Have you ever had anyone say that to you via anonymous comments, anonymous hatemail, etc?
I went out with two lovely girl friends the other day, and we talked about how so many university students these days have very poor command of English. The two of them are tutors, so yeah, they would know. Even if you weren't a teacher, you'd probably still have a rough idea of how bad the situation really is.
Thing is, how can we expect people who have less than perfect command of the language to try and speak English with confidence when you've got a large number of anonymous jerks sitting impatiently in their seats in front of their computers, waiting for that moment where you fumble and make grammatical errors so they can obnoxiously say to you, 'YOUR ENGLISH TERUK GILA, SAYANG. TULIS JE LAH DALAM BAHASA MELAYU. KITA KAN MELAYU'.
I'm not a fan of extremely bad grammar either, but everyone makes mistakes. At least the person's trying, and that's better than just giving up or not making any effort at all.
So if you've ever had anyone comment in your blog, (usually) using all caps lock, telling you to stop writing in English because your English is less than perfect, tell them- in English, mind you- to simply STFU.
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There was this awesome little comic in the papers the other day. I can't find it any more so I can't show it to you in its original form, but I'll just roughly demonstrate it for you...
A: University graduates are failing to get good jobs because they don't know how to present themselves, have low self-confidence, and, most importantly, are not good at English.
B: How come when the government decided to have Maths and Science be taught in English, everyone made a giant fuss about it, but when our graduates fail to secure jobs because they've got poor English, no one bats an eyelid?
Exactamundo.
It's obviously a massive problem that needs to be fixed.
Obviously something needs to change.
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I know I'm trying to stop hatin', but this next person I'm going to tell you about was just asking for it.
I was scrolling through my facebook homepage when I spotted this status:
Kelakar tgk status org. they would rather updating themselves every single minute and foremost ada yg letak status in english n rase bgus tp xsdar grammar tunggang trbalik.
Oh, the irony!
I still love you though, dear facebook friend...
Lots of love!
22 comments:
I agree! Benci lah, I know some comments are made to point out the errors that they made, but we have to point it out in the least discouraging way. And there's no need to be anon while commenting.
I agree that those who had been criticized like this should just ignore all those comments and keep on writing. My English was horrible like f*** back in 2009. You can read my old blog posts and it's embarrassing! But thank God no one had ever said bad things about my english, and alhamdulillah I managed to improve - my english ain't really good though, but to an extent that everyone could understand, bolehlah :P
And I prefer to read Facebook statuses written in poor English rather than those in crappy BM like:
bUhSaNnYER AriE nIeyh..,,.. nAk wAt Apew YerR.,.. SapE nK kUaR ngN Aq...? HuHu~~~~
omg I can't believe I just wrote that. I'm not sure if we can regard it as BM lololol
Okay sorry comment panjang sangat :D
ha..org2 tak supportive mcm nilah yang memburukkan keadaan kita. org2 mcm ni better jangan jadi cikgu, nanti habis semua budak kena bom.
i sokong Masrudy Omri, baik baca stat tunggang terbalik daripada this crap:
bUhSaNnYER AriE nIeyh..,,.. nAk wAt Apew YerR.,.. SapE nK kUaR ngN Aq...? HuHu~~~~
satu dua salah grammar tu standardlah, we're not native speakers/writers. natives pon make mistakes, you know?
and besides, korang ingat senang ke nak jadi brave to write/speak in english, all the while knowing there are people like you yang suka bring other people down?
tapi kan, kalau english tunggang-langgang sambil tulis benda2 lucah, racism segala mak nenek memang kena jugakla dgn i.
good post!
Rudy, I've never thought your English was bad. You dah termasuk in the list of Malaysians with good English lah!
Hi, Nani! :D I know, right?
I honestly can't stand people who think their English is so good that they have to criticize other people's English at the wrong place/time in the wrong way. People usually criticize other people's bad language when they're trying to insult them/start a fight but dah takde other flaws that could be pointed out. These people deserve to be ignored, or shot with a harpoon.
I do know there are people who genuinely want to help correct other people's English though, but they really need to be tactful and sensitive.
Oh, don't get me started on crappy BM. It's not even BM, it's Bahasa Rempit! I don't get it, is it supposed to be in code? Do they get points for coming up with the most 'creative' alternative spellings? Weird.
If you ask me, there's no better place to try and improve your english and your writing than on an informal platform like a blog. It's like your own personal space, and to anyone who wants to critisize for the sake of critisizing - how is their english, on their own blog, even any of your business?
Exactly, Steph! Like I said in my previous comment, these people who criticize in the wrong manner are usually looking to start a fight. I've seen it happen in so many different blogs. An anonymous hater comes along and starts bashing the blogger's English, and it's completely uncalled for! The haters usually appear when a blogger posts an entry about a happy event or something that could spark a bit of envy in the hater...
It's always sad to see people lose their confidence because of a bunch of hateful anons (who are usually really just one person!).
No doubt. That status update is so mean! Some people are just trying to improve, practice, and you know, get used to using English. But then all the sudden they just have to be condemned... Well at least they're trying to learn.
As for me, I must say though I write my blog in English, it's actually for my own practice and you know, as a process of learning.
Aisya, I agree on Bahasa Rempit! Broken English is so totally way better than those rubbish. It's like destroying your own language, coz you know already that it's wrong... Speaking is another thing, we have various slangs.
But all in all, I think it's just better to be considerate and not critize people.
I blog in english and I get this comments a lot...
just ignore it...
practice makes perfect..
you won't be good unless you practice...
besides grammar isn't that important if you know how to speak...
I've met several americans who don't care much about grammar...
as long as they can speak that's fine...
so don't afraid of grammar...
just speak up..
ouh n make sure that people can understand you of course..
huhu...
i once tried. ngeh. there's this blog of a guy. his latest post talked about wanting to improve his english, and then kat hujung post adelah dia cakap something macam 'kalau ade cikgu2 kat luar sana, bolehlah tolong2 betulkan.'
so i did. i wrote, 'adik, he runS, bukan he running.'
tu je. that ONE thing. then he posted one entry about how that blog is his and he does not deserve disrespect of having people correcting him in the comment box. pastu he set his blog to private.
mana i tau dia nak suruh correct kat mana! =,( bila teringat je i sedih sgt!
since then i never tried. adei. i taktau how sensitive can people be. DX
Bashtiah, there's this anti Bahasa Rempit group on facebook, and I saw a comment there left by a Bahasa Rempit user. He was all upset, telling the members there that Bahasa Rempit is actually creative, and that other normal BM users are just too narrow-minded to understand their creativity... Go figure!
RockPrincess, I do believe grammar is very important, but when in informal personal places, like in blogs, it doesn't really matter.
Nani, kesian you. Helping is just fine, especially if the other person actually specifically asked for it! That dude you helped... Split personality, perhaps? He had no reason to be upset. He should have known what to expect when he asked people to correct his English. ..
There's a big difference between wanting to help, like you did, and just telling someone to give up or just purposely humiliating someone so that they stop writing/speaking in English. I wrote this blog post just to tell victims of anonymous haters not to give up when their English gets criticized. :>
I in my right or wrong mind would never tell ANYONE to give up in learning English because I'm freaking teaching that language and anyone in their right or wrong mind who does exactly that deserves a grammar class with me. I WILL MAKE YOU CRY!
This message is for everyone who got grammatically bullied: KEEP WRITING AND DON'T GIVE UP. THEM ANONS ARE DEFINITELY NO BETTER THAN YOU OR THEY WOULD HAVE USED THEIR REAL NAMES WHEN CORRECTING OTHERS.
Garang gila Cikgu Nani! If comments had a 'like' button, I'd totally click the one under your last comment!
and i will like yours. XD
and i tak pernah jumpa ANY other blog yang dapat anonymous hate comments sebanyak blog ni:
http://uncleseekers.blogspot.com/
beratus-ratus i tell you.
actually ada org duk promote blog mamat ni kat ym i, i pun tgklah. terus migraine.
omg. i lupa logout blogger skali ade org guna ID i pegi mencarut lak kat situ. habis semua orang bom i lak tiba2. DX adoi.
What is this uncle seekers what what what. I pun terus migraine bila tengok komen2 kat situ. Why's he so famous? Why were you introduced to him? Why is the background a picture of his giant face? My brain... It hurts...
Oh I didnt see comments left under your name... Did you delete them?
i didn't. uncle yg delete. sbb dia blog owner, so dialah responsible mengawal tukang2 komen kt blog die. thanks to him lah.
tapi diorg still tuduh i macam2. tah mane2 punye anon punye komen diorg kutip, tuduh i tulis. mcm byklah sgt mase i. tah pape. ah well. it's not there anymore.
no proof i did anything, even if i really did.
Is that what your latest blog post is about? I left a comment there, btw! Read it!
yeah i just did. thanks. you made me smile. *huggie*
sat i nak reply.
and yes that's what the post is about.
tp i doubt the anons jumpa my blog (i tukar my profile)..i tulis sbb nak let it out je.
thanks again!
yay replied!
btw. will there be more characters from your four elements coming up?
Oh ya! Lupa! There's supposed to be one more! Fire? I haven't been feeling inspired enough to draw anything new... Nantilah. Ehehe.
:D
Oh yeah, happy new year to you, and to everyone else reading this!
you cepatlah! i nak tgk. nanti i nak lukis my version pulak! XD
happy new year to you, too.
p/s: ha i dah reply komen you yang panjang tu! lenguh i, haha.
Salam Aisya.
Lama dah tak komen kat sini.
I do agree. I love this post.
"Fossilization" is everywhere.
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