[kosta50]

Please don't tell me that just because you're Greek you know the thought process of every Greek

HD, what Kolokotronis is telling you is anything but that. I am a little surprised that you would think that.

What Koloktoronis is telling you is that you can't learn English from a book. Rather, one has to learn the spoken language used by native-speakers. You can't learn the finesse, the "soul" of any language from a book.

There is something called "idiomatic expression," a sentence or a statement that says one thing but really means something else. To someone who is unfamiliar with the culture in which it is used, such an expression either makes no sense or leads to a wrong conclusion. "Being stoned" in the 1st century Middle East did not mean being "high" on some drug.

Nor does being "high" on some drug mean you are really "up" there! All these are "normal" idiomatic expresisons to English-speakers who do not for a moment confuse the actual words with the meaning.

In my six years spent in Japan, I discovered that most Japanese study English from kindergarten onward and never learn it because they interpret English within a Japanese mindset, grammar and linguistic framework.

One particular example stands in my mind, and it has to do with Lark cigarettes. They were advertised with a simple sentence "SPEAK Lark"

At first, this "language" known as "Japanglish" was startling, but then I realized that it was based on a very subtle misconception based on the way the Japanese language is trustucred (which is very, very different from English).

In Japanese, the word "say" or "tell" does not exist. The closest form to it is "speak." So, rather than market the product in the spirit of the English language as "Say 'Lark'" the Japanese simply translated clumsily from the book (after all speak and say are synonymous in a thesaurus, so they must be interchangeable, right?).

As far as the book is concerned, it is "correct," but to English speakers it is obviously flawed, because raw "book logic" is not the living language.

Hence, Koloktronis's message to you, and the Apostolic Church's point to the Protestants, that one cannot simply read the Book in any language and any culture and "know."

Here is another fine exmaple of what I mean by Japanglish. Enjoy. :)

[HarleyD]

I understand that nuances creep into languages. I heard an interesting story of how there is no Chinese word for "repent". This has caused some difficulties for missionaries.

That being said, I doubt if you would say that a scholar like Jerome didn't understand these nuances when he translated the Bible from Greek to Latin, now would you? I also doubt if there are any subtle parts of the Bible that has not been hashed out over and over again in the last 2,000 years by all sorts of experts versed in all sorts of cultures. I have several books on Bible culture sitting on my shelf. There are references on these things.