help lammeru ...
Previously, I used a script here for cutting files:

Code: Select all

<? $ filename1 = "file.htm"; $ fh1 = fopen ($ filename1, "r"); $ buf1 = fread ($ fh1, filesize ($ filename1)); fclose ($ fh1); $ a = explode ( "PART ", $ buf1); for ($ i = 1; $ i <= sizeof ($ a) -1; $ i + +) ($ open = fopen (" $ i.htm "," w "); fwrite ($ open , "$ a [$ i]"); fclose ($ open);)?>
In the original file are placed tags PART, which cuts the script file into separate files.
Now this script for some reason does not work. Why?
It seems it breaks all variables and inserts too many whitespace where it shouldn't, but otherwise looks good to me.

Re: Is English Your First Language?

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:29 pm
by Darhazer
I think location is enough.. seeing that I'm from Bulgaria, you can guess English is not my native language. Of course, If I reallocate myself (to bigger rack :P), than my native language and my location can be different... but if I'm living in england, I'm supposed to speak English good enough, at least after the first few months there.