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After having met Matthias, I find myself reading his e-mails with my best impersonation of his accent, and now they all make perfect sense! I know that I'm guilty of assuming the meanings of and/or misusing musical terminology, having not been classically trained. -Hans At 16:09 26/09/2002, you wrote: >Dr. Z said... >>I think most people don't even think about what words literally mean; >>they just mimic what they hear other people say. > >At 7:18 PM -0300 9/26/02, Matthias Grob wrote: >>This is especially true for foreign languages. > >When I wrote that I wasn't even thinking of it as a second-language >problem. I know many native speakers of American English who misuse words >because they hear others misuse them or because they make an assumption >about the meaning. But you are so right about the problems that arise >when >trying to muddle through in a foreign language. I myself, regrettably, >have no facility with other than my native tongue, but I've taken the >equivalent of first-semester courses in German, French, and Spanish and I >had three years of Latin in high school. I've also traveled enough to >hear >English spoken with a wide range of competency. In these cases is works >fine because we're just trying to muddle through and get some work done >or >enjoy a social situation. One thing I find myself doing is to fall into >the cadence of the other person's language, so I end up speaking English >with the other person's accent. It's quite unintentional! > >But when the conversation is in ASCII most of the time there IS no >cultural context, and there is certainly no aural sense of an accent. >What >might in person be a charming "flavor" to the conversation seems in plain >text to be a bit clumsy. This is sometimes misinterpreted, and proper >respect isn't always given to the foreign writer of English. I've been >guilty of it. Most of the time there's an easy way to avoid making that >anglocentric mistake - just look at the return address. >-- > >______________________________________________________________ >Richard Zvonar, PhD >(818) 788-2202 >http://www.zvonar.com >http://RZCybernetics.com