Is your language exchange partner an incompetent fudge?

[Bluepaint]

Okay so to get this more on track with the OP's intentions: how do you "authenticate" the language you pick up from your interactions with a language exchange partner or a tutor? Is it really as simple as "read extensively and you'll notice if your partner is speaking in slang"? Should you have days where you agree to speak in a different register e.g. Formal Fridays or Text Thursdays? Slang Saturdays? I may be putting too much thought into those... Do you ask them outright at the start? That might seem rather...uptight? (Not quite the word but something along those lines). Then again a lot of the time people are unaware of their limitations and failings. Discuss!

PS Acknowledging my guilt of an off-topic post here earlier!

[tomgosse]

PS Acknowledging my guilt of an off-topic post here earlier!

Moi aussi ! Je suis désolé !

Okay so to get this more on track with the OP's intentions: how do you "authenticate" the language you pick up from your interactions with a language exchange partner or a tutor? Is it really as simple as "read extensively and you'll notice if your partner is speaking in slang"?

I think the only way to authenticate your partner's language is to be exposed to a lot of correct grammar and pronunciation in your target language. At the beginning this is probably easier said than done.

I'm reminded how bank tellers and cashiers are taught how to recognize counterfeit money. They don't concentrate on learning the errors in "funny money", but in learning how real money looks.

-TG

[robarb]

Good ways to vet your teacher:

- Ask them where they got their education. If you'd like to speak like a person with X education, learn from someone with X education.
- Ask them what they do for a profession (if they aren't a full-time tutor). If you'd like to speak like a person with X profession, learn from someone with X profession.
- Ask them what they like to read. If it is difficult for them to come up with anything, then be warned.
- Positive reviews from previous students, especially students who are more advanced than you
- Standardized qualifications for language teaching

But I don't worry about it too much personally because I get a lot of input from published materials, so I learn to recognize the formal register pretty quickly, even before I master the grammar and vocabulary in my own production. There is some value in practicing with a native speaker, regardless of their skills in the high register, and I tend to be confident in my ability to tell once I'm beyond the beginner stage.

[Bluepaint]

Sidenote: I've split this topic so the posts talking about things that used to be the norm in our language, e.g. indenting paragraphs, are now under a tongue-in-cheek topic called Back In My Day in the General Discussion forum.

[zenmonkey]

[pir]

I kept thinking "what is so difficult about picking a language partner who matches your expectations for literacy?" and then I realized that in the wake of this whole movement to "speak from day one", there have been more and more language learning gurus exhorting others to connect with native speakers right away.

Me, I just don't do that. I will have read and listened to a lot of native materials by the time I first look for a language partner, and I'll know enough to recognize whether or not they speak in a register that I want to speak in. But if one talks to people right away, then none of that applies, and one flies blind. So ok, I get it now. I think the "speak with natives right away" movement has traction when one wants to speak a foreign language as soon as possible. I don't really care about that, I want to be able to read it as soon as possible instead. So my first response in the thread focused on reading more, because the more published materials you've read the more familiar you'll be with registers used in writing and standard speech. Depending on what exactly you read you will probably also have seen colloquial dialogue, and you might also know some slang, but that'll most likely be out of date. The most valuable part of reading for this though is that you have a decent concept of register, even though the precise way of speaking is not usually represented in writing -- you get that from listening to native audio, but that in itself won't help much with catching non-standard writing that isn't easily heard. You'll definitely know that "U R" is not standard English, even though it sounds just like "you are".

If I were to focus more on speaking, I'd add some questions to the initial communications, much like those @robarb listed. I wouldn't make snap decisions based on people's age -- I have friends much, much younger than myself who know perfectly well which register to speak in. This is not a matter of age, it is one of education and exposure. I'd also clearly state exactly what I am looking for in a tutor -- if I want to pass a university exam, or if I expect to work with a crew of migrant workers for 6 months, or if I want to travel to another country and hang out with young people in the music scene. I'd basically try to match their level of expertise with my level of expectation.

Something else I have figured out is important in a language partner, which sort of ties into this but goes further afield, is that we will do much better together if we have common interests, if we like some of the same things. We don't have to share everything, but a couple of major things are good, those will help with picking conversation topics. Common interests might automatically align us reasonably well: I'd never pick somebody who doesn't like to read, for example, and I am moderately picky about what they read too, with an eye towards conversation -- I'm unlikely to want to carry on much about sparkly vampires and sexy werewolves. Matching major interests is not sufficient in and of itself, though -- just because two people both like sports is probably not enough to determine whether expectations and education match up. But the right interests can help pre-sort.

[arthaey]

Should you have days where you agree to speak in a different register e.g. Formal Fridays or Text Thursdays? Slang Saturdays? I may be putting too much thought into those...

I like the idea of explicitly asking your tutor for help with different registers! Your names are fun, too.

[kimchizzle]

I should have said writing that way looks stupid to a large majority of people. Whether or not it looks stupid to everyone is not really my concern. I have the same concern as Mr. Dearman. There is a huge difference between being able to understand this type of banter when you see it and actually using it. It is just sad that there are people out there who tell English learners it is ok to write that way or actually teach people to write that way. There is a similar topic on the other website where someone gave the following example:

", Aight dude, but I gotta b back home befo
9 or Ash gonna b mad." Or, "Lol, Y dey
always gotta do dis dumb shizz."

I hire people for my business and we look at the applicant's facebook page before we interview them. If this was written on their facebook page we would not hire the person. There really is not any issue about the fact that this looks stupid to the vast majority of people. Some young people and English learners just don't understand that writing that way makes them look stupid and then they unknowingly suffer the consequences.

It may be a good idea for English learners to understand this (especially when people speak this way), but why in the heck would anyone ever teach someone or even tell someone it is ok to write that way? It does not matter to me if native English speakers choose to act that way... they have no excuse and they can choose ignore the real world if they want to. What bothers me is when a well intentioned English learner is told/taught this sort of writing and they have no clue how it makes them look.

This quote here , which I wrote, is taken out of context from the majority of my posts that followed in the original thread where I went into great detail to explain subtle differences to substantiate my point further and break it down. I even tried to give my thoughts on why certain informal registers exist now, who most commonly uses them, and are they here to stay.

For anyone that wants to see the full context, including my break down of what I found to be different registers of informal speech and writing here is the link. .
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40748&PN=1&TPN=2

The quote of informal writing shown was the first and one of the most extreme examples I gave. In my later eluciditions, I further clarified that such extreme examples of informal writing would typically only be used by teenagers or of varying degrees within text messages. The example was meant to highlight the extreme of what was possible in informal English, not to champion its use in the workplace or any formal setting. As for companies checking Facebook before hiring, this is the reason I don't know anyone under 30 that doesn't use a private profile and a fake name.

Languages are dynamic, not static, each forming their own melange of words from all strata of society along with words borrowed from other languages, living and dead. The meaning of a word one day taking on a different meaning over a span of 50 years losing its original sense in the process. Certain grammar forms dropping from the language and becoming out of fashion, then later archaic. Who of us can stop change from occurring upon language by our own power? Who of us still writes and speaks like Chaucer or the King James Bible, using the familiar thou and all its conjugations.

Is this the new orweillian thoughtcrime, the moral arbiters of the Ministry of Impure English surveying from up high with their beady eagle-eyes, looking for any opportunity to condemn new informal forms of the English language and to lambast the people who use such forms in their speech and writing? Context, reasoning, proper place and time, these are trivialities to the arbiters; the only English to be used is PureEnglish, created by the arbiters from all their personal favorite parts of the English language, and imposed upon the masses as a sort of exacting science. Anyone who does not use PureEnglish at all times of daily life commits the thoughtcrime; for this they are criticized and ostracized by the moral arbiters and followers of PureEnglish, they are cast aside and looked down upon as vacuous unintelligent vermin; they are told they will only be able to flip burgers, that their English is not Pure enough for a real job; nevermind the accused was only using Impure English around his friends, it is of no concern to the arbiters, PureEnglish is to be used at all times.

[Polyclod]

And I think it's illegal to stalk your candidates on fb, though obviously most do this anyway)

I don't know if it's illegal, but if definitely falls into the category of "creepy" and "companies poking their noses into their employees private lives where they don't belong".

As was noted, put your profile on private or use a fake name. Don't let yourself be stalked.

And another question was raised... for example, when I'm texting a French friend of mine on WhatsApp, I usually use slangy French, language I would not use professionally or with strangers. So is it a generational thing? Are we seeing younger people able to switch back and forth between PureEnglish and NotPureEnglish? Is it just the old fogeys who are befuddled by all of this?

[zenmonkey]

Are we seeing younger people able to switch back and forth between PureEnglish and NotPureEnglish? Is it just the old fogeys who are befuddled by all of this?

You kids think you invented codeswitching slang, daddy-o?

I'll just drop this here, 10-4.



> shudder <