On the other hand an occasional foreign language diary for people to have fun in shouldn't be that big a deal (though other than French, German, Spanish, and maybe Russian I don't thing there's a critical mass of readers for it to work). I saw afew's diary as a chance to have fun by practising my very rusty written French. I also think one should be indulgent of references to articles and occasional extended quotes from such articles as long as they are accompanied by a brief summary. There's interesting stuff out there in other languages and translation requires a significant effort. That said I always do translations when I quote from Polish articles, as opposed to French or German since I want more than just two other people to understand what I'm writing.
So I guess to sum up, I think writing languages other than English is a losing game in terms of getting readership.
I honestly believe that this is an illusion created by English-speakers moving in certain educated circles. I too tought like you, or at least I thought it's true for my and most of the previous generation, but then met a surprising number of educated people who didn't knew more than "play" and "rec" in English, especially engineers. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The population of the ten new member states may be less English-speaking, but the younger generations are Anglophone there, too. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
So it is the least demanding language for people to make mistakes in. I believe that the idiosyncracies of English will be slowly ironed out - with consistent spelling, for instance. The Yanks have already taken out the surplus 'u's from words like 'flavor', for instance - and that is fine by me. I even use' thru' for 'through' in SMS. SMS, as we have discussed before, is a major influence on the streamlining of the written language among teens. When every button push is a labor, there's a drive to elide.
So I see the development of yet another form of English - simplified web English, that will be easier to use for people for whom English is not a first language. It won't stop Colman writing mellifluous prose, it will be another alternative for communication. You can't be me, I'm taken
I guess my difficulties in spoken English (I emphasize spoken - heard English is easier, I watch films in original language) come from two sources: the absolute disassociation of written and spoken words, and the uncertainty of pronouncement (the 'th' in say "think" is difficult enough would major English dialects not pronounce it very differently). In contrast, in German or French (or Spanish), tough they are Indo-European too (my mother tongue is not), I only have to learn a few differing rules, and almost all voices are familiar.
Now what I don't get is how say Swiss Germans don't trip their tongue on "thought", "calluous", "durable" and so on... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But, many times you write "tough" when I think you mean "though":
In contrast, in German or French (or Spanish), tough they are Indo-European too (my mother tongue is not), I only have to learn a few differing rules, and almost all voices are familiar.
Sometimes this confuses me in comments you have written. (Where the context is less obvious.)
Hope this doesn't come off as a patronising comment.
Look, I am not an easily insultable poster, I am a tough guy :-)
No indeed, thanks for the correction - I guess the closeness to "thought" confused me enough to not even notice that I write two different words identically...
Just the other day, the ET spellchecker taught me that it's "occasion" on "ocassion", and that there is no such thing as "completition"... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Please don't be offended, DoDo, if I jump in here. I can't myself think of a major dialectal difference in pronunciation of the "th" in "think". It's an unvoiced "th" that most English speakers pronounce in the same way (with a possible slight tendency towards an aspirate "t" in some Irish accents?)
The disassociation of spelling and pronunciation, on the other hand, there you have my sympathy. But I look at Hungarian words and your explanation of how to pronounce them and marvel... ;)
The French practice is not undifferent from the Hungarian, often-used English (and German and Latin) words are Hungarianised in spelling. This is partially the case in Germany, too - tough there is a more recent trend of the opposite, excessive Anglicisms. There are even English-stemmed word creations that make no sense to a native English speaker (this is lampooned as Neudeutsch). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
