Posted on 02/10/2015 6:30:03 AM PST by C19fan
Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less to do with teaching style and quality than with language. Simply put, written English is great for puns but terrible for learning to read or write. It’s like making children from around the world complete an obstacle course to fully participate in society but requiring the English-speaking participants to wear blindfolds.
Adults who have already mastered written English tend to forget about its many quirks. But consider this: English has 205 ways to spell 44 sounds. And not only can the same sounds be represented in different ways, but the same letter or letter combinations can also correspond to different sounds. For example, "cat," "kangaroo," "chrome," and "queue" all start with the same sound, and "eight" and "ate" sound identical. Meanwhile, "it" doesn’t sound like the first syllable of "item," for instance, and "cough" doesn’t rhyme with either "enough," "through," "furlough" or "bough." Even some identically spelled words, such as "tear," can be pronounced differently and mean different things.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The Brits can take perfectly good English words that they spell the same as we do, and mispronounce them, instead of pronouncing the correct way as we do in the US.
The Brits can take perfectly good English words that they spell the same as we do, and mispronounce them, instead of pronouncing the correct way as we do in the US.
Yes, English spelling can be confusing, but try French with its grammatical forms that have long been gone in modern English. ( I was an undergraduate French major) We have known for decades that kids can be taught to read English using phonics and spelling comes with reading. My kids were sadly taught in the primary grades the rage at the time in education... spelling any way you want. Thankfully there is spell check in word processing as neither learned to spell.
Perhaps in the art world, renderings of males, might be referenced as “he”, such as when gazing at Michelangelo’s “David”, “he”, when commenting on the statue itself, wouldn’t be out of place.
English is the language of the land. Learn it.
Not a bad idea.
We had a student exchange student from Argentina many years ago. She told us they learn cursive first because the pencil need not leave the paper.
Then when they get to high school they learn manuscript.
Exactly. The Authorised version of the Bible is no problem to me.
Incidentally, my English professors can’t seem to teach the class with much proficiency. Add to that an essay assignment about something I don’t experience often enough to remember, and it’s a total wash...
I could see artworks depicting a person of a particular gender honored with a he or a she, though the more common convention is probably to refer to it by name e.g. David or Mona. Would a sculpture of a group be called “they” even if it was done in one piece?
It’s one thing to read Elizabethan English, another thing to fathom it.
I probably would. It might depend on your view of he personification, and enumeration, of inanimate objects.
Guess I've got to relate a story.
My daughter, youngest of 3 kids, started the first year Kindergarten was attached to public school circa 1972. We went to the 'meet the teacher' the night before school's first day.
I proudly told the teacher I had already taught my daughter to read .
Boy! did she jump me about my teaching daughter the wrong way. She would be ruined for life.
Needless to say daughter loved to read, was in gifted classes.
Something like a sculpture of the Iwo Jima flag planting scene could be called a “they.” But so might a sculpture of dominos falling.
Heh heh, Teacher, we’ll see.
Some educators get pretty full of themselves as the only possible valid guides.
Especially if your first language is Spanish, or Punjabi, or Farsi.
Ghoti.
PJ
I travelled in China with a Chinese friend who grew up in a small village in southern China. We were in a cab in Shanghai touring the city and my friend was communicating with the driver with the help of a pencil and paper.
Evidently the spoken language in Shanghai is so different from what he learned that it was necessary to write out many terms in order to be understood.
Inef-ghoti-ent ???
Just before the school year started we recommended to the school staff that my daughter be placed in first grade instead of kindergarten.
The school assured us that there would plenty of activities to occupy her and that she would be quite content.
Six weeks later they suggested that we move her to first grade. It seems that the other students were spending their break times insisting that my daughter read stories to them.
leftists are insane and everything that they think is insane
Our language has so many variations and exceptions because it is a reflection of the “melting pot” of all the cultures that came here and made contributions that lasted. Once upon a time, the Left celebrated this (or at least gave it lip service). Now they whine about it.
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