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Re:Re:Arnaud: Re feelings about the site, membership, the rules
Wow! I had no idea at all.
Do services like Pay Pal address this problem at all? Is it possible to become a Gold member by mailing a check through the paper mail system?
Has anyone brought this concern to the notice of the management? I have been very impressed with the thoughtful, rapid replies I have gotten from Dan Yuen on many occasions when I've sent e-mail to the "contact us" Link.
Even though this is a moderated board, I have no reason to beleive that they read much of what we write, even when it is obviously related to the management of the site. But I have complete confidence that Dan will give me meaningful answers to anything I address to him directly. If you haven't brought this up with him, I certainly hope you will.
Thank you, as always, Puti, for the light you shed on all of our conversations. It's always delightful when I notice that there's a response on the board from you :-D It's a sure sign I'm about to learn something!
Warmest regards,
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA.
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 4, 2005
# Msgs: 5
Latest: April 10, 2005
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Re:Arnaud: Re feelings about the site, membership, the rules
> There are a lot of people who object
> to this hierarchy of gold and regular
> members, and I understand. Segregating
> people into groups based on money is
> really uncomfortable for the people
> in the lower group.
>
The objections are not necessarily
about money only. I have had a phase
in my life when even the six dollars for
one-month membership would have been
a large sum to spend, but even so I would
have been bothered much more with the
lack of suitable paying methods than the
price itself. I do not know what the
situation is worldwide, but in Finland
credit cards are mostly available only
for people with a long enough record of
steady income, which bars out most of the
young and eager users of the service. On
the other hand, checks and electronic
transfers have so heavy surcharges that
the actual transferred price drowns in it.
I wish this service were a vending
machine into which people could feed
notes and coins. A paying method
approaching that idea would make this
service much more accessible for people
who get now excluded beacuse of technical
hindrances.
Puti
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Language pair: English; All
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Juha-Petri T.
April 4, 2005
# Msgs: 5
Latest: April 10, 2005
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Arnaud: Re feelings about the site, membership, the rules
Hi Arnaud.
This is in response to your questions about my feelings about the site and about your confusion regarding my statements a couple of messages back.
Regarding MLE, I appreciate having this resoruce available free of charge. I get to meet people like you and have conversations like this one. Normally exceedingly rare opportunities, this site has made them a daily experience. I have to be careful that my work doesn't suffer while I play with my new friends.
It only makes sense to me, then, that anything I can do that will support MLE is a pleasure and a way to show my gratitude. It also benefits me because the more people who are attracted here, the more new people I can meet. The more engaging the site is, the more people will want to buy Gold memberships, and that will also support MLE, but it will also mean more people who may want to give me their e-mail address. So no matter what I think or what I do, supporting the rules and supporting the site benefits me.
There are a lot of people who object to this hierarchy of gold and regular members, and I understand. Segregating people into groups based on money is really uncomfortable for the people in the lower group. Most of us are capitalists, and we're used to that, and I really can't complain, even if I don't like it. But practically, it doesn't matter to me, because I'm getting so much as regular member. I'm not missing out on anything. I hope that, whatever I'm unable to contribute in financial support, I can make up by being here regularly and helping to keep the place fun and engaging.
I've seen people break the rules, and their messages get posted, and that's great. But if someone gets kicked off for that, I don't want it to be me. I don't mind bending rules once in a while, since enforcement is casual, and moderation won't hurt anyone. But if we get so greedy that users see no benefit in supporting the site financially, we'll either lose the site, or the management will have to get strict. We don't want that.
So periodically, when I meet someone like you who makes particularly good conversation, I'll offer a puzzle, one I know can be solved (as it's been solved before), and one whose solution contains a prize I hope you'll enjoy, having expressed some interest in receiving it. I put such a puzzle in that message that you found confusing. All you need is there if you can sort it out and are comfortable using a web search engine.
Otherwise, there's always the boards, which work very nicely, and they have the advantage of being able to attract others to join our conversation.
Je suis désolé, que je ne parle pas votre langue merveilleuse, mais sí hablo bastante bien el español, que he estudiado unos cinco años, más o menos.
Hasta luego!
Mark
Sacramento, CA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 3, 2005
# Msgs: 5
Latest: April 10, 2005
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Re:Re:How to get a pen pal.
There's nothing wrong with your reading Lisa. You gotta watch out for Dwyn. She's brilliant, but she can be an imp now and then :0)
Congratulations on the young one, by the way. That's very exciting.
Best wishes,
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; German
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Mark S.
April 1, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:What would you choose? Why?
1) Cats or Dogs
I pick dogs because they are more loyal and i'm scared of cats!!
2) Female president, i think a woman would be able to understand the needs of the country better and more emotively, especially in UK
3)A Car, i'm way too small to drive a truck, i would't reach the steering wheel!!
4)Study in Europe, from the Uk, the USA is just a little too far from home for me.
5)20 languages and speak with everyone!! i would rather know a little of everything than evrythig about one thing.
6)Obviously, leave the past behind i would hope but something would tempt me to go back and fix the mistake, especially if it had a big effect, that's beinga perfectioist i suppose!
7)Reading, to gain knowledge rather than to impart knowledge.
8)Teaching, on the flip side, to know you have had an influence on someone's life.
9) inside in winter, outside in spring,summer and autumn!!(obv. it being freezing english weather! :)
10) enjoying life for itself, but only when spending it with people around you that you love!
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Language pair: English; German
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Fiona
March 30, 2005
# Msgs: 5
Latest: March 30, 2005
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Mark S.
March 19, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Peking pork
> But each case, the problem is how to
> render in a particular language, a sound
> that does not exist in that language.
> This requires approximations and
> substitutions, all of which will be
> chosen by largely random rationale.
>
I agree. It often gives me goose bumps
to see the valiant struggle of Asian
people spelling their languages with
insufficient Roman alphabet. The Chinese
must have been especially hard pressed
when they mapped their ten sibilants on
the Roman letters.
Puti
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Language pair: English; All
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Juha-Petri T.
March 16, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: March 16, 2005
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Re:Peking pork
> In English, the pig says "oink, oink,"
> which doesn’t sound like a pig's grunting
> sound. In Croatian, it's "Rok-rok," which
> does. In French, "groin groin", and in
> Japanese, "buubuu."
>
I think that here English, Croatian and
French have captured similar features
of pig's sound, namely gruff start (spelled
with 'r' or 'gr') and rising formants
(spelled with 'oi'). While the words are
different, they have quite much in common.
English "oink" has smooth start -- could
this be because English has no suitable
trills or gutturals to use here?
Japanese "buu" is quite different from
the others; it seems to me that Japanese
phonology compels the speakers to
underline different parts of pig's
sound, as the above-mentioned gutturals
and consonant clusters are not available.
However, like the other languages, also
Japanese catches the plosive-like initial
and the dominating low formant ('u') in
the beginning.
All the sounds are, of course, mere
approximations, as pig's vocal tract
cannot produce exact human phonemes and
vice versa.
Puti
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Language pair: English; All
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Juha-Petri T.
March 16, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: March 16, 2005
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Peking pork
Hi Puti, Dwyn!
This is true, but only up to a point. Animal sounds are the classic examples of onomatopoeia, and yet it is amazing how divergent the different words are to describe these sounds. In English, the pig says "oink, oink," which doesn’t sound like a pig's grunting sound. In Croatian, it's "Rok-rok," which does. In French, "groin groin", and in Japanese, "buubuu." In German, they don't even try to pronounce it, rendering it as "Schweine grunzen," or "pig grunts." The differences are largely caused by phonological differences between the different languages. But each case, the problem is how to render in a particular language, a sound that does not exist in that language. This requires approximations and substitutions, all of which will be chosen by largely random rationale.
An excellent example arbitrary approximation is in the different ways we have pronounced Beijing in English. Pre-World War II, we called it Peking. These are two equally rational efforts to pronounce a word that does not exist in the English language. Neither is more correct than the other. In fact, neither is correct at all. The Chinese sounds that we render as P or B, as K or J do not exist in English, and they are about equally close to the two different approximations we've used--the P and the K or the B and the J. So we made arbitrary choices and pronounced it one way at first, and we use another way now. But even those translations are missing critical information that contains important meaning in Chinese. Chinese is a tonal language, and without tones, meaning is highly ambiguous. But the English language has no tones. Therefore, tones necessarily get stripped from words coming to us from the Chinese, and a huge chunk of the meaning bearing information is arbitrarily eliminated from the words.
Coming back to the onomatopoeia, words of this nature seem to be somehow less arbitrary than other words, and they are somewhat. However, the decision to invoke onomatopoeia in forming a word is arbitrary--many words that could be onomatopoeic are not. Look at the German for "oink oink." And since onomatopoeia can only be approximated in language, arbitrary decisions must often be made in order to render the sound pronounceable to the speakers of the given language. Since the phonology of any language is arbitrary (there's no reason why Chinese should have the ability to pronounce Beijing properly and not English speakers; that's just how it worked out), the limitations that influence the production of an onomatopoeic expression are ultimately arbitrary as well.
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
March 14, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: March 16, 2005
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Re:The Art of language
> “Zhu4 ni3 hao3” could mean have a nice
> day (and does in Chinese). “Stop picking
> your nose, you ugly bobo” could mean have
> a nice day.
>
Onomatopoetic words are a special case
that do not yield as easily to arbitrary
choices as the other words. Most people
agree that "boom" is a good word for
describing an explosion, while "splosh"
and "tweet" are not. These words may get
new meanings besides the previously
existing ones, but the sounds cannot
easily get new such words to describe
them, as the words are defined by the
properties of our ears and brains.
These descriptive words are not limited
to sounds, but they can also be used
for visual and other types of impressions.
Japanese language has a wealth of such
words describing not only how a thing
sounds, but also how it looks or feels,
or what kind of general impression it
gives. Some nouns and adjectives in
western languages may actually have
similar background, too.
Puti
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Language pair: English; German
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Juha-Petri T.
March 14, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: March 16, 2005
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