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 Alfndrate wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

With that being said, what makes English a difficult language to learn is the nuances, turn of phrases, and idioms we have. When I say, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" sto someone that doesn't know what I'm talking about I get blank stares because they're caught up on the concept of birds in hands (whether I have one or not).

But I'd imagine that "A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand" would be instantly understandable, regardless of your understanding of idioms.

It's possible, I was just throwing it out there, but Americans and the English language in general rely on so much context in our words that it makes it difficult for ESL learners to really understand wtf we're saying.

I'm just going to go ahead and say.

Lolno. English is pretty darn easy on the whole scale of things and you are hardly the only ones who use stupid sayings.

All those low wage workers from south of the US border got employed for an obvious reason. You go to school around the age of 5 and stay there until about 17. You spend most of your time at school sitting down indoors. You go home and watch tv, maybe do homework, talk with friends who are pretty much all the same age as you.

Who after that wants to go and work in a field picking grapes or potatoes. How about sitting at a conveyer belt in a factory doing manual sorting and processing?

If those jobs aren't important then why the fuss about bringing people from less educated and impoverished backgrounds to do those jobs?
I supose what I'm asking is should educated be restricted to the really intelligent and have an 'ignorance is bliss' approach to those who are not. Don't get people's expectations up and they'll do those repetitive semi-skilled jobs. Otherwise you end up with increasing domestic welfare bums while still importing poor people from other countries to do the jobs the locals should be doing but wont because they've spent the better part of their early years being told they should expect a better life than they're capable of achieving.

Neither China nor India appear on that list and they are both hugely strong in manufacture and growth so what does that list really represent?

In regards IQ, it uses a variety of tests which can be tailored to whatever country they're in. IQ test things like math solving abilities, pattern recognition, language ability, logic. So long as someone is educated then they can sit a test.
Sub-saharan countries traditionally do poor on these tests compared to east asian countries and northern europe who do well. Those tests corespond well to the study mentioned in this thread.
Similarly, people with sub-saharan ancestry in the USA (probably the most studied group of this origin) do not score as high in IQ tests compared to people of european and asian background. That is true across all income ranges. I believe there was a report to this effect recently from Ohio which stated that black children from rich families scored on average lower than non-black children from poorer families. This is a consistent finding suggesting that some groups simply aren't as smart as other groups, something that should be considered when letting large groups of people into a country.

cadbren wrote:
This is a consistent finding suggesting that some groups simply aren't as smart as other groups, something that should be considered when letting large groups of people into a country.

It's suggesting, if anything, that the test is biased in favour of white westerners. But don't let that get in the way of your xenophobic comments, go ahead and turn this thread into one of "those" threads too.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
With that being said, what makes English a difficult language to learn is the nuances, turn of phrases, and idioms we have. When I say, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" to someone that doesn't know what I'm talking about I get blank stares because they're caught up on the concept of birds in hands (whether I have one or not).

I'm pretty sure there's idioms in every single language.

There are indeed idioms in every language, but English is a language that relies heavily on the turn of phrases, idioms, and heavy contextual clues to get it's point across. Other languages tend to put endings on verbs and nouns which changes them, we don't have this in English (beyond changing tense and whether it's singular or plural) we also have words that are spelled the same that mean different things (like refuse and refuse, or wound and wound).

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/learning-english
And for a little humor: http://www.i18nguy.com/english-is-tough.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Soladrin wrote:
I'm just going to go ahead and say.

Lolno. English is pretty darn easy on the whole scale of things and you are hardly the only ones who use stupid sayings.

That's because you speak a Germanic language, which is similar to English in 1) how it's taught and 2) how it's structured syntactically. Give English to a non-Germanic language speaker and it becomes more difficult.

You know. I also went to rather rubbish schooling for....3/4's of my Primary Education. My Elementary School was near the most ghetto fething part of Prince George.

My Middle School also was a piece of gak. Terrible teachers. Dangerous bully's. Thank Thor it closed down and got replaced with a french immersion school.

So maybe I just had the worst mileage of the lot.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
With that being said, what makes English a difficult language to learn is the nuances, turn of phrases, and idioms we have. When I say, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" to someone that doesn't know what I'm talking about I get blank stares because they're caught up on the concept of birds in hands (whether I have one or not).

I'm pretty sure there's idioms in every single language.

There are indeed idioms in every language, but English is a language that relies heavily on the turn of phrases, idioms, and heavy contextual clues to get it's point across. Other languages tend to put endings on verbs and nouns which changes them, we don't have this in English (beyond changing tense and whether it's singular or plural) we also have words that are spelled the same that mean different things (like refuse and refuse, or wound and wound).

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/learning-english
And for a little humor: http://www.i18nguy.com/english-is-tough.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Soladrin wrote:
I'm just going to go ahead and say.

Lolno. English is pretty darn easy on the whole scale of things and you are hardly the only ones who use stupid sayings.

That's because you speak a Germanic language, which is similar to English in 1) how it's taught and 2) how it's structured syntactically. Give English to a non-Germanic language speaker and it becomes more difficult.

Give Dutch to a non-Germanic speaker and watch heads explode.

 Soladrin wrote:
Give Dutch to a non-Germanic speaker and watch heads explode.

Hell English is a germanic language and my head hurts when you and your ladyfriend are conversing in that gibberish you call a language

cadbren wrote:
All those low wage workers from south of the US border got employed for an obvious reason. You go to school around the age of 5 and stay there until about 17. You spend most of your time at school sitting down indoors. You go home and watch tv, maybe do homework, talk with friends who are pretty much all the same age as you.

Who after that wants to go and work in a field picking grapes or potatoes. How about sitting at a conveyer belt in a factory doing manual sorting and processing?

If those jobs aren't important then why the fuss about bringing people from less educated and impoverished backgrounds to do those jobs?
I supose what I'm asking is should educated be restricted to the really intelligent and have an 'ignorance is bliss' approach to those who are not. Don't get people's expectations up and they'll do those repetitive semi-skilled jobs. Otherwise you end up with increasing domestic welfare bums while still importing poor people from other countries to do the jobs the locals should be doing but wont because they've spent the better part of their early years being told they should expect a better life than they're capable of achieving.

Neither China nor India appear on that list and they are both hugely strong in manufacture and growth so what does that list really represent?

In regards IQ, it uses a variety of tests which can be tailored to whatever country they're in. IQ test things like math solving abilities, pattern recognition, language ability, logic. So long as someone is educated then they can sit a test.
Sub-saharan countries traditionally do poor on these tests compared to east asian countries and northern europe who do well. Those tests corespond well to the study mentioned in this thread.
Similarly, people with sub-saharan ancestry in the USA (probably the most studied group of this origin) do not score as high in IQ tests compared to people of european and asian background. That is true across all income ranges. I believe there was a report to this effect recently from Ohio which stated that black children from rich families scored on average lower than non-black children from poorer families. This is a consistent finding suggesting that some groups simply aren't as smart as other groups, something that should be considered when letting large groups of people into a country.

You don't think it could possibly be that social pressures have an effect on people's IQ the average black person in America generally gets lower quality education than the average white man and has a harder life in general, never mind that's there's plenty of debate on whether IQ actually measures one's intelligence or if intelligence can be measured.

Anyone who reads the New York Post is bringing our average scores down.

 pretre wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
It also doesnt help that American Is the hardest flipping language to learn

American is a language now?

It's technically US English xP

No after saving your country twice, its English American.

 Frazzled wrote:
No after saving your country twice, its English American.

Wouldn't it be British Russian?

 Soladrin wrote:

Give Dutch to a non-Germanic speaker and watch heads explode.

Between speaking German and English I can kind-of-somewhat figure Dutch out, just enough to not be completely lost. Although I could never speak it.

 daedalus wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
It also doesnt help that American Is the hardest flipping language to learn

Not sure if serious......

He's actually right;: it is the hardest. Reason being is that our tense structure (past, present, future) sucks horrible balls. I read the book. I read the book. One is past, one is present, depend on how you pronounce "read". "Red" vs "reed", in this case. Or "take" and "took" vs "bake" and..."baked"? Similar base word, with only the first letter being different, but the past tense is completely different. That's why our language is so hard compared to something like Spanish or French. As many of us are English speakers, we take for granted how we already know the correct terminology. But many others who don't have English as their first language can find it confusing because it is!! English is one of the hardest languages to learn. You've just learned something new today.

Not sure if serious...

100% serious Daedalus. I went to grad school to be an English teacher, and we had this drilled into us in our "English as a second language" course.

 d-usa wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:

Give Dutch to a non-Germanic speaker and watch heads explode.

Between speaking German and English I can kind-of-somewhat figure Dutch out, just enough to not be completely lost. Although I could never speak it.

My dialect is 40% german 40% dutch and 20% made up nonsense, maybe try that?

 Frazzled wrote:
No after saving your country twice, its English American.

After you fled from England, nearly died from disease, nearly wiped out your native population and bastardised our language, it's American English

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

cadbren wrote:
This is a consistent finding suggesting that some groups simply aren't as smart as other groups, something that should be considered when letting large groups of people into a country.

It's suggesting, if anything, that the test is biased in favour of white westerners. But don't let that get in the way of your xenophobic comments, go ahead and turn this thread into one of "those" threads too.

What xenophobic comments, I said that it's better to have intelligent immigrants than just leave the borders open for unskilled workers.
If you actually read what I said then you would have noticed that I said asians do well on these tests too, they actually score slightly higher as a group which blasts your 'white westerners' nonsense out of the water. Groups with sub-saharan ancestry consistently score lower on these tests when compared to groups of people with european and asian ancestry. Why does that even need to be controversial?

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
No after saving your country twice, its English American.

After you fled from England

Virginia Company fled from nothing!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cadbren wrote:
Why does that even need to be controversial?

We know ethnicity isn't tied to intelligence, so the question becomes why different groups do differently on such tests, and separating the question from the answer is problematic, and usually proffered by groups most wouldn't want to be associated with.

 Ahtman wrote:

We know ethnicity isn't tied to intelligence, so the question becomes why different groups do differently on such tests, and separating the question from the answer is problematic, and usually proffered by groups most wouldn't want to be associated with.

Only groups like far right ones discuss them publically is why, yet people keep doing these studies and coming up with data suggesting differences based on race and governments keep supporting laws and programmes that help people of specific racial backgrounds.
If race doesn't matter or even exist, then why even do studies that show group X is doing poorly compared to group Y when the only real criteria for defining those groups is physical appearance?

The other uncomfortable question is no one has yet asked:

Would everyone being highly educated be a good thing?

 daedalus wrote:
The other uncomfortable question is no one has yet asked:

Would everyone being highly educated be a good thing?

Yes it would.

Why wouldn't it be?

So, if everyone is highly educated, who will work any job that doesn't require people to be highly educated?

Robots.

Robots would be ideal but who does the work in the meantime. Part of the problem with people in developed countries not doing labouring work anymore is that years at school makes them only want to do high prestige jobs.

There are machines that can pick grapes, sort cans, but they're expensive to buy compared to a low paid workforce.

Thing is, if machines do get used for everything in the future then what do people end up doing? Playing games?

cadbren wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

We know ethnicity isn't tied to intelligence, so the question becomes why different groups do differently on such tests, and separating the question from the answer is problematic, and usually proffered by groups most wouldn't want to be associated with.

Only groups like far right ones discuss them publically is why, yet people keep doing these studies and coming up with data suggesting differences based on race and governments keep supporting laws and programmes that help people of specific racial backgrounds.
If race doesn't matter or even exist, then why even do studies that show group X is doing poorly compared to group Y when the only real criteria for defining those groups is physical appearance?

Those studies don't suggest what you seem to think they suggest.

No one has said there are not different races or ethnic groups, nor that they don't matter, just that we know that when it comes to ridiculous statements such as "African people aren't as intelligent other people" are load of crap. These issues have far more to do with culture then innate human qualities. No one defines those groups purely by physical appearance either, well, no one outside groups like Stormfront and their ilk.

So it is now some kind of scientific breakthrough to realize that dumb kids grow up to be dumb adults?

Wow, how much money did the guy get to figure that one out?

And you know what I find ironic? Liberals have been running the education system for years, and are only getting a tighter grip, and for some reason things aren't getting better....

 SickSix wrote:
So it is now some kind of scientific breakthrough to realize that dumb kids grow up to be dumb adults?

Wow, how much money did the guy get to figure that one out?

And you know what I find ironic? Liberals have been running the education system for years, and are only getting a tighter grip, and for some reason things aren't getting better....

That's... not quite the moral of the study, having personally read at least some of it.

Also, you're not taking into account human nature. From what I can tell, being intelligent is not really a priority to a large amount of the populace.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cadbren wrote:
Robots would be ideal but who does the work in the meantime. Part of the problem with people in developed countries not doing labouring work anymore is that years at school makes them only want to do high prestige jobs.

There are machines that can pick grapes, sort cans, but they're expensive to buy compared to a low paid workforce.

Thing is, if machines do get used for everything in the future then what do people end up doing? Playing games?

"Drive trucks to deliver goods" was one that immediately popped into mind that robots cannot yet do.

I think we are about ten to twenty years away from self driving cars being fairly commonplace.

 Ahtman wrote:

Those studies don't suggest what you seem to think they suggest.

I don't think you know what you seem to think that I think about this, I think that you think what I seem to think about this. Notwithstanding that, how about telling us what you think the authors and initiators of these studies are trying to say?

statements such as "African people aren't as intelligent other people" are load of crap.

No one has said African either and there must be reason that much of that continent does so poorly, it can't be that all the countries there have crappy cultures which is what you're suggesting.

These issues have far more to do with culture then innate human qualities. No one defines those groups purely by physical appearance either

If that were true then those studies would be talking about the people from this neighbourhood and that having lower achievement levels, they don't, they define it by race. The concern is that black kids are being left behind, not that the kids of Hampton Court or wherever are being left behind. Those studies mention race as the defining characteristic of the study group. If this were a problem of culture, of particular communities then no need to mention the makeup of the groups involved. What comes across is that the same group is doing less well academically than the groups around them in all socio-economic ranges.
If you don't think it's biological, then why does the same problem exist amongst the same type of people when so much has been spent to improve the situation? How would you reverse the trend of low academic achievement, thug culture, irresponsible fathers?