Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!kgdykes From: kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Dykes) Newsgroups: can.general Subject: Re: postings in the French language Message-ID: <29518@watmath.waterloo.edu> Date: 28 Sep 89 05:00:25 GMT Reply-To: kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Dykes) Organization: S.D.G. UofWaterloo Lines: 57 In article <1989Sep27.172943.15615@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> doc@dgp.toronto.edu (Blaine Price) writes: >In article <29462@watmath.waterloo.edu> kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Dykes) writes: >> Are you trying to tell me that 3 years of public school, mostly ORAL >> french education while conjugating a few simplistic verbs is going to enable >> me to EASILY/QUICKLY/I_READ_A_LOT_OF_NEWS_AND_HAVE_NO_SPARE_TIME_TO_WASTE > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > this is a contradiction Not really. I *choose* what I have time for. Many newsgroups are of value to my EDUCATION in my chosen field of work. And I choose those social and political things I am interested in, however -- time is a limited resource and everything gets put into the "priority list" as it were. I do not give high priority to language translations of dubious political topics on a computer news network. Yes i have spare time, but i choose the definition of waste. >> read Quebecois-french (the schools tend to teach a very clinical french) >> more than 18 years LATER? hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha >I'm sorry that you had such a poor education, but I think that things might I had an excellent education, and i'm sure at the 4-6th years of french it may become useful after the "ground laying" of the first 3 years. However i *again choose* what topics I spend time on, the topics I chose in high school were very well taught. (silly me, choosing triple-science credits when a single-science & french AND GERMAN IN THE COMMUNITY I LIVE IN would be all I need for a happy life; only the most vacuous of people would ignore language instruction...) >have improved in the last two decades. The fact remains that the country is >officially bilingual and if you choose to know nothing about one of the keyword is *officially*, PRACTICALLY I need german and italian where i live, portugese would be useful too. Idealists and Officialists must have some wonderous way of ceating time for ALL THOSE GOOD THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD DO. ...or perhaps they have nothing better to do... All I was trying to say in my last posting is, *ON PRACTICAL TERMS* if you want the masses to read it, write in the language of that particular mass. I HAVE NO OBJECTION to postings in french, fully support your rights, and am sure many (but not massive numbers) of people get great benefit from it. To repeat: if you *want* the masses... if don't want them fine. One must be practical in the REAL world you know -- I hate to be the one to break the news(-: to you. And now, in respect for my precious priority list, I will probably not answer any more messages on this topic since I have already repeated the point i want to support; but I don't begrudge this one clarification since english may not be some peoples strongest language, and I want my thoughts easily accessible :-) :-) i wonder, can.talk? this sure isn't a very can.general topic anymore, the same problems can occur anywhere dealing in multiple languages -- and dont think there arent places with bigger language problems outside this continent. -ken -- - Ken Dykes, Software Development Group, UofWaterloo, Canada [43.47N 80.52W] kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu [129.97.128.1] kgdykes@waterloo.csnet kgdykes@water.bitnet watmath!kgdykes