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I’ve noticed that many posters have difficulty expressing themselves clearly through writing, which can often be a difficult task. Also, proper grammar and spelling are often absent from posts, distorting or blurring the posters’ point which is bad for everybody.
If people are interested, here is a great source with examples where people can review general grammar rules that can help them with their posts, and also in general to make a kiddush Hashem by writing and speaking decently when dealing with people.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/
Maybe the Mods can make this a sticky for people to review, if everyone else agrees it will be beneficial for the oilem.
Anyone else have any good sources to contribute or comments?
Hatzlacha!
Yes. It is sad how dreadful the writing skills are of many. There are some posts on this website that are completely incomprehensible.
I don’t expect basic grammar or punctuation or even spelling of some words, but people keep making the same mistakes in spelling on the same words. Elementary students know how to spell these words correctly.
A lot of elementary students do NOT know how to spell words correctly. They use teen talk and text talk. And remember that a proportion of posters here do not have English as their first language.
So basically, basic English is not the basic kind of language talk thingy that lots of ppl use you know what I mean basically? Its’ just a littel differant. Ye? Right. Cuz there basically abit iffy about it, no wat I meen? They must improove there english n stp txtn so mch 2 hav ny chanse at al. Enywon hu dissagreez is closing thier eyes to this sadd but true stayte
for example…. “alot” is NOT a word and I don’t know why it’s become so popular. It is and always was, 2 separate words.
As a side note, I believe some of the posters are from backgrounds where English is not the primary language, such as those that went to Chassidish schools, where boys are not really taught English properly. Hence, the difficulty with spelling and grammar.
It’s called being lazy; they don’t care.
cherry
Labeling people is not helpful. And you don’t know that they don’t care. There may be learning disabilities involved or perhaps typists rushing on the library computer limit of 20 minutes, etc.
cherrybim
Were you responding to the.nurse’s post about the chassidishe guys?
personally i don’t think english skills are important. i intentionally don’t capitalize. i’m anti-english. i think we are saturated enough with centuries of british culture that it will already leave a large enough stain on humanity. to study their language and become good at it excersiscesedes (sp.)the wrong part of the brain for me
I am disappointing in your grammar.
The Wolf
me too antienglish
excersiscesedes me to make clear
understanding? me good without normans and saxons
The best idea I think, is the first people to put their comments into Google Translate. For example, I translate mine into Hebrew using the Translate, then copy and paste the translation back to English translations translate accept. This way I can blame Google for my lousy grammar.
I think on a blog people just want to type quickly and say what they want,they don’t take the time to check spelling and grammar.
Apparently Mr Kahane would rather speak Asian or African. After all, he wants them to define our borders.
I think some people should work on their comprehension skills.
midwesterner, english is the most distant language to the largest amount of people. if the french are the closest to the english and they hate it, how do you think the rest of us feel? do you think your right, me and most people given a choice would rather speak just about anything else.
and who’s borders? since when? oh, thats right, since they exterminated this hemisphere. ur right, lets fight over our microscopic border and just ignore it
The idea that English is unimportant is NOT a Jewish idea. Members of the Sanhedrin had to know all the world’s languages. And there is far more Torah in English than in Yiddish.
With no disrespect intended, I think that this thread shows a very egocentric viewpoint. It is not just the “heimish” who are abusing English – it is more or less every immigrant group in America – which is a lot of different groups of people in this country! The Russians, who never seem to use articles in their speech (since Russian has no articles), the Hispanics with their frequent lapses into Spanish, the Jedi with their Yodaesque reversal of subject and predicate. Every group seems to retain some of their “native speak”.
And there is little discouragement here. We try our best to understand everyone who tries to speak to us in English and overlook their mistakes. Not so in other places – have you ever tried to stammer your way onto a bus in Israel? You’re likely to feel humiliated if your Ivrit isn’t perfect. Ever tried to speak French in Paris without the perfect accent? You’ll be completely snubbed. In fact, I can’t think of another country that is so forgiving to non-native speakers. So let’s try to see it that way.
I believe that English is the second most common first language (after Mandarin/Chinese) and the most commonly spoken second language on the entire globe. Simple matter of practicality!
Nothing to do with the fact the that British exterminated the African and Indian populations, and the American’s plundered the resources of the new world. Oh yeah, and we also have the martians locked up in Roswell too!!!
midwesterner, english is the second most common language by force not by choice. obviously.
nobody likes it.
charliehall:
“The idea that English is unimportant is NOT a Jewish idea. Members of the Sanhedrin had to know all the world’s languages.”
Only so that they could understand the witnesses, not because learning languages has any inherent value.
Mw13,
Learning any language in which a Torah essay has been written is certainly of inherent value! There is certainly enough Torah in English, German, Arabic, Ladino, and Yiddish to make learning those languages worthwhile in addition to Hebrew and Aramaic.
“Learning any language in which a Torah essay has been written is certainly of inherent value!”
Learning a language to be able to understand Torah written in that language is definitely a good idea. All I was saying is that one can’t prove from the fact that the Sanhedrin had to know many languages that we should know many languages.
Also, if the only reason one is learning a language is to learn Torah written in that language, he only needs to learn how to understand the language, not how to express himself in it.
charliehall, personally i think torah written in any language other than hebrew is complete slander. there are no english equivalents to a single hebrew word. most europeans think idolatry is exactly “worshiping a stone” and nothing else BECAUSE thats its exact defintion. it’s primarily taught by memorizing exact picture definitions. the majority define g-d exactly with a simple picture. their laws become confined to exact definitions of their words which they systematically abuse to the fullest extent.
i’ve noticed that allot of jews take the english definitions straight back into hebrew and even teach it with english derived concepts…
yid.period, thats my point, the west translates the entire hebrew concept of “idolatry” into one little word with the exact definition of “worshiping only a rock or statue”. i consider monotheism foundationally anti-idolatry, so thats a pretty large primary inconsistency.
as far as my statistics, which were u referring to? i have collected a ton of documentation and sources from every geneticist in the world.
yid.period, i see, u weren’t referring to statistics about my previous posts, i had you confused with yswo who keeps asking me for source information regarding other posts that i attempted to provide for him/her..
please investigate all you wish the american definition and understanding of the word and concept of idolatry, i don’t feel like wasting my time formulating a “legal source” for something that’s common sense
personally its obvious from their media, behavior and my personal inquiry’s you’ll find there’s no other definition.
it’s hard for them to not have that definition when it’s a policy to teach it in their public school systems.
ask your public school teachers their definition, they’ll provide a precision anti-semitic definition for you.
let me know if you find a single place in the public media that teaches the original hebrew concept then get back to me.
“personally i don’t think english skills are important. i intentionally don’t capitalize. i’m anti-english. i think we are saturated enough with centuries of british culture that it will already leave a large enough stain on humanity. to study their language and become good at it excersiscesedes (sp.)the wrong part of the brain for me”
Thanks, at least now I have an excuse for my often careless (?) spelling……
Mistama I think its a pela that our youth cannot express themselves in a proper lashon. When I was in school thirty years ago, I first did yeshivah ketana and gedolah to brush up on my learning with the Aibeshter’s help, and then went to Colombia college to learn basic secular knowledge while learning in the Mir in Brooklyn. Now my children are enrolled in Bais Yaakov, and they tell me that the girls shouldnt go to college, because they’ll be married by then to a yungerman learning in a kollel with no parnassa. I dont understand why this derech is looked down upon.
A gute nacht un zise droymer
Moshe
charliehall:
Learning any language in which a Torah essay has been written is certainly of inherent value! There is certainly enough Torah in English, German, Arabic, Ladino, and Yiddish to make learning those languages worthwhile in addition to Hebrew and Aramaic.
As a man of medicine, would you say its of inherent value for a person to become sick, since there are some great medications out there?? Torah that was written in these other languages is due to people speaking them, much the same as medications being produced due to illnesses. If one sticks to loshon Hakodesh, he’s got all the seforim he needs and doesn’t need these aids in other languages.
English is the most commonly spoken language in the world. (although not the most commonsly spoken NATIVE laguage in the world. That would be Mandarin.) It is the language of people and countries with prospects. Literacy in English is the single most important secular skill that one can master. People who lack fluency in spoken and written English condemn themselves to a lifetime of second class existance.
I threw my wife down the stairs, a garbage bag.
s2021 – Did someone throw you down the stairs?
Health- jooooooooooooooooooke. Know those ppl who talk in those kinda sentences..? I always get a kick out of it..
Raphael Kaufman: My Spanish cleaning lady doesn’t speak English. Are you saying she is second class?
Plumbberr, vehn ahrr you putting me in the tub?
I became an engineer to avoid needing proper grammar and spelling skills 🙂
tryinghard: I would like to answer the question you posed to Raphael Kaufman. If your Spanish cleaning lady learned English, she might be able to get a higher-paying job, which I think is the reasonable point that Mr. Kaufman made. “Second class existence” is not the same as being second class. (Bernie Madoff is second-class.) If your cleaning lady does an honest day’s work and obeys the Noahide laws, there is nothing second-class about her.
If one sticks to loshon Hakodesh, he’s got all the seforim he needs and doesn’t need these aids in other languages.
Rav Gifter went to study Arabic to be able to learn Rambam Perush HaMishnayos in the original.
If one sticks to loshon Hakodesh, he’s got all the seforim he needs and doesn’t need these aids in other languages.
Fortunately, Rashi did not listen to this for when he did not have a word in Hebrew he used French.
“Fortunately, Rashi did not listen to this for when he did not have a word in Hebrew he used French.”
Rashi did know the Hebrew word, he used French to explain it for those who didn’t.
“If one sticks to loshon Hakodesh, he’s got all the seforim he needs and doesn’t need these aids in other languages. “
Funny, Chazal didn’t agree. Neither did Rav Saadiah Gaon, Rabbi Bachyah ibn Pakuda, Rambam, Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, the author of Orchot Tzadikim, the author or Tzena Urenah, the authors of Meam Loez, Rav Hirsch, Rav Herzog, Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Lichtenstein….
Funny, Chazal didn’t agree. Neither did Rav Saadiah Gaon, Rabbi Bachyah ibn Pakuda, Rambam, Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, the author of Orchot Tzadikim, the author or Tzena Urenah, the authors of Meam Loez, Rav Hirsch, Rav Herzog, Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Lichtenstein….
Do any of these sources say you should learn foreign languages in order to learn Torah? Please cite.
They did teach or write in other languages, but that was to address a need. They wrote and taught in a way that people understood. Not because they wanted people to learn those languages, they wanted people to learn Torah.
Let’s start with Talmud Bavli – not written in lashon hakodesh.
Do you think its important to learn Gemara?
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