Re: Liebe Amerikaner (was Re: English on the internet)

Amy Ohta (aohta who-is-at u.washington.edu)
Wed, 17 Apr 1996 22:40:27 -0700 (PDT)

Arne-san,

Eigo de zenbu wo yomu no wa taihen darou to omou n desu ga, ganbatte
kudasai! Iroiro na kuni kara no sanka ga aru koto wo arigataku omotte
orimasu!

(Hang in there with reading it all in English! I appreciate the
participation by people from other countries!)

For those of you who speak/read Japanese--excuse my strange
romanization--I am the child of the 'word processor Japanese' generation!
Perhaps computing will eventually have an impact on how Japanese is
romanized!

Amy

***********************************************************************
Amy Snyder Ohta (aohta who-is-at u.washington.edu), University of Washington
Asian Languages & Literature, Box 353521, Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 543-6931 Message: (206) 543-4996 Fax: (206) 685-4268

On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Arne Raeithel wrote:

> Liebe Amerikaner,
>
> um Euch mal einen Eindruck davon zu geben, wie es sich liest, wenn
> man nur halb oder gar nicht derjenigen Sprache m=E4chtig ist, die man
> da gerade vor sich hat: darum schreibe ich diese Einleitung in deutsch.
>
> One of my colleagues here, Joern Scheer from Giessen, opened his
> lecture to the latest International Congress for Personal Construct
> Psychology <somewhere in Australia> with a similar foreign looking or
> sounding paragraph.
>
> In the following I quote mechanically from the past flurry of xmca
> mails. Notice, please, the curious mixture of temporal signs in the
> date-and-time stamps that my Mac-Eudora (a mailing program) automatically
> produces (in world time there is a strict temporal order -- under the
> condition, that is, that everybody has set her/his system clock with
> the necessary caution):
>
> At 20:04 16.4.1996, Eva Ekeblad wrote:
> >... I could also say that English
> >is my second skin: I wonder sometimes whether it is the English or me th=
at
> >has been most transformed in the entrance process. As if these things co=
uld
> >be measured...
>
> At 18:18 16.4.1996, JO=C3O BATISTA MARTINS wrote:
> > Obviously I dont understand much things because I am not the eng=
lish
> >native speaker, much terms stay flying in my mind - I ruminate it. This
> >experience make possible to me to get the proper sense to the e-mails as=
my
> >life history, as cultural history...
>
> At 20:45 16.4.1996, Robin Harwood wrote:
> >The possibility of seeing things in genuinely new ways, of experiencing
> >ourselves and others in ways that we never have before--and of
> >offering others the opportunity to experience themselves differently
> >through contact with us. The monolingual blinders of most Americans
> >(myself included) are truly limiting...
>
> At 00:53 17.4.1996, Ana M. Shane wrote:
> >I also think that English (as a person!!!) is a most generous language
> >allowing all kind of guest words and expressions to feel at home and bec=
ome
> >members of the household. More so than any other language I know.
>
> At 14:46 17.4.1996, Alfred Lang wrote:
> >In my view, participating in a community where the basic vehicle of
> >interacting is not one's primary "nature" -- English language as a secon=
d
> >language in my case -- is a privilege much more than a burden.
>
> Well, Alfred, *I* think it is a very heavy privilege to bear on one's
> shoulders if one hasn't the time slots necessary for diving into that
> other way of expressing oneself. Not every academic tradition like the
> ones of the small countries up north or right in the rich western core
> of Europe have the soil for their Studenteng=E4rten to grow the sort of
> scientists/scholars for whom modern latin is a second skin.
>
> And, on conferences, there are sooo many unfeeling Americans these
> days, talking like -- pick your favorite hi-speed metaphor here --
> in their native US dialect...
>
> And so on.
>
> Sure, Jay is right about English being one of the best ways to
> write/speak as a foreigner. But behind language is difference of
> culture. And I am thinking these days
> that Americans aren't Europeans anymore.
> Remember my last one on that, Jay ?
>
> Nevertheless, I enjoy reading the xmca English quite a lot.
>
> ARa.
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=

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