Bette Frick
The Text Doctor LLC | |
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A linguist's joke
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"What do you call someone who speaks three languages?" (Multilingual)
"What do you call someone who speaks two languages?" (Bilingual)
"What do you call someone who speaks one language?" (American)
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Free grammar, punctuation, and writing training in 2013
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Watch this newsletter for these future lessons: - Tone in writing (and you get to help me with this)
- How to handle numbers
- Capitalization
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Quote of the month
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"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it."
Dale Carnegie American writer,
lecturer, developer of
courses in self-improvement 1888-1955 |
| Yes, I have my own editor | |
Special thanks to my faithful editor, Liz Willis, who improves my newsletter every month.
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| Results of the quiz on lists | Here was the quiz ...
And here were your answers.
Thanks for taking the quizzes and responding to my questions!
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| The Text Doctor's Diagnosis
December 2012
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Happy Holidays to all my loyal readers! I wish you peace and prosperity in 2013.
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The value of being bilingual or multilingual
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After so many years of teaching writing, I am accustomed to feeling that I am the language expert in the classroom. I'm not saying that my perception is accurate; it's just my perception.Imagine my discomfort when I volunteered in my granddaughter's kindergarten Russian immersion class. Here were 5-year-old American children chattering in Russian and learning to read and write in Russian, and I couldn't understand a word. I felt completely disoriented, an outsider where I usually feel competent.However, the disorientation was good for me, making me aware of two truths: - If I felt linguistically inadequate, perhaps some bilingual or multilingual adult learners might feel likewise in my classes.
- If these little squirts could learn Russian, I needed to think about learning a second language.
Almost immediately, I began to work on #2, and for the last two years I have been learning Spanish. The bad news? I still feel linguistically inadequate, but at least I'm moving in the right direction. The good news? I'm humbled by how long it takes to learn another language, and I more deeply respect English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writers. Perhaps your coworkers are bilingual speakers/writers. You probably notice, as I do, that their most stubborn errors are with English verb forms, articles, and prepositions (I struggle with these issues in Spanish myself). I have found that most ESL learners are very skilled in their own technical disciplines; they recognize that they make errors in English; and they are eager to learn to correct those errors. Three ways to learn or polish a second language Here's what I've learned about how adults might learn a second language: - Attend classes or hire a tutor. Trainers and tutors can be expensive, but they may speed learning.
- Use self-study print materials. These require a lot of discipline, because learning by book alone is inherently passive. (I have a shelf of books like E-Z Spanish and Practice Makes Perfect, but I have not touched them in months.)
- Use online resources. I enjoy two interactive (e-learning) self-study websites with audio and video:
- Powerspeak12 (available free online through my library and maybe yours, too): I'm told that this interactive e-learning replicates Rosetta Stone software. I find Powerspeak very engaging because I can hear a narrator speak and record myself speaking, then compare the two. I also love the drag-and-drop exercises.
- BBC Languages: Free interactive website with classes in Spanish, Italian, and English and other languages: The learning is based on a soap-opera with grammar and vocabulary drills worked into the drama.
Of course, a wise language learner will combine all three resources in a hybrid fashion to maximize learning, minimize costs, and increase your fun. Targeted language resources But what if you are a bilingual or multilingual speaker who has a good command of another language but you make only a few glaring grammatical mistakes? You will need specific drill-and-practice in the areas that confuse you, but in the online resources above, it may be hard to find the exact module that you need. Here are some specific ESL online resources that might help: 1-Language.com: Well-defined lessons and interactive exercises with feedback. I wasn't overly impressed with the lesson on articles, however. Dave's ESL Cafe: Print-based lessons, although there are quizzes that cover several lessons at a time. The feedback on the quizzes is a bit clunky and not all that helpful. Why bother? I have found that learning a second language takes a lot of time, especially at my age, but the benefits far outweigh the effort. I feel my brain expanding (and researchers tell us that being bilingual may postpone the effects of dementia). I can look forward to visiting Spain and being able to speak the language, however hesitantly. And I understand the struggles of ESL speakers better. Hasta luego! [See you later!]
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Who knew? Zombies and passive voice
| | I have to admit that after years of scorn for all things zombie, I finally succumbed to watching The Walking Dead with my daughter-in-law. I was thrilled, then, to receive this suggestion in a listserv post about zombies and passive voice:
"If you can insert 'by zombies' after the verb and it still sounds right, you have passive voice. If it doesn't sound right at all, you have active voice."
- The shelf bracket was painted [by zombies]. Passive voice
- She painted [by zombies] the shelf bracket. Active voice
Whatever works! It's all good.
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Writing lesson: Be up front with your reader
| | Pretend you have to go to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled. Before the pharmacist gives you the medication, you have to sit through a lesson on the current state of pharmaceutical research. How happy would you be with the pharmacist?
Well, imagine your reader. Your e-mail is one of 50 or a hundred they receive every day. Your first five paragraphs rattle on about the history of your whole project or pages of background detail and lab result figures before you get to the point. They'll NEVER get to your point if you do that to them.
Readers today expect to read technical and business documents differently than they might read newspapers, magazines, or fiction. Research shows that business people read for information and expect to be able to skim, scan, search, skip, sort, and sift. They are busy. Give them information right up front: No secrets, no hidden agenda, no mystery novel.
- Put your main point as early in the document as possible.
- Include your requested action or required decision at the beginning of the document.
- State a deadline up front if appropriate.
- Resist a chronological presentation of facts or events, unless that is totally appropriate.
- Prefer right-branching sentences that start with the subject and verb and then add (or branch) additional information off to the right. Research strongly suggests that right-branching sentences are easier for readers to process than left-branching sentences.
Sounds logical, doesn't it? But as you know, for every "rule" in English, there are exceptions. For example, when conveying bad news, it is usually wise to provide a buffer in the beginning of your message rather than start right away with the bad news.
In what other communication situations might it be a good idea NOT to state your message up front? Please share your thoughts and offer specifics here.
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