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Timid Explorer

Hello guys

Let's see, we have people that have problems with writing.
Even though they try hard, there are always a lot of mistakes in their posts.

There are people posting with a ridiculous speed.
So fast, they don't even bother to check their posts before posting.

We have people that talk and write in a different language and learned english either in school or themselves.

And Trolls, but they're everywhere anyway.

So, I'm belonging to the people with a different mothertongue.
I can't speak english at all.
Writing, well you can probably tell, I try, but there are always mistakes I'm forgetting about or just didn't know.

Sometimes I see really rude comments to people that have many mistakes in their posts/threads.
I just think, if that person has issues with writing (such as dyslexic), their feelings get hurt.
IMO, sometimes it's just better to not reply at all if you can't handle it, instead of just posting rude statements.

So, GCD, I have a few spoons to discuss

- Someone sends you a PM in horrible written english. What's your reaction?
- Someone made a thread, but you barely understand anything. What do you reply?
- People having issues with writing: How do you deal with them and what do you suggest them?
- Do you correct people all the time when you see typos?
- What did you learn from other Gaians regarding languages and cultures?


- Someone sends you a PM in horrible written english. What's your reaction?
I usually reply that I didn't understand. If that person replies with a horrid english again, I tend to give up. My english is just not good enough to guess the words xD

- Someone made a thread, but you barely understand anything. What do you reply?
First I try to understand what the Thread is about and reply to the topic.
If I can't figure it out, I don't reply.

- People having issues with writing: How do you deal with them and what do you suggest them?
I treat them like normal users. Because it's not their faulth they do have that issue.
I usually don't suggest anything, because all I'd suggest are things I should do more often myself. OTL

- Do you correct people all the time when you see typos?
Nope xD
Except I see people trying to type in german.

- What did you learn from other Gaians regarding languages and cultures?
I'm too lazy to learn from others.
But my english probably improved a bit xd

Frozen Sex Symbol

User ImageUser Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show. Sadly alot of times people blame dyslexic for their bad writing.
The other day I read a post in the Q&A forum that went something like this "i am mad n need money 4 gold n i got hack cuz ev1 is dum lol n i have card n need help trade" People replied and the op typing came into play to which they replied stfu i dylxic! . Yeah, I understand a few letters being out of place but I blame the txt tlk mind set rather than a real medical issue, dyslexic people know about periods at least. sweatdrop

So it comes to 'can't tell if they are too lazy to write or from another country' situation.
Even those people have been caught in some hilarious ways. "u canrt plbame me for my spellIGN I'm NOT FrOM USA I r From EnGLAnd!11" . Oh people. xd

Now if I can tell they are trying and I can understand what they are trying to write I won't say anything all will assume they are just young If it's something I cannot read I'll try to retype it out for myself, and that usually works in understanding what they are trying to ask.

Good: "hi i am knew to the site can u tell me how 2 earrn gold?" .

Never have I went YOUR SPELLING IS BAD SO YOUR POST IS INVALID! For I have pretty bad writing 101 skills so who am I to judge. I will just offer this advice, reread everything you wrote out loud phonically, if it does not sound right then it needs to be reworded and fix. Oh and spell check won't hurt. This is a forum people have time to type words out fully before they hit submit, so take your time. heart

Questionable Mage

If it's reasonably legible, I'll read it. If not, I'll probably ignore it.

Online, as in real life, of course, there are different registers of speech, and the same people will switch between them depending on the context. I know I bother to write more articulately here than I would when chatting with a friend.

Magnetic Lunatic

There's a really clear difference between people who are being lazy and people who've learned English as a second language.

I respect those whose native language isn't English. Since I speak to a lot of native Spanish speakers, I know the common mistakes. If they're clearly having trouble, I try and help them out. Certainly I'd never make fun of them. I am far too bad at any other languages to do that.

Text speak doesn't come from foreign people, and they usually have the most trouble understanding it. I hate text speak. It's pathetic, and it's not faster. That said, I usually just ignore it. They're not going to listen to me anyway.

Little accidents happen in posts. It's easy to leave out a word/letter/punctuation/etc. It's no big deal, and ignoring someone's point because they confuse their/there/they're or something similar is quite immature.

Perfect Pumpkin

You don't have to have a different native language to be excused for mistakes in your writing. Nobody is master of any one language. If I can read it, I read it. If I can't then I can't. Simple as that. Black and white.

Rare

While a bit stiff, your english is perfectly readable, OP.

I mainly stick to the GCD which adheres to having very correct grammar and punctuation (or at least typing literately). I usually judge people who I can't understand mostly because it's one of the rules of the internet to be intelligible and not use text talk.

Scholarly Storyteller

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I don't really care.

not everyone is going to have perfect english

even people who know how to write well don't always get everything right when it comes to command of english grammar. like, when i'm watching a movie or reading a book and a character says something with dialogue like "she's the one that liked apples" instead of "she's the one who liked apples" i just chuckle to myself. even professionals get it wrong sometimes

Royal Werewolf

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I've talked to people from other countries and they have really good English writing. On a different site, I RPed with a nice guy who was from Romania and his English was amazing! However, there were a few things he didn't understand like what an I.V. was, so I'd have to explain it to him, so he'd understand, which I didn't mind doing.

Heck! I even talked to one guy in Germany and not only was his English good, but I could still hold a conversation with him while he was drunk, which was still in English. 0.0! I was very impressed. Never missed spelling or punctuation marks. Even with his hang over the next day, he still typed in good English.

I'm pretty sure that most people are lazy and have texted 100% of their life, so they feel that everyone knows text talk, when it reality it bugs a lot of people and there's no way they'll be able to get a job if they talk and write like that...if they can even write that is, since most people don't know how to write nowadays, sadly.

Dangerous Loiterer


If somebody sends me a message in poor English that I am unable to understand fully, I will ask
them to clarify and rephrase; if it's a negative message, I shan't do so politely. If, as often happens,
they blame dyslexia, I usually point them towards resources that will help them be understood in
the future. You can usually tell the ones who are bullshitting having dyslexia from the way they
treat this help: I've found that all of my genuinely dyslexic friends work really hard to get past their
dyslexia and actually care about getting things right; the ones who fake it are the ones who are
trying to exploit it and use it as and excuse for everything. Hell, I've seen people blame it for what
they wrote, under the impression that dyslexia was the same as Tourette's or autism. The dyslexics
I know fret about every single word they write and usually triple-check with a dictionary because
they know they struggle.

If poor English is the result of not being a native speaker, I'll provide polite corrections in my post
and won't judge them. I do so as an aspiring ESL teacher and language enthusiast; I would hope
people do the same for me when I type in Japanese. Since I've started doing this and providing
idioms in some cases, I've had a couple of requests to do it often as a sort of 'tutor', so I'm not
intending to stop trying to be helpful.

I used to be extremely passive-aggressive when it came to grammar and spelling; I used to correct
people in quotes without saying a word. I have since, however, matured past that due to my age.
... Unless it's on Facebook, where I know if the people are cunts in real-life and will back down if I
invoke grammar.

Kawaii Nerd

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Usually I really don't mind if someone has bad grammar or spelling or whatever. Because it's generally really easy to infer what someone means, and even if it isn't they're usually pretty nice about clarifying.
I tend to be a bit of a mushmouth myself and I have a lot of run-on sentences and I sometimes forget my punctuation and misspell words
So I really don't mind when other people make a few mistakes here and there.

But when a person then gets really bitchy because people can't understand them, I'm a little less patient. Like, recently I stumbled upon a conversation where somebody got really snappy because their post was misinterpreted, but you really can't expect any different when you use zero punctuation and misspell/misplace/forget words every other line.

Dapper Puppy

When it comes to the forums, I generally just ignore it. And by ignoring it, I mean to say, I act like that post never even existed. If it takes me more time to translates someone's topic than it would to reply to it, I feel it is a lost cause. And if someone else replies to me the grammar/spelling/punctuation is poor/nonexistent, I won't bother replying back to them. I'm sure people would treat how poorly I type Spanish the same way. XD

But when it comes to chats in games, I'm a whole other beast. If I get in a conversation while fishing or doing a puzzle, and a person uses to much text speech, I'll call them out on it. The worst part is, not only will the user admit he is apathetic to how he types, but another person will soon ague in agreement with him because I am being such a grammer Nazi. And this isn't even getting into having someone explain themselves because there sentence makes no logical sense.

Nimble Wolf

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I hate seeing the 'Dyslexic' card. I live with two people who have that problem, and they know to double check their posts, slow down, and use basic grade school grammar. How do I know you aren't trolling when you fail at basic grammar, punctuation, don't believe in spell check, and can't avoid text talk?

I can deal with the Engrish, honestly. Few languages in the world lack punctuation, which is a huge help when they are seeking help. At least google translate will help me figure out your problem one sentence at a time.

I'll suggest translators and even hunt for free aids that would improve the situation, because in the big picture, your ability to 'speak' in another language does carry over in everything you do. You can buff up your resume, make a new friend, impress your boss..because you used punctuation and such. I'll admit that my pigeon Spanish makes me a kindergartner. XD A little online translation and punctuation does make it sound like I'm trying though, so it's not 'stupid americana' anymore.

I've learned I read too much. I hoard books. So much so, if I want to read the classic Robin Hood book again, I actually do use the vocabulary I've seen in the book. NOBODY here uses it and I'll find myself embarrassed, even though no one read the post. We have a collection of books with their original spellings and I'll need to edit a post filled with ancient spelling for a modern world.

Profitable Trafficker

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Depending on the location of the unreadable thread in question, I'd probably just report it as spam and move on.
As long as it's understandable I ignore most errors, unless someone is being a smartass about it (for instance, correcting someone's spelling but refusing to capitalize properly).

But sumtymes ppl rite so bad and accedantly a werd 2 or 3 meybe no dots or punchuashun dat I cant even.

I just can't.

Hallowed Prophet

I AM dyslexic, so I get annoyed when people blame dyslexia for their terrible English. If you speak English natively and can't be bothered to type correctly, THEN blame dyslexia when people call you out on it, I have no sympathy for you. I take the time to make sure my posts are at least mildly grammatically correct. I'm not a grammar Nazi or anything but I myself try to do the best I can.

Now as far as people who speak English as a second language, I have more sympathy for, but you can kind of tell the difference, because it's usually an issue with using the wrong tense, or the wrong version of a homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings for example "aye" "eye" or "I" wink .

The problem with any situation, though, is that people will "Tlk lyke dis, 'n say dey don't speak English."

And you know they are full of it. Or they make a post in all "txt speak" and blame it on the fact that they don't speak English or that they are dyslexic.

So long story short: When a person has a legitimate issue, I tend to be more forgiving. If a person types bad either out of laziness or because they thing it's cool, I have less patience.

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