Sunday, August 23, 2009

English as a First Language - Part III

Maybe I should title this one, "English as an ONLY Language." I speak a teensy bit of French, and a few odd words of other languages that would do me not one ounce of good anywhere! It's too bad, because I'm sure this comment was meant to encourage me... even lift my spirits. If only I could read it!

(Chinese text removed)


If you'll notice, there are a few English letters in the context of the note... Mostly jibberish, except for that one three-letter word. I hope it's just a coincidence and the comment is not objectionable. If it is, I hope some dear reader will inform me so that I may remove it from my blog!


This particular reader left me a comment on another post...


(Chinese text removed)


Not a clue...

It amazes me that this person read my post. I am in awe of the numbers of different countries listed on my visitor map. Blogville is truly a global community. Too bad there isn't a global language.

Now, I am not posting this to poke fun at an earnest commenter. I seriously cannot read it! It is a sad state of affairs, I agree; but the fact is that most Americans are NOT bilingual. On a world scale, we're illiterate. I don't even know anyone that can read this. I'm quite sure that I've crossed paths with people that could. At my former job, on occasion, I passed through the design offices where some brilliant minds were on the telephone, speaking a language unfamiliar to me. That is as close as I've come to being bilingual.

I do not dare print the comments out and take them to our local Chinese carryout. I'm sure I would offend someone by assuming they could read it. They'd likely accuse me of bigotry for not realizing that not all Asians speak the same language. Of course I know that. What I don't know is... uh... (shh.... what language is it?)

If anyone reading this post can clue me in... please do!

10 comments:

Susan R. Mills said...

I've had the same kind of comments. Well, actually, emails. I don't have a clue. I deleted them, and forgot about them, but perhaps they said something interesting...one never knows. Let me know if you find out what it says. I'd love to know.

Rae said...

I just finished reading the first comment and it says something to the the effect of "I think you are an excellent author. You should try writing a Chinese love story....SEX should be involved too. This is my 85 cents worth" lol Didn't know I could read Chinese did you? haha

Seriously why would someone write something you can not read? I don't get it.

Al said...

Lilly,

I am an Asian but I speak English. Our second language taught in school is English, of course our national language should be the first, which is not Mandarin, or Fookien. Nowadays kids at a tender age are trained to speak in English, maybe it's the international language and with that, we could relate well to everyone. Obviously those comments were written in Chinese characters.

AL

Veronika said...

cannot help you with your translation but have this to say in regards to speaking one language: if you write, its great. Because you can hone and perfect your skills in that language. I seriously struggle.....I grew up bilingually plus had to learn 3 more languages at school. so now try keeping up in all five languages. Impossible. So that makes me crappy in 5 languages. So, honestly, I see it as an advantage - one language. One perfection.

Anonymous said...

I've had these comments too. As far as I am aware it's just spam. Advertising. I put the verification code on and they stopped but then I decided to take it off again. Haven't had any since.

Wouldn't it be nice to able to speak lots of different languages fluently.

CJ xx

Jeannie Campbell, LMFT said...

that's crazy...seriously. does that mean you've made it big? :)

Jody Hedlund said...

Looks like spam to me! Most of the commentors have the option of translating into English, right? But it would be interesting to know what it says!

Stephanie Faris said...

So true. I've always felt bad that we aren't more bilingual. I'll see people from other countries perfectly able to comment in English, then I go to their blog and it's all in French or Finnish or Spanish or whatever. It's just a reminder that our education system needs to teach other languages.

SquirrelQueen said...

Just more spam, I've been getting the same comments for the last few weeks. I activated comment approval on older posts just to get rid of them. More than likely if you click on one it will take you to a porn site.

Delete is a fun key!

Lillian Robinson said...

Duh... Stupid me! I didn't click ON the message... just the sender. Turns out it was spam of the porn persuasion! Live and Learn