tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post7849214195894137100..comments2024-02-21T02:19:19.666-07:00Comments on hanzismatter.blogspot.com: Don McLeroy & "Crazy Chinese Words"tianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14696711693095229683noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-86448078925363530852008-03-30T10:03:00.000-07:002008-03-30T10:03:00.000-07:00First of all, McLeroy's bio indicates that he&...First of all, McLeroy's bio indicates that he's trained as a dentist. Which brings to mind that ditty from "Little Shop of Horrors":<br><br> <i>You'll be a dentist,<br> You have a talent for causing great pain!<br> You'll be a dentist,<br> People will pay you to be inhumane.</i><br><br>Secondly, what book is he talking about in that proposed curriculum, <i>The Joy Luck Club</i>? So, let me see if I get this: Jane Austen writing on about barouches, hahas, and entailed estates presents <i>fewer</i> irrelevant vocabulary words to some kid in Amarillo? Sigh.<br><br>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an ignoramus in possession of a ten-gallon hat, must be in want of nine-and-a-half gallons.Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14662990770162901786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-32894859487758801692008-03-30T10:48:00.000-07:002008-03-30T10:48:00.000-07:00From the story:A draft of the curriculum, released...From the story:<br><br><i>A draft of the curriculum, released Wednesday, includes more than 150 literary works that Texas public school teachers should consider using for their courses. Only four of them reflect the Hispanic culture, a woefully low figure they fear will limit the exposure of the state's 4.7 million schoolchildren to cultural diversity.</i><br><br>Er, this is <i>Texas</i>. If they wanted to introduce their students to cultural diversity, shouldn't they be adding in stories about the lives of granola-crunchers in Vermont and the Pacific Northwest?Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01382175759425439195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-47169163867721964302008-03-30T16:04:00.000-07:002008-03-30T16:04:00.000-07:00I wrote him an email! I signed itMy NameMA Candid...I wrote him an email! I signed it<br><br>My Name<br>MA Candidate, My University, Japanese Studies<br>You know, where we use "crazy" Japanese words 君のようなアメリカ人が我々の話が分からないために<br><br>And yeah, I used kimi to be rude.stellanoctishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11081302178513076367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-19511287418445725192008-03-31T08:40:00.000-07:002008-03-31T08:40:00.000-07:00I'm pretty sure he was using the example of &q...I'm pretty sure he was using the example of "chinese stories with crazy chinese words" to explain why he thought there needn't be many hispanic stories with spanish vocabulary in them; not because there's chinese lit in the curriculum. Something along the lines of 'learning spanish vocabulary would be as useless as learning chinese vocabulary'. (I don't agree with that, I'm just doing the Devil's Advocate thing.)<br><br>His objections based on vocabulary are pretty weird. Sure, it's a part of what students do in English class. But there's also analysis of character development, plot, setting, etc. An English story in a hispanic setting (or even a chinese or japanese one) could just as easily be used to those ends. It could even have beneficial English vocabulary in it, despite it being set in a hispanic/chinese/japanese culture.<br><br>School board folks can be bloody strange.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-13131078658597222062008-03-31T10:58:00.000-07:002008-03-31T10:58:00.000-07:00君のようなアメリカ人が我々の話が分からないために Well said Stellanoctis.<i> 君のようなアメリカ人が我々の話が分からないために </i> <br><br>Well said Stellanoctis.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-87216468647934896952008-04-01T00:44:00.000-07:002008-04-01T00:44:00.000-07:00Geez, what a hick. What happened to the olden days...Geez, what a hick. What happened to the olden days when an English speaker wasn't considered educated unless they knew French and German, plus the "dead" languages of Latin and classical Greek on top of that? It's idiotic to assume that that being a polyglot, even if you don't use all of those languages on a daily basis, is a waste of time.xenobiologistahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09781983279242647376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-43549768922548569782008-04-01T18:10:00.000-07:002008-04-01T18:10:00.000-07:00Not to mention the fact that many words in English...Not to mention the fact that many words in English come from those "crazy words" of other languages.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08064259767332181077noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-2739117455791844222008-04-04T17:28:00.000-07:002008-04-04T17:28:00.000-07:00Props to Jen for the Jane Austen comment by the wa...Props to Jen for the Jane Austen comment by the way. Victorian England might as well be on another planet, to the average kid these days (except for late teens/early 20s girls going through the Austen fangirl phase).xenobiologistahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09781983279242647376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-52419105757516406732008-04-05T09:00:35.715-07:002008-04-05T09:00:35.715-07:00Jen & Xenobiologista,I too have sampled some o...Jen & Xenobiologista,<br><br>I too have sampled some of Jane Austen's finest works, ie. pride & prejudice. Who would forget Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy walking around in a wet white shirt after taking an impromptu dip in the pond?tianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14696711693095229683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-90123208606417707002008-04-08T23:22:00.000-07:002008-04-08T23:22:00.000-07:00Slight digression but..."What happened to the...Slight digression but...<br><br>"What happened to the olden days when an English speaker wasn't considered educated unless they knew French and German, plus the "dead" languages of Latin and classical Greek on top of that?"<br><br>I was discussing something along those lines with my boyfriend recently, and we agreed that most aristocratic folk who had to study all those languages were probably not actually fluent in all of them. <br><br>They might be fairly fluent in one, conversational in one or two others, and have a passing knowledge of the classics, enough to make it sound like they really knew them. But even without having to work for a living, one would have to be uncommonly intelligent to be fluent in four non-native languages that they don't use often.<br><br>Or maybe I'm projecting. Having to put in four hours a day studying Chinese just to progress, and not even fluent yet...张白莲noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3919350949272858772.post-16760895106027078842008-05-16T23:53:00.000-07:002008-05-16T23:53:00.000-07:00Mmmm... Apparently, this person does not know tha...Mmmm... Apparently, this person does not know that The Joy Luck Club was originally written in English. The Chinese words are part of the book's description of the culture it tries to portray. What's next, calling Lolita the greatest Russian novel because Nobokov wrote it... in English?!?!? Or maybe French for it's liberal use of French quotations?<br><br>I'm from Texas and it's guys like this part of the reason our state ranks so low in education.<br><br>The other reason is the fact that Connecticut is trying to pin G. W. Bush on us when everyone knows he was born in New Haven!Franknoreply@blogger.com