“Art you here?” is one that puzzles me to the roots of my mind.
I’m going to ask the student next time I meet her and see if I can word my question indirectly enough to get a straight answer. She is a highly educated woman.
A native English speaker who left school at 16 could look at the written English of a PHD educated Chinese speaker and find mistakes. OK, some of the ‘big words’ wouldn’t be understood, but the NES would still find sentences that ‘don’t sound right’ or ‘we don’t say it like that’ (ooh, they could almost teach English in Taiwan 
). I’m still stunned that someone so educated could even begin to believe that her written English could be of a level acceptable in academia.
Oh dear, that was so close… but not quite perfect.
how about “Fuck Models”?
[quote=“tomthorne”]A Chinese student just finished an assignment and I offered to proof the English for her before she submitted it. She immediately declined, explaining that her ‘grammar software’ would correct all errors. She is an English lecturer in a Chinese university.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? [/quote]
Both. But it’s also partly stinginess.
I’ve had people return text I’ve edited or translated because they said that Word’s grammar check function put green lines under certain words or phrases. I have had to explain many times that Word’s grammar check is wrong about half the time. And when it’s right, it’s often right for the wrong reasons.
When Word’s grammar check green-lines something, I’ll read it to make sure it’s acceptable English. If it’s OK, I’ll leave it, unless I know my client has a history of returning green-lined documents despite having been informed of the gross inaccuracy of grammar checking software.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“tomthorne”]A Chinese student just finished an assignment and I offered to proof the English for her before she submitted it. She immediately declined, explaining that her ‘grammar software’ would correct all errors. She is an English lecturer in a Chinese university.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? [/quote]
Both. But it’s also partly stinginess.
I’ve had people return text I’ve edited or translated because they said that Word’s grammar check function put green lines under certain words or phrases. I have had to explain many times that Word’s grammar check is wrong about half the time. And when it’s right, it’s often right for the wrong reasons.
When Word’s grammar check green-lines something, I’ll read it to make sure it’s acceptable English. If it’s OK, I’ll leave it, unless I know my client has a history of returning green-lined documents despite having been informed of the gross inaccuracy of grammar checking software.[/quote]
I actually offered to check her work for free. Maybe she just didn’t rate my English ability.
Even if software could be developed that checks each sentence with 100% accuracy it still wouldn’t help with cohesion and coherence. To be honest, I’m glad she declined my offer. It’ll be up to her lecturer to sort it out. You know how much fun it is marking their written work 
.
[quote=“Chris”]
When Word’s grammar check green-lines something, I’ll read it to make sure it’s acceptable English. If it’s OK, I’ll leave it, unless I know my client has a history of returning green-lined documents despite having been informed of the gross inaccuracy of grammar checking software.[/quote]
my company is the same, MS-Word is like a Grammar God. If a word, phrase or sentence is green or red lined, then it must be incorrect. Now I just accept that for my company, Word is right and there is no point arguing the case against, just have a chuckle now and then.
Here’s a great sentence that Word marks as OK, how many grammar/spelling errors can you find?
"However, the corresponding parts must confirm to understand that the same parts is corresponding to what priorities of citation 1. "
Edit : to clarify, I still correct these mistakes, but just say, “in English we prefer to phrase this differently.”
For some reason, Word’s grammar check always underlines “key” in sentences like “Quality is key to our success”. Another word it doesn’t like is “conducive”. It says “Adjective use (consider revising)” but gives no explanation.
Type, ‘Quality is a key to our success.’ And you should have no probs. 
All hail The Ghosts In The Machines!
[quote=“tomthorne”]I’m going to ask the student next time I meet her and see if I can word my question indirectly enough to get a straight answer. She is a highly educated woman.
A native English speaker who left school at 16 could look at the written English of a PHD educated Chinese speaker and find mistakes. OK, some of the ‘big words’ wouldn’t be understood, but the NES would still find sentences that ‘don’t sound right’ or ‘we don’t say it like that’ (ooh, they could almost teach English in Taiwan ). I’m still stunned that someone so educated could even begin to believe that her written English could be of a level acceptable in academia.[/quote]
I bet she won’t do it. She likely has an extreme superiority complex that prevents them from admiting that there is something she doesn’t know and so could learn from you. She probably doesn’t even believe that you know more about your own language than she does despite the fact that she employs you as her English teacher. It is inner circle of hell stuff.
[quote=“bob”][quote=“tomthorne”]I’m going to ask the student next time I meet her and see if I can word my question indirectly enough to get a straight answer. She is a highly educated woman.
A native English speaker who left school at 16 could look at the written English of a PHD educated Chinese speaker and find mistakes. OK, some of the ‘big words’ wouldn’t be understood, but the NES would still find sentences that ‘don’t sound right’ or ‘we don’t say it like that’ (ooh, they could almost teach English in Taiwan ). I’m still stunned that someone so educated could even begin to believe that her written English could be of a level acceptable in academia.[/quote]
I bet she won’t do it. She likely has an extreme superiority complex that prevents them from admiting that there is something she doesn’t know and so could learn from you. She probably doesn’t even believe that you know more about your own language than she does despite the fact that she employs you as her English teacher. It is inner circle of hell stuff.[/quote]
I have to admit that I’m increasingly coming down on the ‘they’re just plain arrogant’ side of the argument. I’ve tried to explain this kind of incident as the result of ignorance but it just doesn’t add up.
For anyone who argues that nobody ‘owns’ English, it’s an international language and there are many different ‘Englishes’ people can use, I totally agree. However, for specific purposes such as academia or applying in writing for a job there are internationally accepted standards to be met and these students will fail because they don’t meet them. That’s not being a ‘grammar nazi’ or not accepting that there is no cultural absolute right or wrong, it’s just a cold fact.
Quite a while ago somebody who had a job with the MOE to publish a book posted here saying that his boss was insisiting on a particular usage that he (the waiguo) knew was wrong. It was just obviously flawed. I forget the example.
Anyway, he posted it here and after the predictable bit of bickering between the grammar hens we managed to agree WHY it was wrong. There were editors, translators, teachers etc working on it.
The supervisor at MOE was directed to the thread.
They published the mistake.
In the end the guy had to decide whether to leave his name on it and get paid or take it off and not get paid.
Nice.
Yup. Did I remember it correctly I wonder?
(Sorry it’s too long a slog for my old brain just now)
That was a fascinating thread, apart from the boring bit in the middle where people argued over something that was clearly wrong.
Sigh, it looks like it’s all been discussed at length before. I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but in terms of cultural awareness quite important for teachers to bear in mind.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“tomthorne”]A Chinese student just finished an assignment and I offered to proof the English for her before she submitted it. She immediately declined, explaining that her ‘grammar software’ would correct all errors. She is an English lecturer in a Chinese university.
Is it arrogance or ignorance? [/quote]
Both. But it’s also partly stinginess.
I’ve had people return text I’ve edited or translated because they said that Word’s grammar check function put green lines under certain words or phrases. I have had to explain many times that Word’s grammar check is wrong about half the time. And when it’s right, it’s often right for the wrong reasons.
When Word’s grammar check green-lines something, I’ll read it to make sure it’s acceptable English. If it’s OK, I’ll leave it, unless I know my client has a history of returning green-lined documents despite having been informed of the gross inaccuracy of grammar checking software.[/quote]Word just flags things that might be errors. Of course it can’t tell you which ones actually are errors. It’s useful, as far as it goes. Very good for finding accidental repeated words and that kind of thing.
You know you can customize which types of errors/style points Word highlights? And I believe that these settings are stored in the document. Certainly, if you right-click the highlighted word/phrase and click Ignore, it shouldn’t be highlighted again when someone else opens the document. A friend and I just tested this.
I don’t really know what your customers expect, but it would seem reasonable to me that when you receive the document, you configure the spelling/grammar/style check settings to the ones you want, and as you go through checking highlighted items, you right-click and Ignore the ones that aren’t relevant. That’s using the software as it’s supposed to be used, and as there will be no green lines once you’ve finished checking, your customers might complain less.
[quote=“In November of 2001, wolf_reinhold”]It isn’t necessarily that the foreign way of doing something is wrong or inferior, but it is irrelevant – it has no bearing on established protocol and procedures.[/quote] Racism in local education and media
Edit: I just saw joesax’s post. Thanks for that info, joesax.
[quote=“joesax”]You know you can customize which types of errors/style points Word highlights? And I believe that these settings are stored in the document. Certainly, if you right-click the highlighted word/phrase and click Ignore, it shouldn’t be highlighted again when someone else opens the document. A friend and I just tested this.
[/quote]
Hmm, I didn’t know this. I assumed it would be stored not in the document, but the user’s own software settings. I’ll keep this in mind.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“joesax”]You know you can customize which types of errors/style points Word highlights? And I believe that these settings are stored in the document. Certainly, if you right-click the highlighted word/phrase and click Ignore, it shouldn’t be highlighted again when someone else opens the document. A friend and I just tested this.
[/quote]
Hmm, I didn’t know this. I assumed it would be stored not in the document, but the user’s own software settings. I’ll keep this in mind.[/quote]
No. If you can figure out Word, it really is quite a sophisticated editor’s tool. And I ain’t talking sandman’s knob.
[quote=“tomthorne”][quote=“bob”][quote=“tomthorne”]I’m going to ask the student next time I meet her and see if I can word my question indirectly enough to get a straight answer. She is a highly educated woman.
A native English speaker who left school at 16 could look at the written English of a PHD educated Chinese speaker and find mistakes. OK, some of the ‘big words’ wouldn’t be understood, but the NES would still find sentences that ‘don’t sound right’ or ‘we don’t say it like that’ (ooh, they could almost teach English in Taiwan ). I’m still stunned that someone so educated could even begin to believe that her written English could be of a level acceptable in academia.[/quote]
I bet she won’t do it. She likely has an extreme superiority complex that prevents them from admiting that there is something she doesn’t know and so could learn from you. She probably doesn’t even believe that you know more about your own language than she does despite the fact that she employs you as her English teacher. It is inner circle of hell stuff.[/quote]
I have to admit that I’m increasingly coming down on the ‘they’re just plain arrogant’ side of the argument. I’ve tried to explain this kind of incident as the result of ignorance but it just doesn’t add up.
For anyone who argues that nobody ‘owns’ English, it’s an international language and there are many different ‘Englishes’ people can use, I totally agree. However, for specific purposes such as academia or applying in writing for a job there are internationally accepted standards to be met and these students will fail because they don’t meet them. That’s not being a ‘grammar nazi’ or not accepting that there is no cultural absolute right or wrong, it’s just a cold fact.[/quote]
Actually, as a non-Native English teacher -as per my college degree- I believe that proper grammar and natural usage is the foundation for all those “Englishes”, and by that I mean that we wouldn’t be able to communicate among those different variants if we didn’t have a common reference of what is actually “official” or even “Standard” English.
I compare it to Spanish. You have all these variations in Latin America and even within Spain, yet there is a respected standard, maybe the one advocated in the past by the Real Academia but most probably just the backbone where we all refer as “correct” and are taught more or less universally. Or else we end up like some friends of mine, a Spanish, a Puerto Rican and a Nicaraguan living under the same roof: they had to resort to English sometimes.
For people here who are so obssessed with tests, I find it shocking to see this kind of thinking, as English as lingua franca means we all agree on a certain usage. Hence, this insular attitude born of hubris only sets them back, both in Standarized tests -which hence spams the localized tests and you know what happens then- and in academic or educated circles.