A Foreigner's View

[Sandferret]

I live in Europe. My timezone makes it hard to play 'prime time'. Not all roles are open to me because of this.  I understand and accept that.  But what I have read on these boards today angers me.

Innocent bystanderd wrote:

If you dont know english that well then, WHY ARE YOU PLAYING A TEXT GAME IN ENGLISH!!!!!!!!?

John wrote:

It's also very easy to tell someone who is an ESL and a 13 yr old American boy.

These and a few other things have really made me feel bad. I will never be perfect, not only do I make grammatical mistakes and mispell words, but I also typo trying to keep up with the flow.

I have had nothing but support from the staff, but some of you players really make me feel unwelcome. If I feel that way, how do you expect a prospective player reading these boards would feel?

I do believe that I have contributed something to the game, inspite all the bile I get to read here. A new player is more vulnerable, please, don't drive them away.

[John]

It's also very easy to tell someone who is an ESL and a 13 yr old American boy.

These and a few other things have really made me feel bad.

Woah. Well you certaintly shouldn't have taken offence at my comment. It is easy to tell if someone learnt English as a secondary language. That isn't a slight against foreigners, but just a fact. It would be like if I had learnt your language and tried speaking in it. It would become very obvious it wasn't my native language. I wouldn't use expressions as much and I probably wouldn't use a lot slang.

I also pointed out it being easy to tell if someone's a foreigner or an english speaking teenager to say that foreigner's shouldn't be included in criticism of people's grammar, etc BECAUSE it's a second language. I don't have a lot of patience for the 13 yr old kid who "types liek this, lololololl!!!!!!!!!1111" but I have a lot of patience for people whose native language isn't English, because they will NEVER speak like that.

[EDIT]: also. To help people who can't spell well, a lot of mud clients come with built in spell checkers (such as MUSHClient). I know I use it regularly

[Bestatte]

Yeah what John said to Sandferret. Jeez drop the sensitivity, he was trying to empathize with you, not criticize you. He's saying he understands and accepts that people whose first language isn't English will write differently, and he makes exceptions for them as long as they're making an attempt to be understood. That's how I feel, even if your first language -is- english. And that's why various things bother me, such as missing punctuation or lack of capitalization. Other things that native english speakers would have learned in elementary school, like the difference between it's and its, also bother me.

Not because it's easy to mistake, and not because you might not remember that "it's" is a "contraction." But because anyone over 10 years of age would know that "it's" means "it is" and never means "something belonging to it."

People who don't even try, bug the shit out of me. People who try and fail, I would go out of my way to help and encourage. People who try and succeed, I attempt to emulate and use as inspiration for my own improvement. This goes with everything, not just writing. Everything in my life revolves around this. I don't think people who refuse to put in an effort are deserving of whatever it is they're trying to do. I think people who try to put in an effort should be given encouragement and kudos when they succeed. And I look up to people who try and succceed regularly, because I'd like to try and succeed regularly.

I fail often in a lot of things. I fail occasionally in some things. But whenever I want something, I will try to achieve it.  I don't see why that's too much to ask from other people.

[Angela Christine]

It's also very easy to tell someone who is an ESL and a 13 yr old American boy.

These and a few other things have really made me feel bad. I will never be perfect, not only do I make grammatical mistakes and mispell words, but I also typo trying to keep up with the flow.

I read John's statement differently, I guess.  I would agree that it is usually easy to tell the difference between a person who is learning english (ESL) and a person who knows english but just isn't trying (13 year old boy) but the ESL person is usually greatly superior.  The two styles have opposing idiosyncracies.

Someone who is learning English as a second language will usually capitalize the first letter of a sentance and stick a period on the end of it, a person who is just lazy or inconsiderate may not.  ESL students are -trying- to follow the basic rules of English, meanwhile the teenager may be expressing his rebelion against rules in general but ignoring the rules of writing.  

I find the giveaway with people who are not native english speakers is that they can be too formal, too correct.  They sometimes use formal, old fasioned words that are found in dictionaries, grammer texts, great literature and occasionally spoken by pretentious college english majors, but aren't popular anymore.  People who kind of sound like they just stepped out of a Victorian novel are often people that are learning english as a second language, and are learning it from books and classes rather than learning by hanging out in an english speaking country.  There is certainly nothing wrong with it.


AC

[__Torax__]

I think I agree with Knock here. I am as well 17, so if I use large words or misspell something I am some foreigner learning from classes or I am some lazy punk who doesnt give a shit....Damn, kind of a loose loose situation to me.

[__Torax__]

WOW! I just had an idea...!!! Hey Knock, maybe we should wait till we are 18 and considered adults, go take a freshman college course in English and then maybe we are entitled to typos and mispelled words...Just a thought...

[Anarchy]

My take on it sandferret is screw em,  english is a second language to me. If people want perfect english (mind you, the written AND said form of the english language is bloody freaky and the hardest to learn) Go play some mud filled with english teachers. Simple as that it really annoys me when people expect everyone to be perfect at a language with words said the same, spelt diffrently and mean two totally diffrent things (wich, witch), so we slip up, big deal, you can understand what we mean dont you? Look past it. I mean, its not like we are not trying, we just dont get know any better. If anyone says we shouldn't play a text base game, then i should say those people should remove there penis because it is useless, and serves no real service to anyone. *shrug*

[__Torax__]

Hey hey hey hey! Speak for yourself with the laid part! I've already done that requirement of life. Now just to please these ungrateful armers!

[spawnloser]

Hey, look.  I was an English major for a while, when in college.  I am probably qualified to teach English.  I don't think anyone's saying that everyone has to be perfect, as has been stated in the other threads that are all talking about this subject.  Everyone is just saying that what everyone expects is that everyone else put forth some effort.  If one is not putting forth effort into their typing and grammatical skills, what's to say that they're putting any effort into their RP?

[spawnloser]

Blah blah blah.  How's that for redundancy?

[Dan]

I've played with you Sandferret and I think you are a wonderful armer, seriously. Dont be down.  

[Angela Christine]

Dudes, don't get your panties in a knot.  Anyone can make a typo, I do it all the time, but there are patterns of writing that are associated particular groups.  People who write like they are sending text messages on their cell phones or in a chat room are often young.  Why?  Who knows, but writing "4" instead of "for" and "r" instead of "are" certainly looks lazy to me.  I know they aren't all young, my own mother fell in with a bad crowd when she got started on the internet and, well, it is just too painful to talk about.    The people who use all lower case letters and little or no punctuation, a very casual style of writing, usually seem to be native english speakers.  It is annoying, because simply by mastering the shift key and the period key they could make their writing much easier to read.

Mostly they aren't a problem though, because folk who can't be bothered to write out long words like "are" will probably be bored by a text game anyway.  

AC

[Callisto]

I've played with you Sandferret and I think you are a wonderful armer, seriously. Dont be down.

Agreed, you're as good as the next Armer and don't let some elitist prick with a bug up his ass about descriptions get you thinking otherwise.

Unless that elitist prick is me, in which case you should get down on your hands and knees and thank god you were lucky enough to have me step in and correct one of your horrible, horrible flaws, you abysmal train wreck of a human being.

So, uh... what was I saying? Oh, right. Congratulations! You two make a beautiful couple!

[Bogre]

Its a fact of life that -EVERYONE- will make typos. At least sometimes, somewhere. Some have less motor skills than others (like me, I have none), and tend to smash keys like skulls. I'm just good with the backspace or I'd have made 20 so far.

At least there aren't any mudwide channels on Armageddon, so no ones mudsexing messages get mischanned.

Thank God for Arm. Though it is funny as hell.

[I Have Steel]

Meh, anyone who gets a bug about typoes and stuff are easily ignored by me.

I consider myself as having pretty good speaking skills, (save for that whole southern hick accent thing  :? ) but I tend to typo like a maniac in some situations, trying to type fast enough to keep up with the flow.

I've noticed alot of other people typo here and there as well, and some don't use proper grammar and all that mumbo...

Then I think of a way to make it ledgible, and I figure... 'Hey, we're in a barbaric world of gameplay, I'm just gonna take it as an accent thing.' And when done in descriptions and emotes, -shrug- if I get the point, then I'm happy. We're here to play, not be graded on our grammar, typing, and english skills, and as long as it's understandable, I can't see a problem with it.

[crymerci]

I don't know, maybe I've been reading different threads than all of you have.  I've seen people express pet peeves (hey, we all have them, but none of us expect a perfect world) but I don't think that most people expect anything other than a decent effort.  And in that regard, non-native speakers probably show to an advantage, because they have to pay closer attention to their words anyway.

I don't think anyone expects a MUD full of perfectly grammatical spelling-bee champions who flawlessly type 75 wpm.  We can't all be like me.  :roll:  :twisted:  :shock:

[Bestatte]

I agree Crymerci. I don't remember anyone, including myself, insisting that everyone else be flawless. In fact everyone whose posts I've read, including my own, have pointed out that each of us makes mistakes, and we're not talking about "mistake-making."

We're talking about a few different things, I think.

1) People who would improve if they had the tools, such as tips and hints.

2) People who would improve if they put their egos aside and accepted the fact that they could use improvement, and that improvement is a good thing.

3) People who never gave much thought to it one way or another, but after having it pointed out to it, start thinking.

4) People who don't give a shit, never bothered trying in the first place, and whose writing is so piss-poor that you need a translator just to realize they're writing in English.

(edited to add): In #4 I mean people who are ALL those things combined, not just one or the other. Thus, the "and" as opposed to an "or."

I think most of us fall in one of these categories. The very few in the last category are the ones that stick out the most, because those in the first three categories are already trying, or simply need a gentle nudge to start trying. It's the last category that tends to cause the most problems for people who do care. While everyone else is putting in an effort to present themselves legibly, these few lower the standards by insisting that they shouldn't have to rise to the challenge.

Sucks to be them I guess, because if that attitude carries over to real life, they have lot worse problems for them than poor writing skills.

The ones who make the effort, for win or lose, success or failure, are the ones who benefit the most from any of this stuff, and who are the least likely to take offense from it.