University teaching shows why Thais' command of English is so abysmal!

[soalbundy]

19 hours ago, Loeilad said:

"Self education beats school by a long way" only an uneducated person could come up with a comment like that.

you ought to take up gardening, calms the nerves no end. I ended my career as head of a graphic design department at a well known automobile company in Germany, I worked on CAD-CAM computers (self taught) among many other systems. Perhaps you are a frustrated young English teacher with a low paying position, whatever, you ought to find yourself a cause or a person worthy of your anger.

[The Dark Lord]

On 07/12/2016 at 5:53 PM, rijb said:

 

Did you learn that in Facebook?

No, it was one of those things called independant thought

[The Dark Lord]

On 07/12/2016 at 6:02 PM, Shawn0000 said:

 

How about Encyclopedia Britannica?  According to a study by Nature Journal they fair equally with regard to accuracy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

 

What are these flaws that a smart guy like you can pick up on but the peer reviewers tasked by Nature all missed?

Dear Shawn0000,

 

sadly life ice is too short to get involved in what could easily become a nonsensical discussion. Wiki, I understand us updated by gen pop and as such us a prime target for is information, slanted information etc whereas the Encyclopedia blah blah has to meet certain minimum standards.

 

help me out mate work it out yourself

 

cheers

[EnlightenedAtheist]

22 hours ago, Loeilad said:

As I said, I'm not that convinced that spelling is the big problem with English....unless you insist on one particular code.

 

You are not convinced or you do not want to be. The website links provided cite evidence after evidence that English spelling is a mess. I mean --just to take one choice one--  1/2 of Britons can't spell common words, 40 % of Britons rely on autocorrect (telegraph)) To be sure, this is not just about Brits. Most Commonwealth speakers would be equally clueless. I read somewhere that English-speakers are so scared of making spelling errors that they simplify their writing. Has spell-checking improved this tendency, I don't know? Have you checked illiteracy rates lately? But, here is the thing. It is NOT  because English-speakers are dumb. It is NOT because teachers are dumb. It is  because the English spelling system is DUMB. The evidence is incontrovertible. Speak to any HONEST linguistics professors (assuming the degree is legit), it is a fact. If writing in English is hard for native-speakers, imagine how hard it is for non-native speakers to decode words off a piece of paper. As explained, if a teacher focuses on learning English by just speaking and listening modes, students' skills in writing and decoding will become abysmal. Vice versa, if one were to completely focus on writing and reading, naturally students' ability to speak and understand conversations will regress. Extremes are usually not recommended and in teaching it is not. Most teachers use all four modes and, predictably, students are confused. The stubbornness of English-speakers to fix the rotten state of the |English spelling system IZ abysmal. There seems to be this insistence that everyone must cope with the mediocrity of the system when it is really the mediocrity of the system that should be addressed. In other words, it is high time that we stop passing the buck and that for every index finger that is pointing, there are 4 fingers pointing the other way. Hundreds of thousands of misspelllings in the lexicon is the issue and it cannot be swept under the carpet. It is time that heads be lifted out off the holes there are in. Don't shoot the messenger. Shoot Samuel Johnson. I did not make the choices he did. Thais, as it has been determined can learn languages with astounding efficiency and fluency. Not so English. Makes you wonder what is going on, doesn't it? 

 

Some of you might not like want I write, but sadly I am not the only one who is saying. Again, don't shoot the messenger, but --by all means-- address the underlying issue. Are you mad at him for telling the truth too?

 

 

children of the code video

 

"Unless you insist on one particular code" I am sorry. Can you elaborate?

[EnlightenedAtheist]

 

On 12/11/2016 at 8:52 PM, Slip said:

Meanwhile, and bearing in mind that for some knee-jerk reason I entirely despise EnlightenedAthesist's attempts to reform the spelling system of the language, I don't feel that it in any way defines or would fix the problem of the OP.  

 

Wow! "Despise". I admire your honesty though, because I am sure that you are not the only one feeling that way. You do know that we are not advocating that you learn a new code. But, perhaps you are of the belief that we are attempting to desecrate English. 

 

You do know that there are hundreds of thousands of misspellings in a lexicon and I can prove it (if you do not  want to follow the link). It has been desecrated and has been for 250 years now. I have the degree and the evidence. How can this extraordinary amount of errors in a spelling system be of no significance?

 

Would you blame the engineer, the workers, and the drivers if the bolts used to make the bridge were all found to be defective after a collapse? Mind in you, in this case, Samuel Johnson did mess up. But, 250 years of lack of maintenance by the caretakers is absolutely reprehensible. Not your fault, of course, but facts are that this is so.The fault of the students? Too easy! WAY too easy! Enough passing the buck!

 

Just in case you missed it. Is he also mad? Is everyone mad? Or it the system that is?

 

 

[EnlightenedAtheist]

On 12/11/2016 at 7:24 PM, Dumbastheycome said:

My parents taught me at an early age that it is impolite to point. I light heartedly  suggest Welsh . At least in respect of spelling it removes all those annoying  vowels. :)

 

But, quiet, subversive social or emotional bullying is okay! LOL I am being cheeky! You are right! It is not right to do. However, not to offend your parents,  your view of the world, you, ... but there are some of us who eventually learned and do learn to question rules, laws, systems,... Shocking, innit? But, as we shall see in the clip, that wall seems so big. I understand. I feel your pain. Is this clip not a reflection of what the educational system is in Britain or .. Wales, btw? It is amazing what brilliance can come out of that tunnel of shame and mediocrity? Maybe there is some redeeming value to abuse, mediocrity, conformity although the subject matter is anything but a redeeming endorsement of the culture. This kind of education seems to point ... that all things are not best in the best of worlds. 

 

 

Btw (Welsh, of course), I thought that this is what you were alluding to, although there was no reference to anything, which explained my pointing ... I hate to be pulled into dysfunctional conversations where I am made to be making an ass of you and me. My parents have always told me that it is not polite to be unclear. There are at level 54 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development, mind you! 

 

Welsh? You are kidding, of course!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_chart_for_English_dialects In fact, Welsh seems to be one of the best dialects there is, in terms of phonemicity, safe perhaps for the use of the long-a in such words as father and palm, but dialects are learned at age 2, so it does not really matter too much. If I were the one with the funny hat, I would decreet we should become Welsh. Shawn? I mean Sean would be proud! Do you know what Connery means in French? Imagine! Everyone, as one, talking the same language, ... bonding!

 

 

 

[Shawn0000]

3 hours ago, The Dark Lord said:

Dear Shawn0000,

 

sadly life ice is too short to get involved in what could easily become a nonsensical discussion. Wiki, I understand us updated by gen pop and as such us a prime target for is information, slanted information etc whereas the Encyclopedia blah blah has to meet certain minimum standards.

 

help me out mate work it out yourself

 

cheers

 

Help you our forming an assumption?  How about helping yourself out and examining the evidence in the result?

[EnlightenedAtheist]

58 minutes ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

There are at level 54 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development,  mind you! 

 

Edit: They are ...

[raybal5]

When I was living in Thailand, my Thai friend and I would watch the TV show just for fun.  We would both laugh at the incredibly bad grammar and pronunciation by the online teachers. 

[Slip]

4 hours ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

 

 

Wow! "Despise". I admire your honesty though, because I am sure that you are not the only one feeling that way. You do know that we are not advocating that you learn a new code. But, perhaps you are of the belief that we are attempting to desecrate English. 

 

You do know that there are hundreds of thousands of misspellings in a lexicon and I can prove it (if you do not  want to follow the link). It has been desecrated and has been for 250 years now. I have the degree and the evidence. How can this extraordinary amount of errors in a spelling system be of no significance?

 

Would you blame the engineer, the workers, and the drivers if the bolts used to make the bridge were all found to be defective after a collapse? Mind in you, in this case, Samuel Johnson did mess up. But, 250 years of lack of maintenance by the caretakers is absolutely reprehensible. Not your fault, of course, but facts are that this is so.The fault of the students? Too easy! WAY too easy! Enough passing the buck!

 

Just in case you missed it. Is he also mad? Is everyone mad? Or it the system that is?

 

 

I should probably be hanging my head, as I admit it isn't really a logical response but an emotional one.  I think you might be uncomfortably close to the truth with your comment about it being seen as an attempt to 'desecrate' the language.  The fact does remain though that it is possible to learn even if it is more difficult than it could or perhaps (dare I say?) should be.  Students often have difficulties with the simplest of rules and yet can surprise with the ability to master far more difficult concepts.  I haven't watched the video yet, but will do so now.

[EnlightenedAtheist]

1 hour ago, Slip said:

I should probably be hanging my head, as I admit it isn't really a logical response but an emotional one.  I think you might be uncomfortably close to the truth with your comment about it being seen as an attempt to 'desecrate' the language.  The fact does remain though that it is possible to learn even if it is more difficult than it could or perhaps (dare I say?) should be.  Students often have difficulties with the simplest of rules and yet can surprise with the ability to master far more difficult concepts.  I haven't watched the video yet, but will do so now.

 

Thanks for the reply! I applaud you for realizing that  your first response was an emotional type. I understand.  No problem. It is all very confusing to people. It is not exactly something that is common knowledge or picked up by Hollywood. The truth is that no one at the top wants to do real work. Increase taxes and higher more teachers. That's the easy solution.

 

You are absolutely right that it is possible to learn to read and write. This has never been in contention, btw. The fact is that it takes the average native-speaker 3 more years to learn to decode than the average Finn or Spanish (and probably more) is the issue (along with the collateral damages experienced by parents and kids when they are struggling to learn). There is plenty of evidence to show that the system is not that friendly to learners and teachers. I think it is safe to say that the following does not indicate that English native-speaking kids, teachers, parents,... are  inherently less intelligent than the rest of the world, but it sure looks that way, until you realize that, given the wrong tool or material, not many can rise to the challenge (of learning it fast and well). 

 

 

 All references are given in the link I gave you already. 

 

All the best.

[EnlightenedAtheist]

6 hours ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

Mind in you, in this case, ...

 

Edit: Mind you,...

[EnlightenedAtheist]

And for those who think that my rant is rubbish, I challenge you to recite out loud ...

 

The Chaos (1922)
By Gerard Noist Trenité

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye your dress you’ll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written).

Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.

From “desire”: desirable–admirable from “admire.”
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.

Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,

Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with “darky.”

Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.

Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,

Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,

Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.

Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with “shirk it” and “beyond it.”

But it is not hard to tell,
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.

Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won’t, want, grand, and grant.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.

Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,

Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess–it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.

Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,

Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,

Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation–think of psyche–!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,

Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing “groats” and saying “grits”?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!

Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rimes with “enough”
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”
My advice is–give it up!*

Or hear it at: https://pop.inquirer.net/2016/12/tongue-twister-lengthy-age-old-poem-about-the-english-language/#sthash.CJpnbGYf.dpuf

[William C F Pierce]

On 05/12/2016 at 7:40 PM, notmyself said:

.

 

On 06/12/2016 at 11:21 PM, Loeilad said:

"most basic rules of English are continuously ignored."

 

I always think that people who make comments like that don't really understand English

Despite what you think, you should try reading the daily UK news papers. There is not one editor that does their job of editing mistakes or making sure the articles are up to standard. As children grow up they read their parents newspapers and start to learn the same mistakes. International reports continuously prove the UK is declining in basic education compared to other countries. Even Thai English language newspapers frequently commit the same mistakes as English newspapers. The number of times the word "and" is used to wrongly start a paragraph in a newspaper is indefensible. The word has a meaning of in addition to one or more items before it in  the same sentence followed by the final item, with no comma before the word "and". SUCH AS:  Red, green, blue, puple, black and white were the colours of the exhibition painting. I suggest you give a reason to qualify the statement you have made.

[Shawn0000]

12 minutes ago, William C F Pierce said:

 

Despite what you think, you should try reading the daily UK news papers. There is not one editor that does their job of editing mistakes or making sure the articles are up to standard. As children grow up they read their parents newspapers and start to learn the same mistakes. International reports continuously prove the UK is declining in basic education compared to other countries. Even Thai English language newspapers frequently commit the same mistakes as English newspapers. The number of times the word "and" is used to wrongly start a paragraph in a newspaper is indefensible. The word has a meaning of in addition to one or more items before it in  the same sentence followed by the final item, with no comma before the word "and". SUCH AS:  Red, green, blue, puple, black and white were the colours of the exhibition painting. I suggest you give a reason to qualify the statement you have made.

 

I'm pretty sure that's just what we teach primary school kids as a way of getting their heads around certain aspects of sentence structure.

 

Here's something I just found on the net:

 

Here’s what some of the big usage guides say on the matter. The one that seems to get quoted the most is the Chicago Manual of Style, which says:

There is a widespread belief—one with no historical or grammatical foundation—that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice.

Both Garner’s Modern American Usage, and Fowler’s Modern English Usage call this belief a superstition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (or MWDEU) says, “Everybody agrees that it’s all right to begin a sentence with and,” and notes that you can find examples of it all the way back to Old English. 

 

[paulbj2]

4 hours ago, Shawn0000 said:

 

I'm pretty sure that's just what we teach primary school kids as a way of getting their heads around certain aspects of sentence structure.

 

Here's something I just found on the net:

 

Here’s what some of the big usage guides say on the matter. The one that seems to get quoted the most is the Chicago Manual of Style, which says:

There is a widespread belief—one with no historical or grammatical foundation—that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice.

Both Garner’s Modern American Usage, and Fowler’s Modern English Usage call this belief a superstition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (or MWDEU) says, “Everybody agrees that it’s all right to begin a sentence with and,” and notes that you can find examples of it all the way back to Old English. 

 

 

Hmmm! I have lived, amongst other places, in both the Netherlands and Flemish speaking Belgium. The fluency with which the citizens there have mastered the English language, and indeed other languages than their mother tongue, is nothing short of absolutely astounding. I'm not talking about university educated folk, just ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. In the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, you need to speak minimum three and preferably four languages pretty fluently to get a job on a supermarket checkout (Flemish being the local native tongue, French, English and preferably also German). If you think I am exaggerating, feel free to go there and check it out! The guy who ran the local "tyre and battery centre" in the small town where I lived spoke perfect English with a slight accent but also French and German aside from his mother tongue which was, of course, Flemish; the local newsagent could speak at least 6 languages fluently and those were just the ones I heard him speaking. Surprisingly however, if you go to the French speaking part of Belgium in the south of the country, you will find it hard to find anyone who speaks English that well and many people don't speak it hardly at all.

 

In Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland likewise just about everyone can speak fluent English.

 

Finally, in the Netherlands, exactly the same thing applies, everyone speaks perfect English, almost without exception. Whilst driving home from work in Amsterdam to my home in Belgium one day, I was listening to a BBC broadcast about the adoption of kids by gay couples. They interviewed a Dutch, male homosexual couple living in Amsterdam who had adopted kids that few other couples wanted to take on; kids who had a major mental handicap and whose intelligence was way below average.  After they had interviewed the couple who spoke perfect English, they interviewed one of the "handicapped" kids. She spoke a quite simple but very fluent English; I was astounded!

 

It seems to me that it is a question of good teaching but most of all of social expectation. In the northern European countries I have mentioned above, everyone is EXPECTED to speak fluent English, even kids with major learning difficulties, so they do it.

 

Most Burmese I have met speak very good English but Thais generally do not. I doubt if the teachers in Burma are any better or worse than here, but clearly the expectation is different.

 

In Britain, people are not expected to learn to speak a foreign language, so by and large they don't. Simple isn't it!

 

[Richard W]

On 11/12/2016 at 11:48 AM, EnlightenedAtheist said:

 

In the case of English,  pronunciation is a nightmare since (1) almost all words have a schwa which is not clearly indicated as such (there are 13 ways to spell it) and (2) almost all words have a word stress that is irregular that hinges on knowing where the schwa is.

You seem obsessed with schwa.  I also think you have it seriously backwards.  It is the stress that determines where stress may occur, not the other way round.

 

I believe there is a lot to be said for morphophonemic spelling.  Using phonetic spelling requires close attention to pronunciation, and that it is not as easy as it seems.  Historically, careful phonetic spelling is not popular.  Latin dropped length marks, and Thai seems to have come close to dropping tone marks.  I have also heard that in some US Indian languages, informal writing drops the distinction of aspirated and unaspirated consonants, which are distinguished in a pinyin-like manner in the school books.

[Richard W]

1 hour ago, Richard W said:

It is the stress that determines where stress may occur, not the other way round.

Correction:

It is the stress that determines where schwa may occur, not the other way round.

[Johnniey]

21 hours ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

 

You are not convinced or you do not want to be. The website links provided cite evidence after evidence that English spelling is a mess. I mean --just to take one choice one--  1/2 of Britons can't spell common words, 40 % of Britons rely on autocorrect (telegraph)) To be sure, this is not just about Brits. Most Commonwealth speakers would be equally clueless. I read somewhere that English-speakers are so scared of making spelling errors that they simplify their writing. Has spell-checking improved this tendency, I don't know? Have you checked illiteracy rates lately? But, here is the thing. It is NOT  because English-speakers are dumb. It is NOT because teachers are dumb. It is  because the English spelling system is DUMB. The evidence is incontrovertible. Speak to any HONEST linguistics professors (assuming the degree is legit), it is a fact. If writing in English is hard for native-speakers, imagine how hard it is for non-native speakers to decode words off a piece of paper. As explained, if a teacher focuses on learning English by just speaking and listening modes, students' skills in writing and decoding will become abysmal. Vice versa, if one were to completely focus on writing and reading, naturally students' ability to speak and understand conversations will regress. Extremes are usually not recommended and in teaching it is not. Most teachers use all four modes and, predictably, students are confused. The stubbornness of English-speakers to fix the rotten state of the |English spelling system IZ abysmal. There seems to be this insistence that everyone must cope with the mediocrity of the system when it is really the mediocrity of the system that should be addressed. In other words, it is high time that we stop passing the buck and that for every index finger that is pointing, there are 4 fingers pointing the other way. Hundreds of thousands of misspelllings in the lexicon is the issue and it cannot be swept under the carpet. It is time that heads be lifted out off the holes there are in. Don't shoot the messenger. Shoot Samuel Johnson. I did not make the choices he did. Thais, as it has been determined can learn languages with astounding efficiency and fluency. Not so English. Makes you wonder what is going on, doesn't it? 

 

Some of you might not like want I write, but sadly I am not the only one who is saying. Again, don't shoot the messenger, but --by all means-- address the underlying issue. Are you mad at him for telling the truth too?

 

 

children of the code video

 

"Unless you insist on one particular code" I am sorry. Can you elaborate?

I guess it must be the low season in the Thai ESL industry.

[Johnniey]

3 hours ago, Richard W said:

You seem obsessed with schwa.  I also think you have it seriously backwards.  It is the stress that determines where stress may occur, not the other way round.

 

I believe there is a lot to be said for morphophonemic spelling.  Using phonetic spelling requires close attention to pronunciation, and that it is not as easy as it seems.  Historically, careful phonetic spelling is not popular.  Latin dropped length marks, and Thai seems to have come close to dropping tone marks.  I have also heard that in some US Indian languages, informal writing drops the distinction of aspirated and unaspirated consonants, which are distinguished in a pinyin-like manner in the school books.

Nice to see an expert come and sort out the guy who has just finished a Thai TEFL course. 

[Shawn0000]

6 hours ago, paulbj2 said:

 

Hmmm! I have lived, amongst other places, in both the Netherlands and Flemish speaking Belgium. The fluency with which the citizens there have mastered the English language, and indeed other languages than their mother tongue, is nothing short of absolutely astounding. I'm not talking about university educated folk, just ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. In the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, you need to speak minimum three and preferably four languages pretty fluently to get a job on a supermarket checkout (Flemish being the local native tongue, French, English and preferably also German). If you think I am exaggerating, feel free to go there and check it out! The guy who ran the local "tyre and battery centre" in the small town where I lived spoke perfect English with a slight accent but also French and German aside from his mother tongue which was, of course, Flemish; the local newsagent could speak at least 6 languages fluently and those were just the ones I heard him speaking. Surprisingly however, if you go to the French speaking part of Belgium in the south of the country, you will find it hard to find anyone who speaks English that well and many people don't speak it hardly at all.

 

In Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland likewise just about everyone can speak fluent English.

 

Finally, in the Netherlands, exactly the same thing applies, everyone speaks perfect English, almost without exception. Whilst driving home from work in Amsterdam to my home in Belgium one day, I was listening to a BBC broadcast about the adoption of kids by gay couples. They interviewed a Dutch, male homosexual couple living in Amsterdam who had adopted kids that few other couples wanted to take on; kids who had a major mental handicap and whose intelligence was way below average.  After they had interviewed the couple who spoke perfect English, they interviewed one of the "handicapped" kids. She spoke a quite simple but very fluent English; I was astounded!

 

It seems to me that it is a question of good teaching but most of all of social expectation. In the northern European countries I have mentioned above, everyone is EXPECTED to speak fluent English, even kids with major learning difficulties, so they do it.

 

Most Burmese I have met speak very good English but Thais generally do not. I doubt if the teachers in Burma are any better or worse than here, but clearly the expectation is different.

 

In Britain, people are not expected to learn to speak a foreign language, so by and large they don't. Simple isn't it!

 

 

Those countries all have kids TV in English, the children learn English through natural language acquisition at pre-school age.  But what has any of this got to do with starting a sentence with a conjunction?

[EnlightenedAtheist]

7 hours ago, Richard W said:

You seem obsessed with schwa.  I also think you have it seriously backwards.  It is the stress that determines where stress may occur, not the other way round.

 

I believe there is a lot to be said for morphophonemic spelling.  Using phonetic spelling requires close attention to pronunciation, and that it is not as easy as it seems.  Historically, careful phonetic spelling is not popular.  Latin dropped length marks, and Thai seems to have come close to dropping tone marks.  I have also heard that in some US Indian languages, informal writing drops the distinction of aspirated and unaspirated consonants, which are distinguished in a pinyin-like manner in the school books.

 

 It is the stress that determines where stress may occur, not the other way round?  That does not make any sense whatsoever. Sorry! 

 

It looks like you did not even follow the link provided which explains THOROUGHLY the notion that I am presenting. 

[EnlightenedAtheist]

5 hours ago, Richard W said:

Correction:

It is the stress that determines where schwa may occur, not the other way round.

 

Yes, it is the stress  that determines where the schwa is. I never said that this was not the case. I am not too sure why you are saying that I said this.This is not exactly news to anyone who has studied linguistics. Please apologize. What I am saying though is that, if you know where the schwa is, you have a much better chance of knowing where the stress is or stresses are, which will help (1) with your pronunciation of the schwa and (2) having a better chance of placing the stress on the right syllable. Of course, most English-speakers (and teachers) aren't aware that is a problem because they learned the language naturally. Foreigners (and a fortiori Thais) cannot know where the stress is since it is not indicated anywhere and the rules to infer where it might be are extremely convoluted and unhelpful for a foreign learner. Ergo, the idea of marking it with ONE symbol VS 13 different possible symbols. Also, if there is one symbol for the schwa, it will help everyone spell the word properly and help everyone who has not seen a new word decode it.

 

Now, let me suggest that you follow the link provided in the threat (that explains in detail the arguments and the rebuttals to the arguments) because that is the right thing to do when you are having a conversation with someone. It is called acknowledging what they have to say. If you are not ready to listen to me, why would I want to listen to you. Thank you.

[EnlightenedAtheist]

3 hours ago, Shawn0000 said:

 

Those countries all have kids TV in English, the children learn English through natural language acquisition at pre-school age.  But what has any of this got to do with starting a sentence with a conjunction?

 

But, more crucially, Flemish is a Germanic language. Most words are related. "Deur" is "door" ... "Eupen" is "open". "I won the house and the car." > "Ik heb het huis en de auto."  A lot of the grammar is similar too. Come on, Paul. Why did you leave that little information out? You must have know this. This is not something that one like you should not  know. Trying to win an argument by omitting critical details like that makes it look like you are trying to manipulate and win at all cost. Sorry! 

[EnlightenedAtheist]

5 hours ago, Johnniey said:

Nice to see an expert come and sort out the guy who has just finished a Thai TEFL course. 

 

And I am not an expert. More on ... rubbish!

[maewang99]

written English is for reading and writing..... and not speaking and listening....  how can anyone not see that? well... there's a simple reason!

it's all about why, for instance, we only have 5 written vowel symbols....  but about 40 vowel sounds.... because it's ****not**** supposed to be at all the same as speaking and listening.... because English isn't just for speaking and listening. English isn't. do you get it?

but Central Thai is different... but it's just as obvious.... except upside down as to one aspect [ just mentioned and also last down below] i.e. we don't speak with spaces between words so why would you write spaces between them???? so in Thai we don't. but only in Thai. 


[ speaking is a continuous unbroken sound, unless we are making special emphasis]

same reason Thai bilingual dictionaries have no need for an IPA for either language.... etc etc etc all the way thru to why most folks don't even know where their local city library is located.  duh.

 

[soalbundy]

19 hours ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

And for those who think that my rant is rubbish, I challenge you to recite out loud ...

 

The Chaos (1922)
By Gerard Noist Trenité

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye your dress you’ll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written).

Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.

From “desire”: desirable–admirable from “admire.”
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.

Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,

Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with “darky.”

Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.

Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,

Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,

Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.

Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with “shirk it” and “beyond it.”

But it is not hard to tell,
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.

Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won’t, want, grand, and grant.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.

Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,

Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess–it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.

Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,

Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,

Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation–think of psyche–!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,

Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing “groats” and saying “grits”?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!

Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rimes with “enough”
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”
My advice is–give it up!*

Or hear it at: https://pop.inquirer.net/2016/12/tongue-twister-lengthy-age-old-poem-about-the-english-language/#sthash.CJpnbGYf.dpuf

You are obviously very passionate about this and you have some very good points but this isn't going to cause mass demonstrations on the street, in fact if you wrote an article on it in the Sunday Times most people would just roll their eyes after the first three sentences. The transition from middle English to modern English was a birth with a long gestation period, we have what we now have. There are languages that are more complicated in their spelling,Thai for instance, although the constraints are due to the need to express the tone and yet i see nobody saying that Thai should be simplified. Indeed Thai is further complicated by its many ways of being expressed depending on the class of person you are speaking to or if it is written Thai or legal Thai etc. I think we do alright as it is, despite 'bough' of a tree or 'bow' to the king or 'bow' and arrow. luckily English syntax can be messed around and the words misspelled and we still know what is meant.

[maewang99]

English has evolved for two purposes.  not one.

and that is the complete opposite of Central Thai.

 

and you don't need a ****TEFL**** to know the reason for basics such as why we have 5 written but 40 spoken vowels in English... or why in Thai there are no spaces between morphemes [because it's evolved for only one purpose].

we're talking about the languages.. not the language capacity for which there are 2 for all of us, Thai included and the first and primary one doesn't involve speaking, listening, writing or reading! eh????

Chomsky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ (1) English writing is for easier and faster reading and writing not learning how to speak or listen to it for darn sure.....but.... (2) even though when we speak in most any language we normally don't pause at all between words..... yet in Thai we don't write blank spaces and (3) the first and primary purpose of our capacity for language, as opposed to it's externalization....is.... for thinking.  it's who we are. the 2nd pulse from that little tribe... one little tribe in Africa... 70,000 years ago ]

 

    
 

[EnlightenedAtheist]

35 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

You are obviously very passionate about this and you have some very good points but this isn't going to cause mass demonstrations on the street, in fact if you wrote an article on it in the Sunday Times most people would just roll their eyes after the first three sentences. The transition from middle English to modern English was a birth with a long gestation period, we have what we now have. There are languages that are more complicated in their spelling,Thai for instance, although the constraints are due to the need to express the tone and yet i see nobody saying that Thai should be simplified. Indeed Thai is further complicated by its many ways of being expressed depending on the class of person you are speaking to or if it is written Thai or legal Thai etc. I think we do alright as it is, despite 'bough' of a tree or 'bow' to the king or 'bow' and arrow. luckily English syntax can be messed around and the words misspelled and we still know what is meant.

 

Thank you.

 

You are obviously right that, given the terms of past reforms or the understanding that the majority has of what it entails, the majority of the people who are fluent in English and who got a head start by being born in it will not care. Notice the first 2 bits in that previous sentence. If you did not , read it again. Do not dismiss those. You are, however, speaking about the tyranny of the majority. Obviously, we, reformers, knew that we needed to give some incentives and guarantees to the majority to go along with such a scheme. It seems that the idea that the majority would not be impacted, is not enough for some. It seems that the idea that it might save the majority (or your children or grand-children or anyone) to struggle is not enough for some. It seems that the idea that it will save the majority of taxpayers money is not enough for some too! Right! While it is your right to refuse the terms of the changes, allow me to express my utter consternation, given the positives provided. 

 

But, you do acknowledge that there are problems, even though your try hard to skim over them, like a psychopath skims over the 20 victims he killed. You excuse the situation by finding some examples of equally or comparatively equal situation. We know that half of your family will be killed by us, but be glad that we are not going to torture you for 3 days before doing so or that we are going to spare 1/4 of you this time. Tones are called in linguistics suprasegmental elements. They are part of prosody. They are related to speech, listening, This discussion is about writing, spelling systems. Tones are indicated in writing in Thai and when they are written, spelt, one knows for sure. There is no ambiguity with these suprasegmental elements as they are clearly AND systematically indicated. IN English, there are 13 ways of spelling schwas, 12 ways of spelling .... as te diagram clearly indicated. Sorry, your argumentation is flawed ... like the English spelling system which is unreliably and/or "unphonemically" spelled at a rate of every two words being so, but probably even more acutely. On a per letter/phoneme rate, it will be not as bad, given that consonants make up, usually, 1/2 of the letters of a word and we know that most (but certainly not all) consonants are more reliably and phonemically spelt than vowels.

 

Your conclusion (We do alright with it in spite of bough/bow/bow ...) is an incredible dismissive simplification of the problem, clearly omitting the hundreds of thousands of words that are misspelled in English. MaybI suggest, Soalbundy, that you read up on English orthography, take off those rose-tinted glasses, and learn that this is a mess. Maybe an Empathy 101 course might be in order too.

 

[soalbundy]

4 minutes ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

 

Thank you.

 

You are obviously right that, given the terms of past reforms or the understanding that the majority has of what it entails, the majority of the people who are fluent in English and who got a head start by being born in it will not care. Notice the first 2 bits in that previous sentence. If you did not , read it again. Do not dismiss those. You are, however, speaking about the tyranny of the majority. Obviously, we, reformers, knew that we needed to give some incentives and guarantees to the majority to go along with such a scheme. It seems that the idea that the majority would not be impacted, is not enough for some. It seems that the idea that it might save the majority (or your children or grand-children or anyone) to struggle is not enough for some. It seems that the idea that it will save the majority of taxpayers money is not enough for some too! Right! While it is your right to refuse the terms of the changes, allow me to express my utter consternation, given the positives provided. 

 

But, you do acknowledge that there are problems, even though your try hard to skim over them, like a psychopath skims over the 20 victims he killed. You excuse the situation by finding some examples of equally or comparatively equal situation. We know that half of your family will be killed by us, but be glad that we are not going to torture you for 3 days before doing so or that we are going to spare 1/4 of you this time. Tones are called in linguistics suprasegmental elements. They are part of prosody. They are related to speech, listening, This discussion is about writing, spelling systems. Tones are indicated in writing in Thai and when they are written, spelt, one knows for sure. There is no ambiguity with these suprasegmental elements as they are clearly AND systematically indicated. IN English, there are 13 ways of spelling schwas, 12 ways of spelling .... as te diagram clearly indicated. Sorry, your argumentation is flawed ... like the English spelling system which is unreliably and/or "unphonemically" spelled at a rate of every two words being so, but probably even more acutely. On a per letter/phoneme rate, it will be not as bad, given that consonants make up, usually, 1/2 of the letters of a word and we know that most (but certainly not all) consonants are more reliably and phonemically spelt than vowels.

 

Your conclusion (We do alright with it in spite of bough/bow/bow ...) is an incredible dismissive simplification of the problem, clearly omitting the hundreds of thousands of words that are misspelled in English. MaybI suggest, Soalbundy, that you read up on English orthography, take off those rose-tinted glasses, and learn that this is a mess. Maybe an Empathy 101 course might be in order too.

 

I agree that it is a mess, but it (the language) has grown organically ( i had to look up the word organically, it was red underlined because i spelled it with one 'L' ) but everything is just theory without boots if the will to change the spelling system isn't there in the general population and of course it isn't, the football results are far more interesting, the housing shortage far more pressing. Anyone who has an interest in a particular subject can fall prey to the idea that their's is the most pressing and important problem. NASA is testing an 'impossible, no fuel quantum space engine' that really works, put this against changing the spelling system. Fact is one can learn to spell if teachers placed greater importance on spelling. Children in the 19th Century could spell and express themselves better in writing than children of today ( not based on empirical facts but on examples of school work of that era that i have read ) today correct content is important, not spelling, when i was at school your work was rubbished if it contained too many spelling mistakes no matter the content. I am not saying that the system of spelling shouldn't be changed ( as long as the language itself isn't damaged ) but i think that you overestimate it's importance, correct speech is important, someone who say's 'woh er' instead of water will still spell the word wrongly anyway if you rely on phonetics alone. When teaching my son to read English i found it easy to say 'Thought' it's one of those funny words with a 'G' in it, after a while he knew exactly what i meant. ''I try Mr. Faulty, I try''.