Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
> It surprises me that you can't speak English fluently.  It's definitely not
reflected in you writing skills.

  Writing something is easy because you don't have to think how it's
pronounced. Also, when writing you can stop to think how to say something
and you can go back and write something better and correct mistakes.
If I don't remember some term I can go and look it in the dictionary or
search the internet for it. Moreover, you can re-read what you have
written before sending it.

  When speaking you have to produce something fluent and comprehensible in
real-time, and you can't go back and fix a mistake or rewrite a sentence
in a better way, and you can't go and consult the dictionary or the internet
for a term you don't remember right now. What is worse, when speaking there
are more things which can go wrong than when writing, most prominently your
pronounciation. The worst case is when you simply don't know (or can't
remember) how to pronounce something, even if your sentence would otherwise
be completely fluent and good.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Gilles Tran <gil### [at] agroparistechfr> wrote:
> These Hollywood FX houses are full of French people who aren't known for 
> their language skills, so it may worth a try anyway ;)

  Well, the Ubisoft branch I was talking about was in Montreal, which is
probably the worst French-speaking area of the whole continent... :P

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Isn't this the same Sony who inflicted several million people with a 
> rootkit-based DRM "solution"?

  AFAIK "Sony" is a conglomeration of several sub-companies, and the
several sub-companies can be quite independent of each other. The policies
of one sub-company might have nothing to do with the policies of another.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Isn't this the same Sony who inflicted several million people with a 
>> rootkit-based DRM "solution"?
> 
>   AFAIK "Sony" is a conglomeration of several sub-companies, and the
> several sub-companies can be quite independent of each other. The policies
> of one sub-company might have nothing to do with the policies of another.

You may be right there.

I'm currently dealing with BT. Unfortunately, the guys who sell you the 
product, the guys who do the engineering work to provide it, the people 
who operate the network infrastructure, and the people who project 
manage the whole provisioning process are independant companies. 
(Altough they're all called "BT".) They also don't speak to each other 
in any way...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp escribió:
> Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
>> It surprises me that you can't speak English fluently.  It's definitely not
reflected in you writing skills.
> 
>   Writing something is easy because you don't have to think how it's
> pronounced. Also, when writing you can stop to think how to say something
> and you can go back and write something better and correct mistakes.
> If I don't remember some term I can go and look it in the dictionary or
> search the internet for it. Moreover, you can re-read what you have
> written before sending it.
> 
>   When speaking you have to produce something fluent and comprehensible in
> real-time, and you can't go back and fix a mistake or rewrite a sentence
> in a better way, and you can't go and consult the dictionary or the internet
> for a term you don't remember right now. What is worse, when speaking there
> are more things which can go wrong than when writing, most prominently your
> pronounciation. The worst case is when you simply don't know (or can't
> remember) how to pronounce something, even if your sentence would otherwise
> be completely fluent and good.
> 

Also, practice. You probably have more practice writing English than 
speaking English. (like me)

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Nicolas Alvarez escreveu:
> Warp escribió:
>> Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
>>> It surprises me that you can't speak English fluently.  It's 
>>> definitely not reflected in you writing skills.
>>
>>   Writing something is easy because you don't have to think how it's
>> pronounced. 
 >
> Also, practice. You probably have more practice writing English than 
> speaking English. (like me)

count me in.  Though contrary to Warp, I do write my messages as if I 
was speaking out loud.  And read as well.  Other than that, I'm much 
more of a silent guy, though very verbose at a keyboard... :P

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I have the same problem.

My written English is quite good, but my spoken English is very bad because 
I've never practised it intensively, like I have with my written English.

I'm under an everyday illusion that I understand spoken English fine. Here 
in Denmark we don't have voice overs for foreign movies and TV and while 
there *are* subtitles, the simultaneous exposure to the original language 
still works as practice, to the point that many people will notice if the 
words have been translated in an counterintuitive way. If subtitles are 
missing, I can still understand 98% of what is said just fine. However, my 
guess is that I don't understand native English speakers very well at all. 
At least, that's what happened when I was in England many years ago. While 
you normally don't notice it, spoken English in movies is *far* better 
pronounced that how people talk in real life.

This is my biggest fear when I'm going to the Game Developers Conference in 
San Francisco in two weeks time: That I'll find myself utterly unable to 
understand what most people are saying except if they speak slow and clearly 
to me, and that I'll sound like I'm bad at communicating due to lack of 
practise with speaking the language...

Rune
-- 
http://runevision.com

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"Rune" <aut### [at] runevisioncom> wrote:
> I have the same problem.
....
>
> This is my biggest fear when I'm going to the Game Developers Conference in
> San Francisco in two weeks time: That I'll find myself utterly unable to
> understand what most people are saying ...

> Rune
> --
> http://runevision.com

Dude, the good news is that you can understand approximately 70% of the speech
patterns of the typical native San Franciscan by mastering a single term.

The bad news is...
http://www.pitt.edu/%7Ekiesling/dude/dude.pdf

Like Best Regards, Dude

Mike C.

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"Mike the Elder" <SPELL: wrote:
> http://www.pitt.edu/%7Ekiesling/dude/dude.pdf

whoa!  and to think I learned the term from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...
:)

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nemesis wrote:
> "Mike the Elder" <SPELL: wrote:
>> http://www.pitt.edu/%7Ekiesling/dude/dude.pdf
> 
> whoa!  and to think I learned the term from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...
> :)

	Radical!

-- 
"A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's
too late." - Frank Sinatra


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