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Knowledge of the english language.

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Alright first of all, I just want to make clear that this is NOT to insult/offend anyone.
The one thought that I simply cannot let go of is why so many people on the hive seem to have such poor knowledge of the language even though it is being taught in schools, seen on TV, all over the Internet, everywhere on Ventrilo/Teamspeak, and yet people somehow accomplish writing sentences that make no sense whatsoever.
Yet again, this is not to start a flame war but merely to hear the explanations of some people so I can possibly wrap my mind around it show a bit more understanding.
 
Level 22
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Because lots of people don't really care about grammar, as long as it gets their point across. And I'm fine with that.

But I think it's funny how you're acting like people only talk like this on Hive (well, that's what it seems like to me). The thing is, it's like this on every forum.

And most of this site's users, including me, are European. So it's not our first language.
 
Level 17
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because you don't need perfect grammar you just have to make it so people can understand what your talking about.
wuld u prafer i telk lyk dis? you can still understand what i'm typing can't you?
all that matters is the message gets across.
 

fladdermasken

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The one thought that I simply cannot let go of is why so many people on the hive seem to have such poor knowledge of the language even though it is being taught in schools, seen on TV, all over the Internet, everywhere on Ventrilo/Teamspeak, and yet people somehow accomplish writing sentences that make no sense whatsoever.
In this example, the message isn't perceived. And I can agree, I've had some serious trouble understanding some select posts.
The reason he said on the hive is because he posted the thread right here. Had he posted it on another forum, I'm sure he would've stated said other forum's name instead.
 
Level 3
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Those who mention that English is not their native language either haven't read my post or confirm my statement btw.
 
Those who mention that English is not their native language either haven't read my post or confirm my statement btw.

The fact that in some countries, English is not taught in schools or seen on their normal TV, thus they are making a perfectly good case as to why they may get their sentances wrong, additionally, the internet is full of data and when you search something, it's obviously going to return results (normally) in the language used to search so 'all over the Internet' applies to every language and isn't really suitable for making a case of why people don't speak english perfectly.
 
Level 15
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Among other things, the English language is difficult to use "properly". I live in America and have been speaking it for about 10 years and am majoring in it in college, but I still make mistakes when it comes to thing like nominative objective pronouns etc.
 
Level 22
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Thank god someone finally said it!

Every time I see someone say "I ur liek modles, nice day u have for me yes?.:D" I have a seizure.

@Ramza: People may not care about grammar, but they often times try writing sentences that make no sense. When someone comments on a thread I make and doesn't know how to say what they are trying to say in English why not just use a translater from their language to mine or yours?

Those people who have no or little knowledge of the English language make it sound like they live in a country like North Korea where you are not allowed to even think English.
 
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@PostAbove: Complete bullshit, I can tell you have little basic knowledge of the English language. I will translate into German and back from German into English to demonstrate translation softwares' accuracy.

Before Translation: Hello my name is Henrik, and I am going to take over your planet using the extremely capable engineering skills that I possess.

German: Hallo ist mein Name Henrik, und ich bin ein Gehen, Ihren Planeten unter Verwendung der extrem fähigen Technikfähigkeiten zu übernehmen, die ich besitze.

English: Hello is my name Henrik, and I am going taking over your planet using the extremely capable technique abilities which I possess.

One word changed.. "Engineering" became "Technique."
 
Level 10
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Translators tend to be waaaay more accurate when you do English->other->English than when you do Other->English, because the errors from English->Other remain and become correct when badly translated back. You can't rely on that.

Translation:
Hi, my name is Cheese Pops. I've lived here in Cheese country since I was a kid. For the rest, so my house looks like a giant neon-green Emmental.
Why can not I get it here translator to make some uglier bug??! Well, the last sentence here showed that Google Translate can get some of the quite spoken Danish grammar completely choking. But if nothing else is it to understand.

The order of certain words in this translation makes it a little difficult to understand here and there. But I don't think it's incomprehensible.
 
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[/QUOTE]
Before Translation: Hello my name is Henrik, and I am going to take over your planet using the extremely capable engineering skills that I possess.

German: Hallo ist mein Name Henrik, und ich bin ein Gehen, Ihren Planeten unter Verwendung der extrem fähigen Technikfähigkeiten zu übernehmen, die ich besitze.
One word changed.. "Engineering" became "Technique."[/QUOTE]

You dont speek german do you? Maybe i should translate the german text your translator translated.

Hello is my name Henrik, and I am a walking, your planet under usage of the extreme capable technicabilitys to take over, that I posses.


I am german and i wouldnt understand the translated text without reading your correct Text. If you do not believe me, ask any other german in ths forum.

@Raven0 You are very naive thinking tyhis way.
 
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Level 14
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From what I've heard from others, English is among the most difficult languages to understand.

Mostly because of it's structure and the excepetions which apply as long these exceptions over here occur, of course, with the exception that there's another tiny little exception over here...

This is for proper English, the kind no one but english majors speak.

//\\oo//\\
 
Level 9
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Well mastery of english depends on (For Non-english people)
a.Whether you learn it in school
b.From which class you learn it in school
c.The priority given to english over other languages
 
Level 17
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It's easy for someone who is just learning it to get confused.
There are a lot of words with the same sounds or the same word with different meanings.
Like Desert - To leave someone or huge landscape that restricts growth of most plants.
I don't blame some people for having bad English, it's hard to get sometimes.
 
Level 3
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We're on the Internet. Lots of people don't really care that much about how their writing looks, because they don't give a living crap if people judge them on that basis. Personally, it annoys me. But meh...

Its not a matter of caring/not caring its a matter of knowing and not knowing.
I doubt anyone would voluntarily look like a retard.
 
Level 22
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Well mastery of english depends on (For Non-english people)
a.Whether you learn it in school
b.From which class you learn it in school
c.The priority given to english over other languages

Well, all we did at school was sing shitty songs.
I've learned English from video games and movies. And I'm guessing lots of people did.

Mostly because of its structure

Fixed. ;P
 
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I have a German friend whom I keep in touch with fairly often.. And he said he likes English so much more than German being as simple as it is.. English is really just a compilation of eight other languages with a simple sentence structure..
 
Level 6
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Riot you're right, for a german English is easy to learn because it's just an easy version of german which a few different words(an pronounciation (hope i spelled this right)). For most languages with latin as basic (eg Frence,Spain,Itali...) it is very hard to learn because of very different phrase structure.

I know this cause i have to learn french and english.

And Boris about exeption here and exeptions there in English. This is nothing against french^^
 
Level 23
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@PostAbove: Complete bullshit, I can tell you have little basic knowledge of the English language. I will translate into German and back from German into English to demonstrate translation softwares' accuracy.

Before Translation: Hello my name is Henrik, and I am going to take over your planet using the extremely capable engineering skills that I possess.

German: Hallo ist mein Name Henrik, und ich bin ein Gehen, Ihren Planeten unter Verwendung der extrem fähigen Technikfähigkeiten zu übernehmen, die ich besitze.

English: Hello is my name Henrik, and I am going taking over your planet using the extremely capable technique abilities which I possess.

One word changed.. "Engineering" became "Technique."

Now this German sentence is complete bullshit, thank you for showing how good those work.
 
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Translators usually only create problems when they confuse synonyms with each other in different languages.. Like for instance, the word Schnell is heavily interchangeable in German, and could possibly be confused because of its many uses..

I have found translators to be most accurate in several tests.. I think people are being haters by saying they don't work at all. Like M0rbid for instance..
 
Level 23
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There is nothing to explain, the german sentence that was the result of the translation are the words of the english sentence, randomly placed and translated out of the content, without any grammatical structure that could be called correct in any way, leaving the sentence as a totally chaotic senseless and just wrong fail.

German -- > English:

"Hello is my name Hendrik, and I am a walk, your planet using the extreme skilled technical skills to adapt, that I own."


'nuff said
 

Dr Super Good

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The problem with the translators is not their translating, its that they try and restructure sentences and in doing so make them completly wrong.

If you translate each sentance individually, from english to german in the case I tested, the result is a lot more understandable. If you place all sentances together, suddenly it mixes content from the previous sentence with the current one which has nothing to do with it.

Natural languages are notouriously difficult to handle, and to me it looks like a major bug currently in circulation causing this.
 
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The problem with the translators is not their translating, its that they try and restructure sentences and in doing so make them completly wrong.

If you translate each sentance individually, from english to german in the case I tested, the result is a lot more understandable. If you place all sentances together, suddenly it mixes content from the previous sentence with the current one which has nothing to do with it.

Natural languages are notouriously difficult to handle, and to me it looks like a major bug currently in circulation causing this.

They didn't know the difference between "their" and "they're".
I shit you not.
 
Level 6
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I don't have a problem with poor grammar as long as I can understand what is being said. The internet puts everyone in the world at arms distance, figuratively speaking. Different languages and dialects are sure to end up in the same place. Translators can be a useful tool and I don't have that hard a time understanding them even when their sentences are a bit jumbled. I enjoy being able to converse with other people even when they don't speak my language and I think that it's a technological wonder that I can.

That being said, I do find it difficult to fathom why some people choose to be unintelligible.

Back on the other side...I find 1337 5p34k amusing (most internet memes amuse me) and use it on occasion. Sue me.

But if no one can understand you, are you not just wasting forum space? I think so.
 
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Did you ever stop to consider that if you lived in a country where people didn't speak English, movies and shows and such are also generally not in English?

And that generally if you can't speak or read English very well, you would generally stick to websites and watch TV shows which are in your native language? That probably your closer friends, who you would go on things like Ventrilo and Teamspeak with would probably also be native speakers of your language?

Seriously, acting like everyone should be able to be completely fluent in English is just arrogant.
 
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Because the English taught at school in the UK (or Scotland atleast) is a piece of garbage and does not cover spelling and grammer much at all.
You can always learn outside of school. Anyway, grammar and spelling should be easy for anyone to just pick up without specific practice. I pretty much ignored any of the grammar taught in school (well, before grade nine at least) and still speak and write English perfectly.

What does bother me is when people spell words incorrectly when they're on a computer. Especially when they justify their terrible spelling with dyselxia, et cetera.
 
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You can always learn outside of school. Anyway, grammar and spelling should be easy for anyone to just pick up without specific practice. I pretty much ignored any of the grammar taught in school (well, before grade nine at least) and still speak and write English perfectly.

What does bother me is when people spell words incorrectly when they're on a computer. Especially when they justify their terrible spelling with dyselxia, et cetera.

are you a native english speaker? because it's a lot easier to pick it up when you're surrounded by it versus someone who isn't.
 
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Feugo is right.And even if you learn it outside school,it wont be as good as the english you will learn in school (fluency)
 
in 10 yrs or so, china will be the new super power and then everyone will have to speak chinese. china or whatever other super power that outnumbers the english speaking population in term of importance.

dont be a conceited idiot. the amount of knowledge that the educational system will provide will not compete with a native speaker who have been raised with it. obviously a native speaker can clearly see what is wrong with any given sentence but it isnt so obvious to the non-native speaker. no matter how good they are.

by the way. we had almost the exact same thread except some smartass thought it would be funny if he pointed out that some mods made grammar mistakes. i dont remember what happened to that guy though.
 
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