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Nov. 14th, 2002
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A reflection on Engrish.
Nov. 14th, 2002 02:01 pmWe'll all agree that mistakes like "all your base are belong to us" are unprofessional translations.
But I pose that making these mistakes is absolutely essential to obtaining speaking fluency in a language.
Indeed, anyone who's studied childhood development will say that it's a good sign when children start using words that don't exist like "gived" and "gooder". It means they're no longer parroting words, but picking up rules and learning to generalize them, learning to experiment, to construct.
And I think back to how that same kind of experimentation, in the classrooms I've been in, is not encouraged.
I hope that people know better than to trot out All Your Base in front of beginning English-speakers, especially in Japan where it likely originated. But I know that it doesn't take much cultural ignorance to make someone feel unjustifiedly inhibited.
But I pose that making these mistakes is absolutely essential to obtaining speaking fluency in a language.
Indeed, anyone who's studied childhood development will say that it's a good sign when children start using words that don't exist like "gived" and "gooder". It means they're no longer parroting words, but picking up rules and learning to generalize them, learning to experiment, to construct.
And I think back to how that same kind of experimentation, in the classrooms I've been in, is not encouraged.
I hope that people know better than to trot out All Your Base in front of beginning English-speakers, especially in Japan where it likely originated. But I know that it doesn't take much cultural ignorance to make someone feel unjustifiedly inhibited.