[Brenda]

Donny_Brasco Donny_Brasco:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

If I walk into a store or resteraunt and can't buy anything cause it's all chinese to me (litterally), and the cashier or anyone else working there isn't fluent enough in English (or French in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Eastern Ontario) to help me out, the place should be shut down outright.

I don't think you do your argument any dignity when you can't be bothered to spell "restaurant" and "literally" properly.

Like fuck, you want people to speak French or English so you can be happy yet you butcher it yourself.

[Canadian_Mind]

Donny_Brasco Donny_Brasco:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

If I walk into a store or resteraunt and can't buy anything cause it's all chinese to me (litterally), and the cashier or anyone else working there isn't fluent enough in English (or French in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Eastern Ontario) to help me out, the place should be shut down outright.

I don't think you do your argument any dignity when you can't be bothered to spell "restaurant" and "literally" properly.

Like fuck, you want people to speak French or English so you can be happy yet you butcher it yourself.

So? You going to hold that against me? The last time I took an English course where spelling mattered was back in grade 7. Since then, i've typed everything and used a spellchecker, which isn't on the forum. When you don't use something for a decade, it tends to fade from memory, in this case my spelling.

Hwo aubot I tpye whit lal teh ltertes ni teh wrdos lal meixd pu jsut ot fcuk whit ya?

[Brenda]

That's bullshit. It just shows your lack of knowledge of the English language. And, fyi, some people have absolutely no problem reading your mixed up letters...

[Freakinoldguy]

Scape Scape:

Nope. Read again, and this has already been posted:

$1:

The proposal notes that a Mandarin program would be ineligible for government funding, so a "not-for-profit parent group" would fundraise to support the program.

They can fundraise till hell freezes over, but the fact remains that if it's an immersion program sanctioned by the Government of BC they get public funding and if it's a private school, as some have suggested, they still get Gov't funding just at a reduced rate.

Here's the facts about funding as posted by "Our Kids" private school website.

$1:

More than 85 per cent of private schools in B.C. are partially funded by the provincial government-receiving between 35 and 50 per cent per cent of the public school per-pupil grant, depending on the category of the school.

Private and independent schools receiving government grants must employ B.C. certified teachers and offer educational programs consistent with meeting the outcomes of the provincial mandated curriculum.

Independent schools account for about 10 per cent of B.C.'s K-12 student population. Independent and private schools receive more than $150 million in funding annually. It would cost the B.C. government an estimated $750 million to $1 billion of new capital funding to accommodate all independent and private school students in public schools.

So either way they get funded for a program that may or may not be open to all students, depending on how it's operated. To say that the parents are going to raise all the money is more than a bit of a misnomer.

[Canadian_Mind]

Brenda Brenda:

That's bullshit. It just shows your lack of knowledge of the English language. And, fyi, some people have absolutely no problem reading your mixed up letters...

That was the point of it. You don't have to spell words right to effectively communicate in any given language. I don't give a damn if someone spells everythign backwards or their accent/lack of complete knowledge prevents them from pronouncing words properly or making grammatically correct sentances, atleast they made the effort to accomidate one of the official languages of their adopted home.

And you can't expect anyone to be 100% perfect. Don't tell me you've never spelled a word wrong since becoming fluent in your native language.

Edited to expand upon a point.

[ShepherdsDog]

Funny, I was marked on spelling all the way through junior high, highschool and university. A professor said to us once, "It doesn't matter how brilliant or earth shaking your point is, if you can't convey it in a literate manner. People will focus on the grammatical and spelling errors and ignore the message."

[Brenda]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Brenda Brenda:

That's bullshit. It just shows your lack of knowledge of the English language. And, fyi, some people have absolutely no problem reading your mixed up letters...

That was the point of it. You don't have to spell words right to effectively communicate in any given language. I don't give a damn if someone spells everythign backwards or their accent/lack of complete knowledge prevents them from pronouncing words properly or making grammatically correct sentances, atleast they made the effort to accomidate one of the official languages of their adopted home.

And you can't expect anyone to be 100% perfect. Don't tell me you've never spelled a word wrong since becoming fluent in your native language.

Edited to expand upon a point.

Other than typo's? I never spell anything wrong in Dutch... And I do my utmost best to spell correctly in English. I'm kind of a nut that way...

[Donny_Brasco]

You can’t even be bothered to understand and write your own language correctly, yet insist that others do. Smells of hypocrisy.

How about if you walk into a place where they you cannot find a way to communicate, you move on and shop elsewhere. Me, I’ll find a way to get what I want and thank you for leaving because people different than me who speak other languages don’t threaten or intimidate or frustrate me. I actually prefer that people have differences. It makes life more interesting and amusing.

[Brenda]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Funny, I was marked on spelling all the way through junior high, highschool and university. A professor said to us once, "It doesn't matter how brilliant or earth shaking your point is, if you can't convey it in a literate manner. People will focus on the grammatical and spelling errors and ignore the message."

I was shocked when my daughter came home with a test full of spellingerrors, that didn't matter... Spelling not important???

[raydan]

Right Shep, bad spelling or grammar bugs me out.

Few people are perfect though.
I think that reading is the key to good spelling and grammar. Stop playing video games and watching movies, read a book.

I get mixed up sometimes between French and English.
Spelling, words and expressions... I know it but sometimes I still can't see it.

And if you guys and girls think English is bad, try French.
I know, there are probably other languages that are harder, but French grammar is a bitch.

[Brenda]

I find German even worse than French... Although German is more linked to Dutch than French is... I speak both, but it is pretty rusty! No way of being flawless there

[ShepherdsDog]

Brenda Brenda:

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Funny, I was marked on spelling all the way through junior high, highschool and university. A professor said to us once, "It doesn't matter how brilliant or earth shaking your point is, if you can't convey it in a literate manner. People will focus on the grammatical and spelling errors and ignore the message."

I was shocked when my daughter came home with a test full of spellingerrors, that didn't matter... Spelling not important???

That's a major flaw in the Whole Language approach. Many younger teachers today went to school when this was first brought in, and their own spelling is atrocious. Phonics and Spelling were major parts of the Language Arts program when I was in elementary school. On any essay that I did in highschool, spelling and grammar were always part of the grade you received. But, we had streaming when I was in highschool, and there were different expectations for those in the academic courses, as opposed to those in the general and modified programs. People need to rely less on spellchecker and more on their own abilities.

[Canadian_Mind]

Donny_Brasco Donny_Brasco:

You can’t even be bothered to understand and write your own language correctly, yet insist that others do. Smells of hypocrisy.

Guess you were so hawkish about finding spelling errors that you missed this little gem (only to prove sheps point )

Just to spoil your thunder, I underlined the spelling errors.

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

I don't give a damn if someone spells everythign backwards or their accent/lack of complete knowledge prevents them from pronouncing words properly or making grammatically correct sentances, atleast they made the effort to accomidate one of the official languages of their adopted home.

$1:

How about if you walk into a place where they you cannot find a way to communicate, you move on and shop elsewhere. Me, I’ll find a way to get what I want and thank you for leaving because people different than me who speak other languages don’t threaten or intimidate or frustrate me. I actually prefer that people have differences. It makes life more interesting and amusing.

I do. My point is that I shouldn't have too. In my country the Official languages are English and French, and I had better be accomdated in one of the two for that reason.

Life is certainly more interesting when people have differences, but there comes a point when it is simply too much.

Brenda Brenda:

Other than typo's? I never spell anything wrong in Dutch... And I do my utmost best to spell correctly in English. I'm kind of a nut that way...

And it's your right to be.

Brenda Brenda:

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Funny, I was marked on spelling all the way through junior high, highschool and university. A professor said to us once, "It doesn't matter how brilliant or earth shaking your point is, if you can't convey it in a literate manner. People will focus on the grammatical and spelling errors and ignore the message."

I was shocked when my daughter came home with a test full of spellingerrors, that didn't matter... Spelling not important???

Funny, spelling didn't matter at all going through highschool. Glarring errors were pointed out, but I was never docked marks. I was taught what mattered was the content of the message and how deep you thought about it, not how correct your words were. Hwere we supposed to think as deeply about our points with the distraction of focusing on spelling?

Granted, my English classes from grades 9-12 were more like philosiphy classes than my previous English classes.

[Brenda]

It's, to me, incredibly stupid that spelling is not important. How can you get your message through if you spell "through" as "threw"? I've seen it, it's awful! Decipher first before you can get to the message is too much work, and your message will be lost.

[raydan]

$1:

All that aside, the British Foreign Office conducted a language study recently and concluded that the most difficult language to learn is Basque, spoken in parts of Spain and France, followed closely by Hungarian, which has 35 cases or noun forms. On the other hand, German and Russian languages use a punctuation system said to be among the most difficult ones in the world. Languages that use characters may seem hard to read and write to users of the Roman alphabet, but they are not always that difficult. Experts agree that Chinese and Korean can be learned rather easily by speakers of Western languages; Vietnamese and Japanese, however, are much more complex.

While many native speakers see to forget this, English is actually quite difficult to learn because of pronunciation issues and irregular verbs; in English, many words are spelled the same but sound different depending on the meaning. This makes the English language hard to understand even for people whose native tongue is a related language.

EDIT: I've always thought that English was difficult to learn because of the number of idiomatic expressions.