And the point is that you are not writing in standard English and are technically misusing adjectives and adverbs. Well is an adverb and good is an adjective.
‘Speaking good Chinese’ describes the Chinese. Speaking Chinese well’ describes the speaking.
Perhaps your failure to realize this is a result of laziness or an indication of how the education system failed for people like you who now use imprecise language that can cause confusion to those who use ‘standard’ English.
Or, perhaps, language evolves and changes, new words added all the time. New phrases, concepts and structure. The language considered ‘standard’ and ‘proper’ today would be seen as barbaric to English speakers just 100 years ago who were the defenders of proper English.
How well would people from rural Vermont, Appalachia, New York City, West London and Cajun Louisianna understand each other? Which, if any, of these dialects are the ‘proper’ ones? I know I’d probably think it’s the one that most closely resembles the way I speak as it makes the most sense to me, but I’m not the standard bearer for the one true language. I don’t speak a language anywhere close to ‘standard’ oxford English, but if an editor of the Oxford University press were to question my intelligence based on the way I used language, I would probably tell him or her to f off.
Hell, a simple grammatical rule regarding the proper use of adjectives and adverbs has caused this back and forth with no progress even though the grammatical rule is available online with a simple google search, yet you are still insisting that you are correct. You are correct in that it is obviously part of the language since it’s being used daily in this way, but it certainly can’t be considered ‘standard’ or ‘proper’ English, although it more than likely will be should the rule continue to be ignored by those who speak the language causing those to define what is proper to change their definition based on the way the language is actually being used.
“And the point is that you are not writing in standard English and are technically misusing adjectives and adverbs. Well is an adverb and good is an adjective.
Perhaps your failure to realize this is a result of laziness or an indication of how the education system failed for people like you who now use imprecise language that can cause confusion to those who use ‘standard’ English.”
Thank you for making my point even if you don’t understand what you said.
“Good” is an adjective that modifies “Chinese(the language)”. “Well” is an adverb that modifies “speak.”
As far as your personal insults, I’ve taught English at the college level for over 30 years. I am rarely confused by standard English although I often see people with poor reading comprehension and logic skills who are confused by things such as the usage and meanings of adverbs and adjectives.
Note to self: Try to avoid grammar arguments with and never insult any FReeper who is familiar enough with British literature to have a tagline that's a quote describing a dead insane man on a stretcher and taken from Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a novel that explores the contrast between savagery and civilization.
;-)