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[Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T.
From: |
Duncan |
Subject: |
[Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T. |
Date: |
Sat, 7 Aug 2010 00:58:27 +0000 (UTC) |
User-agent: |
Pan/0.133 (House of Butterflies; GIT a971f44 branch-testing) |
Petr Kovar posted on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:10:52 +0200 as excerpted:
> One might ask whether the new system was respectful to values of
> (traditional) family institution.
>
> Surely, a driving force behind these changes was completely different in
> the Eastern bloc when compared to the U.S. In the East, the people in a
> collectivist system including women were expected to self-sacrifice for
> the well-being of the whole socialist society, whether in the West, the
> personal success in an individualist system was what mattered, I assume.
Very interesting/educational.
Among social commentators and in general society, is the society now
becoming more individually "selfish" to the same degree as in most of the
west, fully rejecting the old Communist social system along with the
politics, or is some sort of middle ground being chosen? How is that
viewed? (In reality, I understand there's still Communist parties and etc
as part of the political system, and I suppose they'd reject the whole new
system, but I'm talking in general, much as the reference to the West must
be in general when discussing the emphasis on individualism.)
>> Incidentally, and even further off-topic, I wish I could speak or just
>> read and write *any* foreign (to me) language as well as you do with
>> English. I would never know from your posting that you were not a
>> native English speaker, and a well educated one at that.
>
> Thank you for your kind words! I still think, though, that my English
> skills are quite limited in terms of phraseology & idioms. But I'm
> working on it! :-)
You are quite fluent, even eloquent. But phraseology and idioms are
certainly a challenge when translating even across dialects.
I grew up (ages 4.5 to 11, 6+ years) in Kenya, East Africa, a former
British colony. That was in the 70s; we were there for the 10th
anniversary of independence, in 1973, so they hadn't been independent
long, and the English spoken there was far closer to "The Queen's English"
than in the US. I /still/ think of "the boot" instead of "the trunk", and
understand "bonnet" tho I think "hood". And spelling... metre/centre vs
meter/center, coloUr, etc.
But the event that really brought home the "issues with idioms" to my mom,
and thru her retelling, to the whole family (tho this is English/other
misunderstanding, not a an en_US/en_UK thing), was a discussion she had
with one Kenyan young man (this was a secondary school and teacher
training college, so... teens). They were joking, and my mom remarked
"You must be pulling my leg, now." (The idiom indicates a deliberate
exaggeration beyond credulity or tale as a joke, basically seeing how
credulous the hearer is.[1]) Given the context of the thread, it's
interesting this comes up now, as he thought he was being accused of
improper contact!
Obviously I was young at the time, and this was well before the
victimizations I mentioned earlier, but the event left an impression of
the dangers of misinterpreted across cultures idioms that has (obviously,
given my recounting of the story) remained with me to this day.
One of the other effects I've personally noted over the years, from my
time there, where I was exposed to other cultures (including Indian) as
well, and from later cross-cultural experiences (Navajo Indian, Central
American Spanish) is that while I only picked up a smattering of words
from all the various languages (my younger sister did far better, and
actually took medicine in Mexico, she's a doctor), I'm /far/ more
tolerant/understanding of "foreign" word order than most native
English-only speakers. "Yoda-speak" comes off as slightly stilted but it
isn't at all as difficult to understand for me as it seems to be for
others, and I appreciate listening to and reading non-native English
speakers who haven't quite mastered it to the degree you have (I really
had no idea until you mentioned it, that you weren't a native English
speaker, you're that fluent, only the name giving a hint, and I don't pay
as much attention to that as many do), as it often gives me fresh insights
into word or phrase meaning that I'd not get, otherwise. (I love reading
direct order-preserved word-for-word Ancient Greek to English, for
instance, tho order-preserved ancient Hebrew to English is rather harder
as the order is FAR different, to the point I have to work hard enough at
just basic parsing, that I miss the nuances available to me when reading
from the Greek.)
---
[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pulling%20my%20leg%22
--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., (continued)
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Steven D'Aprano, 2010/08/05
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Alan Meyer, 2010/08/05
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Steven D'Aprano, 2010/08/06
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Petr Kovar, 2010/08/05
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Alan Meyer, 2010/08/05
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Duncan, 2010/08/05
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Petr Kovar, 2010/08/06
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T.,
Duncan <=
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Travis, 2010/08/06
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T., Duncan, 2010/08/07
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Duncan, 2010/08/05
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Petr Kovar, 2010/08/06
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Steven D'Aprano, 2010/08/05
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Alan Meyer, 2010/08/05
- Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Steven D'Aprano, 2010/08/06
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Duncan, 2010/08/06
- [Pan-users] Re: updated info, Zing, 2010/08/03
[Pan-users] Re: updated info, Zing, 2010/08/03