Bruce writes about Jamie(K) and Georgie "baby" Bush

[Bruce]

Bruce writes about Jamie(K) and Georgie "baby" Bush.

Greetings all,

Recently, there has been a heated discussion through Intercultural subjects on this Forum which as I see has been overshadowed by some seriously insulting remarks to other writers like Stew t., Ralf and myself by a Jamie(K).

That thread has now been extracted. Very probably because it doesn?t add any worthwhile information whatsoever to thousands of readers out there whose interest it is to improve their English and not read about or be burdened with personality conflicts from other Forum members.

In answer to the attack by Jamie(K) on me, pointing out my ignorance that George W. Bush does indeed speak Spanish when I assumed he didn?t and my further remarks about George Bush, I will say quite clearly ;

I don?t have to know everything and if I didn?t know that the man spoke Spanish then that is no big deal whatsoever.
Sure, I got a red face for my big mistake, but then that?s exactly what this Intercultural conflict is about.
Lack of knowledge of the other side.
If we knew everything cultural, then conflicts wouldn?t arise and Forums like this wouldn?t exist.

Even if it is someone like me from Great Britain who didn?t know the facts about Bush and makes a comment which sounds rather stupid.
A fact that "supposedly" every American should know.
Here on this Forum we can surely exchange such information without resorting to heavy insults because of lack of knowledge.

I would be interested to know how many Americans and Spanish know that George Bush speaks Spanish. I made a comment that he had improved his English over the last few years because he made some terrible mistakes which millions of people have seen and heard.

At first, I felt a bit sorry for the guy, thinking it was due to nervousness and the stress as new president. Later I read some pretty unpleasant stuff about him.
Today, I am not the least bit confident about defending any "foreign policy" decisions made my Bush?s government as I previously was.
As a British citizen living in Germany I often felt it my moral duty to explain American governments decisions about "foreign affairs" because we in GB obviously have very close ties to the USA and German people with whom I have contact have continually asked me if I know what the hells going on, especially after the recent (2003) occupation of Iraq.

I am sure that there are thousands and millions of people worldwide who don?t have the foggiest idea about whether Georgie "baby" Bush speaks Spanish or not. And I?m sure most people don?t give a damn but would also be surprised and even impressed. Up to certain point his presentations in public weren?t impressive and even I couldn?t defend his dignity when had discussions with German friends and associates.
If my embarrassing mistake has educated thousands of people to that fact, then a blow to my dignity is worth it. Then good for George Bush. Even I?m now impressed.
Previously to my education by Jamie(K), I also thought how could a man that lives on the border of Mexico not speak Spanish (or at least a little) that?s why my derogatory remarks.
So, apologies Mr.Bush, but I?m still puzzled by what you are doing in Iraq.

Apart from all this, we are flooded - via the media - with INFORMATION and DIS-INFORMATION.
Filtering one from the other is a task most of us don?t have time for.

Best wishes, Bruce.
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[princess]

Hi Bruce, and others who saw the thread,

I indeed got some thoughts from this and the past threads, which I never did in other national forums. Maybe in here, almost one like me needs to face a different language to be a tool of communication before they point out their original minds. By contrary, we don't need to do that with our locals. So that, it tends to attribute the conflicts among us to the cultural gaps, whatever whether those conflicts are caused by cultural elements or not.

So that I just consider that whether the "language" is the root of evil or not? Whether if we all speak one kind of language that we can communicate perfectly? Or I shall to ask whether if we are able to "hear" from others already, and it absolutely is identified to we are able to "understand" others' mean, which they really want to express through the language.

Those foregoing assumptions just guide me into another field, that is, more serious and complexity--whether by using the unique language can benefit our world? From the opposite we can consider, in contemporary what is the major consequence of the social problems, like the envirnmental pollutions, wars, economical depressions. Do they all reasoned from the different languages or the cultural gaps? I can't convince myself in this point. I figure that because the infinite eagers of human beings, the wants which people all desire to make profits, profits and profits. But the resource is limited quitely. And that is combined the essiential of the conflict sparking.

Back to the language, in the previous thread Jamie just said he feel hard for learning another language. I asked him why he needs to learn that? And it is the one I want to ask everybody in here why you want to learn about foreign language. It is neither a responsibility nor a task from your school or parents. So why you pay your money, times, energy to do that? Because you need more knowledge, you need more information, you need to know more about what the world is and what happen in there everyday. The knowledge gaining, I will say, is an nature of human beings. Moreover, it also is the most important feature of mankinds.

Therefore, if you learn an new language for understanding this world, I will assume by my opinions like you are happy for exploring the new things and new differences but not to focus on the differences or to discover the differences others had. It is just like a paradox, isn't it?

You had been knew that you are not same, this was a fact before you learn the language. And this is the destination of the language studying because you want to make them clearly in your observation. So the "differences" to me, as well as us, everyone, should not be the"surprise" somewhat. The general reactions you may have are to think about those penomenons. To analyze and to make the possbilities for them about why they had those thoughts and customs but we had not? To reason and explain a strange phenomenon using your professional or amature knowledge. And thus, you are really knowing about the rest of this world and you are really understanding this world by your heart.

Don't expect that other people have to tell you automatically about their stories. If they didn't, it doesn't mean they don't have their stories and their reasonable logics for addressing everything. If you feel you can't understand it, you need to learn more and observe more seriously to them. The Chinese said if you want to hire it, no more ways can be better except to edge your knife. That is to say, if you want to handle the new knowledge you are responsible to improve yourself on the basic skills for entring the first gate, but not the others have those responsibilities to demonstrate their knowledge to you.

This post is not much to do with judgement on someone. And I don't want to educate whoever in here at all. It just a discussion about how to form a scientific outlook on learning in everyone, including those who have same language, and those who have not. Whatever today I am learning which kinds of language, if I am surely about why I learn it, I would better to hold this outlook during the whole process. Even if we can not get the absolute scientific attitude for learning, we just need to try to get more and more forever.

Because of these are quite differently between what we should to do by the ideal ways and what we are doing now. And also, if you stick to get the ideal ending, you may just get the minor one. But if you just desire to gain the minor one, you possiblly gained the worse one at the end. You decide.

Best,
-Princess
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[diverhank]

...Contents deleted...

[Nicholas]

One thing that i'm interested in. Mr. President George W. Bush as reported, can't speak English very well. He's the president of the United States.
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Nicholas

[Torsten]

[Yankee]

[Torsten]

Amy, as far as I can see nobody has removed any thread recently. What I do know is that Jamie called Bruce an oblivious moron saying he sounded like an idiot in this thread. It is up to our forum community to decide whether there is a better way of sharing ideas and communicating with each other than using this type of language. You already have expressed your opinion on this issue and so has Ralf. As for me, yes I do think that Jamie has overstepped a certain boundary.
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[Yankee]

Hi Torsten

Thanks. I'm glad to know that the thread in question has not actually been deleted.

I have to leave for a class now, but I'll try to write something more later.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[diverhank]

[prezbucky]

To have a bit of fun with this:

I am an economic conservative and a social moderate, which (basically) makes me a centrist Republican in the American political spectrum. I agree with much of what the Prez does and thinks, but that doesn't mean that I can't see the utility of poking fun at him from time to time. It is in this spirit that I proffer this post.

--

President Bush is known for word-gaffes. I'm not going to look them up, but he's been known to speak a "nonword" from time to time.

An example of that is his use of "strategery".

He does know some Spanish. Whether or not he is fluent is beside the point (for me).

I am fairly certain that if he were to use more Spanish in his public speeches, he'd come up with some "new" Spanish words.
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