relief (安心)

Whhooo.. just finished editing the document 关根良 gave me. Took longer than I expected. The English was pretty good, I could easily understand what the author was saying. However, often expressions, although they made sense grammatically, are not in common usage, they sound weird. There was a big problem with nouns, when to add a "the" and when to leave it off and plurals. It's the kind of thing that you don't really get a good sense for by learning just grammar, rather it takes experience of how certain words/sentences are put together in day to day life. This live experience with English is missing from Chinese English study. There is a big focus on being able to read, but hardly any on speaking. I think it's in speaking that you most easily internalize language. When you speak you use language in a more tangible way than writing or reading, and its more involving than just listening.

Anyway, this experience made me think about the purpose of communication. I mean, how complex does something have to be in order to get you point across? Communication should have a certain amount of softness, and yet it shouldn'd go so far to have unneccessary detail. While having so many words can make speech very colorful and individual, take a quick look at history (and present) and you find how more than often it's used as a means of creating/perpetuating hierarchy. The educated elite know large amounts of difficult words (how many words do you know seem rediculously complicated and largely useless?), thus seperating them from common people. However, I am in complete favor of colorful language, so long as that color isn't used to intentionally negatively affect others.

This "intentionally" part leads me to another problem. As long as there are different languages, ways of speaking, etc, people will be divided, so while one might not intentionally cast out another, it will have happened anyway. For this reason, it is very important to always speak on the same level. By exercising mutual respect you can sidestep any ill intention or affect, and then you just have curiosity and admiration for your differences. This is how I see it presently.