Mistakes are everywhere

Mistakes are everywhere. Just yesterday I pulled out of my letter-box an advertisement with a misused verb. But do those mistakes prevent people from understanding each other? Well, it depends.

In most cases, mistakes don’t play any significant role. In verbal communication, some mistakes are just not distinguishable. Even written language still has enough room for one to make a mistake and get away with it. For instance, the above-mentioned ad used plural imperative mood instead of you-form (in Russian, there are plenty of finite forms, depending on person, number, gender, tense, and mood). Does it necessarily mean that people this ad is addressed to will not understand it? No, it doesn’t. Actually, the majority of the target audience will not just disregard the mistake, but won’t see it at all.

Being grammatically perfect is sometimes not only unavailing, but obnoxious. There is ample evidence that Internet communication is spoken language rather than written. Forums, blogs, social networks are full of language mistakes. Moreover, grammatically correct speech happens to have a hostile reception. And trying “[t]o punctuate, to correct—forever more” [Porter], “or to take a lead pencil against a sea of comma misuse, and by opposing, end them” [ibid.] would end up with a big quarrel, nothing more.

So whether ‘tis nobler to pursue grammatical perfection, that’s not the question. It is, definitely. Yet sometimes it is noble enough to accept mistakes of others. Paying attention, being unselfish, considering circumstances—that is, to my mind, the answer. After all, what we are looking for is not perfection, but mutual understanding, isn’t it?

Porter—Porter, Megan. To be, or not to be. [Blog post.] Cited from Write101x MOOC materials.

Discuss the reasons why multilingualism is becoming common

Intercultural communication is becoming quite common nowadays. International businesses, international poilitical organizations, international non-governmental organizations, travelling all over the world, studying abroad… The world keeps getting smaller and smaller, so people have to communicate with each other in many languages — at work, on vacation, and while learning. This essay will discuss the main reasons why more and more people are becoming multilingual: they need it to be able to act both globally and locally, and they also want it.

Today, considerable number of people need to speak at least two languages. The most common combination is English at work and a mothertongue everywhere else, but there are many other combinations, too. Let’s take, for example, a Ukrainian engineer who lives in Russia, works at a German company, and is getting a distance education for MBA degree. He speaks Ukrainian to his parents, German at work, English at study, and Russian everywhere else. Another example would be a US businessperson who has dealings with Mexican companies; here’s a pair English/Spanish. Yet another illustration is that Muslims from over the world are encouraged to study Arabic. And all these motives are getting stronger: number of international branches is increasing, volume of distance/abroad education is growing, migration figures (including, unfortunately, refugees) are rising. The combination “a native language, a state language, a language for business” is becoming more and more common. (The latter two are not necessarily the same even in Russia; for example, Russian domestic market of Islamic goods is predominantly Tatar-speaking.)

People also want to speak more languages. To be able to travel, for instance. For most countries English will do it, but, say, in Latin America, Spanish would be much more useful. There is also a trend to watch motion pictures in the original.

Thus, in many circumstances, people need to speak many languages. In other circumstances, they want it. There is every reason to believe that the number of such situations will be only growing, so multilingualism will be becoming more and more common.

Love for languages

After: Любовь к языкам

Foreign languages have been one of my primary interests since I was a kid. My family and I lived in Ukraine, and I dreamt about learning Ukrainian, looking forward to the day I would have to learn it in school. I was set to start learning Ukrainian in school once I reached second grade, but we moved to Russia, when I was seven, so I didn’t get the chance to get to know my mother-tongue (by the way, literally “mother”, because my mom’s a Ukrainian).

Later on, I was keen on German. At first I learned it by myself, then in school. My first German teacher was German indeed — Emma Schiemann. I’ve kept her lessons in my mind to this very day. While attending the Aircraft Institute, I completed a course as a translator of technical literature from German and English.

As for English, I tried to study it in school, also on my own, but the effectiveness of learning phonetics and pronunciation by a self-taught book is questionable, to say the least. All the same, I filed an application to be admitted to the advanced course, not the beginner’s. I had to plough my way through the first few months, it goes without saying, but later, when I was a student at Moscow State University, I was able to help my fellow classmates to do their homework.

At Moscow University I studied French. At the same time I attended cross-department magistracy as a translator from German, English, and French. But the more I came to know about French culture and mentality the less desire I had to continue. Our professor, she was magnificent (I was lucky with that at least as much as with German), but I had absolutely no rapport with the French language.

Later on, I encountered a booklet with the basics of Arabic. This was a miracle. Not the booklet (at the time I couldn’t judge if it’s good or bad), but those… traceries? letters? (Now I know they are huruf.) I and a friend of mine went to a mosque, asking to be admitted to a group for studying Arabic (free of charge). All groups were full. But I couldn’t help myself. I bought a primer, then a copy of the Quran with parallel texts and started learning. Eventually I became a Muslim.