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Image created using Bit Strips.[/caption]
Language is on my brain a lot lately with the immense amount of hours I've been clocking while learning French.
It shows ignorance when people assume refugees should speak English. Yes, they need to learn to communicate in Canada, but it appears that there are a large number of people who don't realize that refugees get to choose to learn either English or French. It's almost as if English Canada thinks they're the only true Canadians.
Canada is considering adding ASL as a third official language. I think this is pretty cool though I'm not sure how many people speak it. I'm surprised a First Nations language such as Algonquin hasn't been considered given how many FN people live in Canada. But then, what often seems like a no-brainer to me isn't obvious to other people. For more on the Algonquin language, you should follow my friend Jay Odjick on Twitter as his Algonquin Word of the Day initiative is really cool. But then so is he as you might be able to tell from this recent interview he did.
I'm a reformed grammar pest. Learning French has given me an appreciation for communication that extends far beyond having things academically correct. That said, some things I'll always stress the importance of due to the meaning being completely changed. I don't hassle people, but request clarification to ensure we're on the same page. It generally works better than making them feel dumb for using the wrong word.
Smartphones have also helped me with this. My phone regularly pisses me off by putting the wrong 'to' in my sentences. In my head I'm screaming at it for thinking I'm wanting to go too a place. The two of us go to, not too! Unless of course I'm saying I want to go too as in also. But I've learned that people may not actually be dumb and unable to comprehend simple grammar concepts and it's just their phone fucking them over and perhaps they don't have the time to fix the mistake. But authors should be better, especially in their published works that have been read by many sets of eyeballs.
While learning French, I've often been annoyed by how many tenses and ways there are to say the same thing. Of course, there are just as many in English. And it's actually one of the things I love about language and writing; it's just annoying to learn. "Can't I do the thesaurus thing later?" I whine to myself rather than annoy the teacher and my classmates.
But another thing that makes learning a language challenging is that there are many forms of each language. We, in Canada, often argue that the French we should be taught is Quebec French while our schools teach us Parisian French. Given the rather large amount of French speaking countries, those aren't the only two versions of the language out there in a world of approximately 7.5 billion people.
Did you know there are an astounding number of English dialects? Check out this list from Wikipedia to learn more about that.
Announcement Time!
I'm making a change to my blog again. I'm tired of Fortifying Friday and given that I enjoy writing playful and often erotic things it will be replaced by Frisky Friday instead. There may be more changes in the future as well. More on this in my upcoming newsletter.
Yes, I will have a newsletter very soon! You can sign up for it here.
This weekend is Geek Market and I'll be checking it out sometime on Saturday. Have a stupendous weekend!
Salut,
R~
Image created using Bit Strips.[/caption]Language is on my brain a lot lately with the immense amount of hours I've been clocking while learning French.
It shows ignorance when people assume refugees should speak English. Yes, they need to learn to communicate in Canada, but it appears that there are a large number of people who don't realize that refugees get to choose to learn either English or French. It's almost as if English Canada thinks they're the only true Canadians.
Canada is considering adding ASL as a third official language. I think this is pretty cool though I'm not sure how many people speak it. I'm surprised a First Nations language such as Algonquin hasn't been considered given how many FN people live in Canada. But then, what often seems like a no-brainer to me isn't obvious to other people. For more on the Algonquin language, you should follow my friend Jay Odjick on Twitter as his Algonquin Word of the Day initiative is really cool. But then so is he as you might be able to tell from this recent interview he did.
I'm a reformed grammar pest. Learning French has given me an appreciation for communication that extends far beyond having things academically correct. That said, some things I'll always stress the importance of due to the meaning being completely changed. I don't hassle people, but request clarification to ensure we're on the same page. It generally works better than making them feel dumb for using the wrong word.
Smartphones have also helped me with this. My phone regularly pisses me off by putting the wrong 'to' in my sentences. In my head I'm screaming at it for thinking I'm wanting to go too a place. The two of us go to, not too! Unless of course I'm saying I want to go too as in also. But I've learned that people may not actually be dumb and unable to comprehend simple grammar concepts and it's just their phone fucking them over and perhaps they don't have the time to fix the mistake. But authors should be better, especially in their published works that have been read by many sets of eyeballs.
While learning French, I've often been annoyed by how many tenses and ways there are to say the same thing. Of course, there are just as many in English. And it's actually one of the things I love about language and writing; it's just annoying to learn. "Can't I do the thesaurus thing later?" I whine to myself rather than annoy the teacher and my classmates.
But another thing that makes learning a language challenging is that there are many forms of each language. We, in Canada, often argue that the French we should be taught is Quebec French while our schools teach us Parisian French. Given the rather large amount of French speaking countries, those aren't the only two versions of the language out there in a world of approximately 7.5 billion people.
Did you know there are an astounding number of English dialects? Check out this list from Wikipedia to learn more about that.
Announcement Time!
I'm making a change to my blog again. I'm tired of Fortifying Friday and given that I enjoy writing playful and often erotic things it will be replaced by Frisky Friday instead. There may be more changes in the future as well. More on this in my upcoming newsletter.
Yes, I will have a newsletter very soon! You can sign up for it here.
This weekend is Geek Market and I'll be checking it out sometime on Saturday. Have a stupendous weekend!
Salut,
R~