Sycamora Tree: a new IF company :)
Sarinee Achavanuntakul
Just saw on http://adventuregamer.com that there's now a new IF
company called Sycamora Tree... I was wondering if the founders are
anyone we know since I couldn't find any details :-)
The news is at
http://www.adventuregamer.com/cgi/news/news.cgi?v=news&c=Adventure_News&id=01211008328
and the company is
http://www.sycamoratree.com/
Looking forward to their game(s) :-)
-Sarinee
Paul O'Brian
> Just saw on http://adventuregamer.com that there's now a new IF
> company called Sycamora Tree...
> and the company is
> http://www.sycamoratree.com/
After looking at the web page, I'll admit I'm curious, but also quite
skeptical, given the multitude of writing errors. It's hard to get
excited about text adventures produced by people who have such an
obviously poor command of English.
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
SPAG #19 is here, featuring reviews of 1999 IF competition games and
interviews with the winners, along with news, scoreboard, and more!
Find it at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag
Pradical
Paul O'Brian wrote:
> After looking at the web page, I'll admit I'm curious, but also quite
> skeptical, given the multitude of writing errors. It's hard to get
> excited about text adventures produced by people who have such an
> obviously poor command of English.
>
> --
Maybe they just were careless in their spelling/grammar. However for
a company that has been operating for at least 6 months they have
very little on their site
Paul O'Brian
>
> Paul O'Brian wrote:
>
> > It's hard to get
> > excited about text adventures produced by people who have such an
> > obviously poor command of English.
> Maybe they just were careless in their spelling/grammar.
Six of one...
Whether they can't write or (due to laziness, carelessness, contrariness,
or whatever) are "just" indistinguishable from people who can't write
makes no difference. The result is equally unimpressive.
Arcum Dagsson
<Pine.GSO.3.96.100012...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>, Paul
O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
>On Sun, 23 Jan 2000, Pradical wrote:
>>
>> Paul O'Brian wrote:
>>
>> > It's hard to get
>> > excited about text adventures produced by people who have such an
>> > obviously poor command of English.
>
>> Maybe they just were careless in their spelling/grammar.
>
>Six of one...
>
>Whether they can't write or (due to laziness, carelessness, contrariness,
>or whatever) are "just" indistinguishable from people who can't write
>makes no difference. The result is equally unimpressive.
Agreed on the spelling mistakes and lack on info. Generally, at least
running a spell checker on a web site before putting it up is a good
idea. There were a couple other things that bothered me, too...
The fact that they had local copies of Zork 1-3 in their download area
(as opposed to linking to activision) seemed a little dubious to me,
though it's possible they could have cleared local copies, and neglected
to mention it, I suppose.
Also, a bit in their FAQ seemed a little unsatisfying, and rather
lacking in the research of the recent history of interactive fiction
that you would expect from someone about to put money into it. They
mentioned Inform as one of the best text adventure engines(while lacking
mention of Hugo, Tads (html or otherwise), etc) and seemed not to grasp
the distinction between the z-machine and Inform (which they attributed
to Infocom). Having the only platform they mentioned it running on be
the C64, too, really made it feel like they skimped on their research,
and ignored the entire current market they are aiming fors presence on
the net.
Still, perhaps they'll correct the inaccuracies on their site, check the
currently available information, put some more info on their site, and
put out new text adventures that we'll want to pay money for. One never
knows...
--
--Arcum Dagsson
"Hey! No fair! Why is my whole life situated in a couple of rude words?"
-lessie-
Volker Blasius
>
> After looking at the web page, I'll admit I'm curious, but also quite
> excited about text adventures produced by people who have such an
> obviously poor command of English.
Domain Name: SYCAMORATREE.COM
Registrar: CORE INTERNET COUNCIL OF REGISTRARS
Whois Server: whois.corenic.net
Referral URL: www.corenic.net
Name Server: HOLLYWOOD.BLUERANGE.SE
Name Server: VENICE.BLUERANGE.SE
Updated Date: 23-sep-1999
Are they based in Sweden? That might explain some language problems.
Volker
Paul O'Brian
> [server info snipped]
>
> Are they based in Sweden? That might explain some language problems.
Seems like a plausible explanation to me.
But... I hope I'm not sounding like a jerk here, but I hope they get
somebody fluent in English to write their text adventures. There may very
well be some such legitimate explanation as to why the writing on the web
page is so poor, but no matter what the explanation, it does not bode well
for the writing in their games. (Unless of course the games are in
Swedish, in which case I won't be able to play them anyway.)
TenthStone
<obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
>On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Volker Blasius wrote:
>
>> [server info snipped]
>>
>> Are they based in Sweden? That might explain some language problems.
>
>Seems like a plausible explanation to me.
>
>But... I hope I'm not sounding like a jerk here, but I hope they get
>somebody fluent in English to write their text adventures. There may very
>well be some such legitimate explanation as to why the writing on the web
>page is so poor, but no matter what the explanation, it does not bode well
>for the writing in their games. (Unless of course the games are in
>Swedish, in which case I won't be able to play them anyway.)
What it sounded like to me was that they were hoping to play more the
role of publisher/producer than of writer. Although, international
postage might be a bit of a downer on that idea, and CMP loyalty won't
help.
----------------
The Imperturbable TenthStone
tenth...@hotmail.com mcc...@gsgis.k12.va.us
msa...@cc.jyu.fi
> But... I hope I'm not sounding like a jerk here, but I hope they get
> somebody fluent in English to write their text adventures. There may very
> well be some such legitimate explanation as to why the writing on the web
> page is so poor, but no matter what the explanation, it does not bode well
> for the writing in their games. (Unless of course the games are in
> Swedish, in which case I won't be able to play them anyway.)
As I am planning to write a game myself and I know that my English, while
being above-average for a 19 years old Finn, is not comparable to someone
who has spoken and written English as their prime language for years, I am
curious to know how much these kind of things matter? I am not going to
write my game in Finnish, as it has rather complicated grammar and such a
little audience. If I'm going to write a game, I want that someone will
play.
--
Mikko Saari For you I even be a sunflower
msa...@cc.jyu.fi Do you hear my enlightening laughter?
161 another reason to cut off an ear
Magnus Olsson
>As I am planning to write a game myself and I know that my English, while
>being above-average for a 19 years old Finn, is not comparable to someone
>who has spoken and written English as their prime language for years, I am
>curious to know how much these kind of things matter? I am not going to
>write my game in Finnish, as it has rather complicated grammar and such a
>little audience. If I'm going to write a game, I want that someone will
>play.
Well, I think the best advice is: Try to write your game in
English. If you find that your English is good enough to express what
you want to express, go on writing in English. Then get a number of
natives as beta testers, and ask them to point out any instances of
bad or strange English.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon ------
msa...@cc.jyu.fi
> Well, I think the best advice is: Try to write your game in
> English. If you find that your English is good enough to express what
> you want to express, go on writing in English. Then get a number of
> natives as beta testers, and ask them to point out any instances of
> bad or strange English.
Well, I trust my ten years of studying and getting the best possible
grades in the matriculation exams enough... Let's see. I am currently
finishing a two-room single puzzle I made as a practise. Now as I
understand the basics of Inform, I'm going to start planning my first
bigger game.
Let's see, if anything ever gets released. It's really too bad that I
can't (or it is not reasonable) write games in Finnish; I *know* I'm a
good writer if I write in Finnish.
Jon Ingold
>curious to know how much these kind of things matter? I am not going to
>write my game in Finnish, as it has rather complicated grammar
Would it be possible to write a parser in Finnish? It uses endings for
prepositions (I think), so the parser would have to be able to recognise
longer words, and .. yeah.. find an ending on a word which may be different
in some cases.. ugh.. complicated..
Jon
Nick Montfort
> Well, I trust my ten years of studying and getting the best possible
> grades in the matriculation exams enough... [...]
>
> It's really too bad that I
> can't (or it is not reasonable) write games in Finnish; I *know* I'm
> a good writer if I write in Finnish.
It's not a horrible idea to write the game in English - for certain
purposes. Even if you can communicate well in English, through, unless
you're Conrad or Nabokov - someone intimate with English diction,
its shades of meaning and twists of syntax - it's not going to be
well-written. It might still be enjoyed by some people, as well as
helping you to master aspects of IF craft.
For some people, though, writing that is above-average with a few great
moments is worth more than dozens of gripping puzzles. If these people
are part of your readership, consider other options:
o Design the geography, plot, puzzles, characters and interactions and
have someone else do the writing.
o Collaborate with a writer, sharing the design tasks mentioned above
and doing the programming yourself.
o Write a work of IF in Finnish and have the text translated into
English by someone who does literary translation.
If you found a person interested in computer literature and shared the
responsibility and credit in a way that was acceptable to that
collaborator, these options wouldn't have to be paying propositions.
(Assuming you're not trying to sell your software.)
-Nick M.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Mike Snyder
> As I am planning to write a game myself and I know that my English, while
> being above-average for a 19 years old Finn, is not comparable to someone
> who has spoken and written English as their prime language for years, I am
> curious to know how much these kind of things matter? I am not going to
> write my game in Finnish, as it has rather complicated grammar and such a
> little audience. If I'm going to write a game, I want that someone will
> play.
Your English seems better than some people who *have* spoken/written it as a
first language their entire lives. :)
Mike.
Jake Wildstrom
Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>o Design the geography, plot, puzzles, characters and interactions and
>have someone else do the writing.
>
>o Collaborate with a writer, sharing the design tasks mentioned above
>and doing the programming yourself.
>
>o Write a work of IF in Finnish and have the text translated into
>English by someone who does literary translation.
Or he could, as suggested above, write in English and have the text perused by
a native speaker. His English seems excellent and likely to be at least
technically correct (maybe shaky on idioms--non-native speakers of any
language tend to have trouble there), and a proofreader could maybe give
stylistic pointers.
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into |
| theorems. -Paul Erdos |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jake Wildstrom |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Mikko P Vuorinen
>>curious to know how much these kind of things matter? I am not going to
>>write my game in Finnish, as it has rather complicated grammar
>Would it be possible to write a parser in Finnish? It uses endings for
>prepositions (I think), so the parser would have to be able to recognise
>longer words, and .. yeah.. find an ending on a word which may be different
>in some cases.. ugh.. complicated..
You have to define different cases as synonyms, so for example
"miekka" 'sword' and "miekalla" 'with sword' are a single word. It works,
although word order can cause difficulties. But if word order is fixed to
verb-object-target/tool/whatever, it is actually quite simple.
So, for example let's have an axe and a troll. We have defined a throw
verb, so we can throw the axe at the troll. We have synonyms
"kirves" and "kirveellä" for the axe and "peikko" and "peikkoa" for the
troll. The correct way to say that is "heitä kirveellä peikkoa" (actually
most people would say 'heitä peikkoa kirveellä' so the word order can be
a problem), but the simplified form is "heitä kirves peikko".
--
)))) (((( + Mikko Vuorinen + mvuo...@cc.helsinki.fi
)) OO `oo'((( + Dilbon@IRC&ifMUD + http://www.helsinki.fi/~mvuorine/
6 (_) ( ((( + GSM 050-5859733 +
`____c 8__/((( + + Tähän tilaan ei mahdu mitään.
Dan Schmidt
| Quoth the Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.colorado.edu>:
|
| > But... I hope I'm not sounding like a jerk here, but I hope they
| > get somebody fluent in English to write their text
| > adventures. There may very well be some such legitimate
| > explanation as to why the writing on the web page is so poor, but
| > no matter what the explanation, it does not bode well for the
| > writing in their games. (Unless of course the games are in
| > Swedish, in which case I won't be able to play them anyway.)
|
| As I am planning to write a game myself and I know that my English,
| while being above-average for a 19 years old Finn, is not comparable
| to someone who has spoken and written English as their prime
| language for years, I am curious to know how much these kind of
| things matter? I am not going to write my game in Finnish, as it has
| rather complicated grammar and such a little audience. If I'm going
| to write a game, I want that someone will play.
It looks like your English is certainly good enough to write a game
that people will play and enjoy. My problem (and I think Paul's
also) with Sycamora Tree's English was largely that they are selling
themselves as a professional company selling Infocom-quality games.
--
Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
Nick Montfort
wil...@mit.edu (Jake Wildstrom) wrote:
> In article <86n4om$e7i$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >o Design the geography, plot, puzzles, characters and interactions
and
> >have someone else do the writing.
> >
> >o Collaborate with a writer, sharing the design tasks mentioned
above
> >and doing the programming yourself.
> >
> >o Write a work of IF in Finnish and have the text translated into
> >English by someone who does literary translation.
>
> Or he could, as suggested above, write in English and have the text
> perused by a native speaker. His English seems excellent and likely
> to be at least technically correct (maybe shaky on idioms--non-native
> speakers of any language tend to have trouble there), and a
> proofreader could maybe give stylistic pointers.
Right, he could do that. I think it would be a bad idea, and I think
any of the three routes I suggested would be better.
Not even shoddy journalism is done in the way you suggest. People who
are accomplished writers in the target language (within their
profession and the form in which they work, at least) either write the
final text or translate into that language. Why try to do something
with a literary dimension in that manner, when there are better ways?
J. Holder
More info for the interested:
Magnus Grander (template COCO-12171)
SycamoraTree
Tranghallavagen 8
Jonkoping, SE 56436 SE
Domain Name: sycamoratree.com
Status: production
Admin Contact:
Magnus Grander (COCO-12171) mag...@icec.se
+46 36379536
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Mikael Plate (COCO-8737) mik...@bluerange.se
+46 36340188
--
John Holder (jho...@frii.com) http://www.frii.com/~jholder/
<jholder> do you like FreeBSD?
<hal> I need to get the ISDN line running so that I will tell it to pass over
me and replace my SuSE box with FreeBSD.
msa...@cc.jyu.fi
> a native speaker. His English seems excellent and likely to be at least
> technically correct (maybe shaky on idioms--non-native speakers of any
> language tend to have trouble there), and a proofreader could maybe give
> stylistic pointers.
Yes, that is the most difficult thing. It's hard to learn the right
idioms and avoid using Finnish idioms translated in English. That will
sound just silly :) And my supply of fancy synonyms is a bit smallish.
Magnus Olsson
J. Holder <jho...@io.frii.com> wrote:
>Sarinee Achavanuntakul <sar...@earthlink.net> scribed:
>> and the company is
>> http://www.sycamoratree.com/
>
>More info for the interested:
>
>Magnus Grander (template COCO-12171)
It seems that a disproportionately large portion of Swedish IF fans
are called Magnus. Probably just a statistical fluke, though.
Joe Mason
>>Magnus Grander (template COCO-12171)
>
>It seems that a disproportionately large portion of Swedish IF fans
>are called Magnus. Probably just a statistical fluke, though.
I just assumed a disproportionately large portion of Swedes were named Magnus.
(Don't we have more than our share of Volker's, too?)
Joe
Magnus Olsson
Joe Mason <jcm...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>>>Magnus Grander (template COCO-12171)
>>
>>It seems that a disproportionately large portion of Swedish IF fans
>>are called Magnus. Probably just a statistical fluke, though.
>
>I just assumed a disproportionately large portion of Swedes were named Magnus.
It's a fairly common name, but not *that* common.
Jon Ingold
msa...@cc.jyu.fi wrote in message <86ngva$10e$1...@mordred.cc.jyu.fi>...
>Quoth the Jake Wildstrom <wil...@mit.edu>:
>> a native speaker. His English seems excellent and likely to be at least
>> technically correct (maybe shaky on idioms--non-native speakers of any
>> language tend to have trouble there), and a proofreader could maybe give
>> stylistic pointers.
>
>Yes, that is the most difficult thing. It's hard to learn the right
>idioms and avoid using Finnish idioms translated in English. That will
>sound just silly :) And my supply of fancy synonyms is a bit smallish.
It would be quite cool to have a game with out-of-context translated Finnish
idioms though; just because I don't think it's been done before..
Jon
Magnus Olsson
>purposes. Even if you can communicate well in English, through, unless
>you're Conrad or Nabokov - someone intimate with English diction,
>its shades of meaning and twists of syntax - it's not going to be
>well-written.
You know, at first I didn't really know what to make of this
post. English is not my first language, and yet I write directly in
English. Could you really be comparing me to Conrad and Nabokov? No,
that's too much, even for an ego like mine. So, I had to resign myself
to that what you're really saying is that my games aren't
well-written. Well, I suppose I can live with that. You won't be the
first one to poin tout flaws in them; of course, it would have been
nicer if you had actually pointed at some concrete flaw, rather than
just let impeccable logic run its course. But one can't have
everything, I suppose.
>It might still be enjoyed by some people, as well as
>helping you to master aspects of IF craft.
Well, how very nice of you to tell me. Of course, I already thought
that some people enjoyed "Zebulon" despite its pitiful English, but
its nice to get some confirmation. And I suppose I have learned to
master some aspects of IF craft over the years; writing may not be one
of those, but then I apparently made the mistake of presuming to write
in a language other than my own.
>For some people, though, writing that is above-average with a few great
>moments is worth more than dozens of gripping puzzles. If these people
>are part of your readership, consider other options:
I think you are underestimating the attraction of puzzles; "Zebulon"
didn't have dozens of gripping puzzles, but only two, and "Aayela" had
none, yet strangely enough I got the impression that at least some of
"those people" were part of my readership. But perhaps I'm mistaken
there as well.
But enough already.
I'm really sorry for the sarcasm and for the self-glorification above
(I honestly don't claim to be a very good writer, just a barely
adequate one, but I do have the presumption to think that my English
is good enough to be publishable), but I had to get this out of the
system. There are few things that make me so angry as when somebody
gets condescending whithout knowing what he's talking about,
especially if this behaviour is used to tell some newcomer that it's
no use for him even to try, he'll never be good enough, so he'd better
just forget about his ambitions.
There must be thousands of writers who are getting published in
languages other than their native ones. Sure, we don't hear about so
many of them - or, rather, we don't hear about them being non-natives
- but then we don't hear about the overwhelming majority of writers,
period.
To be able to write as well as Nabokov did in a second (or, in his
case, perhaps it was third) language is a rare talent indeed (but then
only a handful of people in the world can write as well as he did, in
any language). But, for heaven's sake, we're not talking about Nobel
class prose here, we're talking about prose good enough to *work*, and
that's something quite different. (Contrary to popular prejudice, you
don't need an extraordinary command of language to be a successful
author; what you need above all is the ability to tell a story).
Of course, a certain level of fluency in English is necessary; a game
or story written in fractured English is unlikely to be
salvageable. But good editing can overcome a lot of grammatic
uncertainty and lack of sense for nuances. What I'm suggesting is that
our Finnish friend write in English (which, judging by his posts,
seems better than that of many natives), and then let a native speaker
edit his text. This approach seems entirely workable to me.
But, then, who am I to know. I'm just a stupid foreigner, remember?
And I forgot that I'm not supposed to be able to write English. How
unthoughtful of me. Sorry, next time I'll try to remember to bring the
pidgin.
Paul O'Brian
> Of course, a certain level of fluency in English is necessary; a game
> or story written in fractured English is unlikely to be
> salvageable.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the point. It doesn't matter whether
English is your first language or your tenth language -- what matters is
whether you can write well enough in English that your prose works. I
don't mean that you're as good as Nabokov -- the *vast* majority of native
English speakers couldn't make that claim either. I mean (as Magnus says)
just that the writing works -- that it's readable, it makes sense, and
perhaps it's even enjoyable to read. I had no idea English wasn't Magnus'
first language (though I might have guessed it, since he's Swedish)
because his English prose works. The same could be said for Mikko
Vuorinen, and the other Mikko (sorry I've forgotten your last name) who
posted querulously about whether his English would be good enough.
The same could not be said for the writing on Sycamora Tree's web page.
For that matter, I wouldn't say that Rybread Celsius' English prose works
(though I know many would disagree with me on that point), and as far as I
know he *is* a native English speaker.
> But good editing can overcome a lot of grammatic
> uncertainty and lack of sense for nuances. What I'm suggesting is that
> our Finnish friend write in English (which, judging by his posts,
> seems better than that of many natives), and then let a native speaker
> edit his text. This approach seems entirely workable to me.
Me too. In fact, I would recommend this for *anybody*, myself included. I
think it should be a normal part of beta testing. Ask any author --
readers will catch things that you've missed, whether we're talking about
IF, or conventional fiction, or reviews, or *anything*. Have somebody read
your stuff before you release it to the public, and chances are they'll
find some ways to make it better.
> But, then, who am I to know. I'm just a stupid foreigner, remember?
> And I forgot that I'm not supposed to be able to write English. How
> unthoughtful of me. Sorry, next time I'll try to remember to bring the
> pidgin.
Magnus, I don't think I've ever seen you quite that hostile. I don't think
Nick meant any specific harm -- he was just making an overly broad
generalization, and no doubt now is rethinking his position. (I hope.)
Juho Snellman
>So, for example let's have an axe and a troll. We have defined a throw
>verb, so we can throw the axe at the troll. We have synonyms
>"kirves" and "kirveellä" for the axe and "peikko" and "peikkoa" for the
>troll. The correct way to say that is "heitä kirveellä peikkoa" (actually
>most people would say 'heitä peikkoa kirveellä' so the word order can be
>a problem), but the simplified form is "heitä kirves peikko".
And that example illustrates the problems with just making the
different cases of a word point to the same dictionary entry.
The player would constantly have to adjust his word ordering
to the "one true way", even if it just wouldn't feel natural.
You might argue that the correct ordering would be obvious,
but I just might have a reason to throw the troll at the
axe.
Whining about inadequate parsers every time a new IF development
system is released (or a homebrewn parser is used for an
IFComp game, etc...) is a favourite hobby of a lot of the
raif/rgif crowd. Leaving aside the absurdity of there being
any interest on their part to playing IF in finnish, it's
still true that returning to the equivalent of a two-word
parser would basically make the whole piece unenjoyable.
On the other hand, the inflexion rules are pretty much
completely regular, so implementing this properly shouldn't
be too hard. But why in the world would anyone go through the
trouble even then? :-)
--
Juho Snellman
"C:stä on kehitetty Massachusettsin teknillisessä korkeakoulussa kieli
nimeltä BCPL."
David Lodge
[snip]
>As I am planning to write a game myself and I know that my English, while
>being above-average for a 19 years old Finn, is not comparable to someone
>who has spoken and written English as their prime language for years, I am
>curious to know how much these kind of things matter? I am not going to
>write my game in Finnish, as it has rather complicated grammar and such a
>little audience. If I'm going to write a game, I want that someone will
>play.
I don't really see it as a problem - you will get complaints from some
people about grammar and spelling; but then again, most natural
English speakers have problems with the above (see usenet!)
Your English seems fine to me. In fact I find that most people who
have English as a second language can write it better than those of us
with English as a first language.
There are implicit problems - if you use some of the common phrases in
your language translated to English a lot of people may have
difficulties with them. Eg I have difficulties with American English -
many words 'look' wrong, (eg 'spit' vs 'spat', 'color' vs 'colour')
but I can mentally avoid most of them...
In essence; I wouldn't worry - the fact that you've written your game
in English means more players.
dave
Magnus Olsson
>Nick meant any specific harm -- he was just making an overly broad
>generalization, and no doubt now is rethinking his position. (I hope.)
I overreacted, and I'm sorry for that; Nick's post deserved a correction,
not that amount of sarcasm. Nick, I apologize for overreacting, and
be assured that I was attacking merely your post, not you personally.
Fredrik Ekman
me that a Finnish parser whould not really be more difficult to
construct than an English, only it would have to be constructed
using a totally different set of rules and would not be able to
allow abbreviations of words. And if lack of abbreviation is
considered a problem, I am sure it could be worked around
somehow.
jsn...@iki.fi (Juho Snellman) writes:
> On the other hand, the inflexion rules are pretty much
> completely regular, so implementing this properly shouldn't
> be too hard. But why in the world would anyone go through the
> trouble even then? :-)
And why not? Personally, I would be much happier to see a good
text adventure in Finnish than yet another English game, even
though I would be totally unable to play it. I do not see why
IF should have to be for the English-speaking world only.
In a previous post, Mikko Saari wrote that one reason for
writing a game in English was that he wanted it to be played.
On the other hand, an English game would have to compete with
the continuous flow (well, almost) of other English games
that are released. A new Finnish game, even though its
potential audience would perhaps be counted only in the
hundreds, would have no competition at all.
There currently seems to be "nationalistic" movements for
several different languages, in particular German and Spanish.
Why, there is even some activity for my native Swedish. I do
not see why Finnish should be left behind in this development.
Let us fight for cultural diversity in the IF community!
/Fredrik
PS. There already exists at least one Finnish text adventure.
It was written for the Amiga several years ago and is titled
Zandhulin Helmi or something similar. It is probably
downloadable from Aminet or somewhere.
Timo Korvola
> In <86mqhb$6l3$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> "Jon Ingold" <ji...@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> >Would it be possible to write a parser in Finnish?
Parsers for Finnish exist e.g. in automatical translation systems and
grammar checkers. It would be somewhat different from parsing English
and other analytic languages though.
> You have to define different cases as synonyms, so for example
> "miekka" 'sword' and "miekalla" 'with sword' are a single word.
If you want something more complicated than two-word commands this
does not suffice. You have to identify the noun and the case.
Lexical analysis seems the tough part as conjugation is not very
regular. You would probably end up tabulating all nouns, adjectives
and pronouns in all cases, possibly small numerals as well. The
tables could get a bit large as there are fifteen cases but not all of
them are likely to be needed in an adventure game--one might make do
with as few as eight. Multiply by two to account for singular and
plural.
After lexing I don't think parsing would be essentially more
complicated than for other natural languages. However, existing IF
systems made for analytic languages may not offer much support for
this kind of a thing.
> It works, although word order can cause difficulties. But if word
> order is fixed to verb-object-target/tool/whatever, it is actually
> quite simple.
That would be totally stone-age.
Besides, you also need to be able to _output_ descriptions for
arbitrary objects in a variety of cases. What happens when the player
throws that axe at the troll? And if something else is thrown
instead? Or at something else?
--
Timo Korvola <URL:http://www.iki.fi/tkorvola>
Nick Montfort
(Magnus Olsson) wrote:
> I overreacted, and I'm sorry for that; Nick's post deserved a
> correction, not that amount of sarcasm.
Coming later in a thread where you had posted, I see how my comments
could have suggested something negative about your writing. I certainly
didn't intend that at all, and I apologize as well. So let's forget it.
I'm not trying to attack anyone's work or writing, only offer
constructive advice when someone had asked for it.
My post does need a correction, although I still hold with what I was
trying to say. Mikko Saari wondered about what the options were his
creating a work of IF in English. He felt his ability in English "is
not comparable to someone who has spoken and written English as their
prime language for years." It's evident from his posts that he is a
much better writer in English than many native speakers, as has been
pointed out. But that doesn't make him a highly skilled writer, any
more than my knowing more than the average person does about graphic
design makes me a highly skilled graphic designer. The advice I've
offered is suitable, I think, for anyone -- of whatever native language
-- who is not a professional English writer and who hopes to create a
serious, outstanding IF work in English.
I wanted to offer three collaborative options which would allow someone
whose expertise was writing, in the target language, to craft the final
text. I think because my comments raised some ire, my basic suggestion
-- that IF developers can collaborate with writers and get good
results -- was overlooked or dismissed.
I have just finished several rounds of revision of a lengthy
manuscript, written by an accomplished non-native English speaker. I
don't think one gets good writing by using this sort of process. The
work I was looking at was a screenplay, a working document used in
producing another piece of art, and isn't to be published -- as IF is
-- in a final textual form. For this, the write-and-revise process can
be acceptable. But I don't know of any really good works (certainly no
great works) of writing which are produced this way.
To involve a writer does make a one-person project into a multi-person
project, but it can also result in a great finished work. This sort of
collaboration might not suit everyone who doesn't write professionally,
because there are great benefits to doing the whole project by
yourself. There are benefits to collaboration, though, too. Working
during the creative process with a skilled translator or writer
shouldn't be an offensive idea.
SteveG
wrote:
[snip]
>It seems that a disproportionately large portion of Swedish IF fans
>are called Magnus.
and professional men's tennis players
> Probably just a statistical fluke, though.
no, I'm sure it means something. :-)
-- sg
PS: good luck to Magnus Norman in the Aussie Open.
PPS: perhaps, Magnus, you should, on behalf of RAIF, present him with
a gift-wrapped edition of "Uncle Zebulon's Will" if he wins - being
named Magnus and all, I'm sure he'll love it!
-- :-)
Magnus Stromgren
Olsson) wrote:
>It seems that a disproportionately large portion of Swedish IF fans
>are called Magnus. Probably just a statistical fluke, though.
I would think so.
--
Magnus Stromgren | <magnus.s...@geography.umu.se>
Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeå University
<URL:http://www.umu.se/soc_econ_geography/personal/magnus/en/>
Neil K.
> And why not? Personally, I would be much happier to see a good
> text adventure in Finnish than yet another English game, even
> though I would be totally unable to play it. I do not see why
> IF should have to be for the English-speaking world only.
Same here. I think it'd be great to see more IF in different languages.
Sure, I personally wouldn't be able to play most of them, but so what?
As for the Finnish audience, this discussion has brought responses from
several Finns. A lot of Finns seem to be online - I'm sure there'd be a
small but interested audience of Finnish-speakers out there.
- Neil K.
--
t e l a computer consulting + design * Vancouver, BC, Canada
web: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/ * email: tela @ tela.bc.ca
TenthStone
wrote:
>Pardon me if I do not understand this properly, but it seems to
>me that a Finnish parser whould not really be more difficult to
>construct than an English, only it would have to be constructed
>using a totally different set of rules and would not be able to
>allow abbreviations of words. And if lack of abbreviation is
>considered a problem, I am sure it could be worked around
>somehow.
I'm not sure you're entirely right. Unless there were some obvious
clue (e.g. all words ending in 'xxxx' can be considered to be
certain parts of speech), a Finnish parser would be considerably
harder to write than an English parser; in English, nouns (excepting
the personal pronouns) are constant however they are used in
a sentence. Noun declension plays havoc with that.
Of course, once you've figured out how to parse a Finnish sentence,
the rest of the process should be simpler, since there's little doubt
about how things are intended.
----------------
The Imperturbable TenthStone
tenth...@hotmail.com mcc...@gsgis.k12.va.us
Timo Korvola
> I'm not sure you're entirely right. Unless there were some obvious
> clue (e.g. all words ending in 'xxxx' can be considered to be
> certain parts of speech), a Finnish parser would be considerably
> harder to write than an English parser;
Usually the case can be recognized by looking at the end of the word.
Generating correct declensions would be more difficult as the rules
are actually rather complicated. That would probably be needed for
output even if the parser would get along with simpler rules (if it is
allowed to recognize some incorrectly inflected words as well). So
one would probably end up tabulating the declensions for output
purposes and might as well use the tables also for input. This would
mean a huge number of recognized words but I don't know if it would be
a problem if the words were hashed properly.
After the lexical analysis (i.e., recognizing the nouns, adjectives
etc. and their cases in the input) I don't think there would be any
particular problems in the actual parsing.
> in English, nouns (excepting
> the personal pronouns) are constant however they are used in
> a sentence.
This is not quite true--there is still the number. But admittedly
English is simpler in this sense.
This discussion should probably be in r.a.i-f instead but I am too
lazy to do anything about it.
msa...@cc.jyu.fi
> As for the Finnish audience, this discussion has brought responses from
> several Finns. A lot of Finns seem to be online - I'm sure there'd be a
> small but interested audience of Finnish-speakers out there.
Sure, I'd write a one if someone wrote Finnish parser for Inform. I'd
prefer writing in Finnish, really.
(Well, I've actually written a Finnish IF game once; I wrote it with
Qbasic, so it wasn't very complicated or anything... Too bad I don't have
it anymore, I'd like to take a look at it now and laugh at it. It used
verb + noun and for example "kirves" was called "kirv" to catch all forms.
Simple, but not very elegant... )
--
Mikko Saari For you I even be a sunflower
msa...@cc.jyu.fi Do you hear my enlightening laughter?
156 another reason to cut off an ear
Branko Collin
<nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <86mf71$g67$1...@mordred.cc.jyu.fi>, msa...@cc.jyu.fi wrote:
>
>> It's really too bad that I
>> can't (or it is not reasonable) write games in Finnish; I *know* I'm
>> a good writer if I write in Finnish.
>
>Even if you can communicate well in English, through, it's not going to be
>well-written.
[...]
>consider other options:
>
>o Write a work of IF in Finnish and have the text translated into
>English by someone who does literary translation.
How is translation going to help? If you are that sure that only rare
exceptions (like Conrad, like the other chap) can master a second
language as if it were his first, then where is Mikko going to find a
translator that can turn a well made Finnish work into an well made
English one?
--
branko
"As we discovered on ifMUD, it works quite well if you read
this article aloud, using the voice of the Emperor from
Return of the Jedi." (Lucian Paul Smith)
Magnus Olsson
Branko Collin <col...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 15:44:25 GMT, Nick Montfort
><nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>In article <86mf71$g67$1...@mordred.cc.jyu.fi>, msa...@cc.jyu.fi wrote:
>>
>>> It's really too bad that I
>>> can't (or it is not reasonable) write games in Finnish; I *know* I'm
>>> a good writer if I write in Finnish.
>>
>>Even if you can communicate well in English, through, it's not going to be
>>well-written.
>[...]
>>consider other options:
>>
>>o Write a work of IF in Finnish and have the text translated into
>>English by someone who does literary translation.
>
>How is translation going to help? If you are that sure that only rare
>exceptions (like Conrad, like the other chap) can master a second
>language as if it were his first, then where is Mikko going to find a
>translator that can turn a well made Finnish work into an well made
>English one?
Well, there obviously are people who do translations with a high
literary standard (or there wouldn't be any English editions of
non-English classics). Nick will probably say that translating is
easier than writing original literature. I don't think so; at least I
don't think the linguistic skills required by a translator are less
than those required by an author.
Anyway, good translators aren't exactly cheap. How many hobbyists can
afford to pay to have their IF translated?
Nick Montfort
(Magnus Olsson) wrote:
> Nick will probably say that translating is
> easier than writing original literature.
I think literary translation is difficult. That's why I recommended
working with someone who is an expert at literary translation.
> Anyway, good translators aren't exactly cheap. How many hobbyists can
> afford to pay to have their IF translated?
I'm not suggesting that IF authors hire help, but that they actually
collaborate with others. Programmers are quite costly - more costly
than translators, I would guess, on avarage - but people are willing to
spend their programming time working on an IF project they love, and
not getting paid for it.
I don't mean to suggest that there are hordes of Finnish-to-English
literary translators out there just waiting to sign on to collaborate
with a programmer/writer and translate an IF. But if you never ask
people to collaborate with you, you won't find out.
In response to "how is translation going to help" - it seems obvious.
Hamlet translated well into French is going to be a better work than
Shakespeare's hypothetical attempt write a French text of Hamlet.
Magnus Olsson
started in rec.games.int-fiction, which is a group about text
adventure games, a.k.a. Interactive Fiction. However, the question I'm
about to ask is relevant to writing in general, and I'd like to hear
what the pros and the publishing people on rec.arts.sf.composition
have to say. ]
In a discussion about the writing of text adventure games (computer
games where the main output from the computer is prose, written by a
human author - like "Zork" and "Adventure"), a somewhat bold assertion
was made:
People who don't have English as their first language can never learn
the nuances of that language well enough to write acceptable
literature in English (with the exception of some rare geniuses such
as Nabokov or Conrad). Therefore, unless they happen to be Nabokov or
Conrad, any non-native-speakers should forget about writing in
English, and keep to their native language (or hire a native to do
their writing for them); any attempts to write in English will be so
bad that nobody will want to read them anyway.
(I hope I haven't distorted your argument, Nick; please correct me if
I have).
My reaction to this is that it is utter nonsense. Surely there must be
lots of published writers who write directly in a foreign
language. The problem is that I can't come up with any good examples,
except for George Mikes, which adds just one more exception to the
list above. This could simply be because if a non-native speaker
writes well enough in his/her second language, one doesn't notice, and
the author's first language usually isn't mentioned in cover
blurbs. It could of course also be because such writers are just as
rare as the original poster claims.
And, of course, in many cultures people have had to write in a second
language, because the vernacular wasn't considered good enough for
literature (for example, take Europe in the middle ages). But it's
perhaps different when everybody does it
I'm of course not denying that it *is* in many ways more difficult to
write in a foreign language than in one's native tongue. Nor am I
denying that it is often painfully obvious that a text was written by
somebody who wasn't writing in his native tongue. But there are many
native speakers who can't write as well. Sturgeon's law and all that.
So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result? Or
should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
answer to the second question is "no").
David Silas
Magnus Olsson wrote in message <87502n$ilc$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>...
<snip>
>So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
>to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result? Or
>should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
>answer to the second question is "no").
>
I have heard that T.S. Eliot wrote Murder in the Cathedral in French. I
believe that Salman Rushdie writes in English. I know that Chinua Achebe
wrote in English. I don't know the relative numbers, but it seems to come
down to this:
People who write in a foreign language do it badly, unless they do it well.
Pretty much the same as people writing in their native language. Making a
blanket statement about this sort of thing seems silly.
Dan Goodman
>to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result? Or
>should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
>answer to the second question is "no").
In science fiction, Hugo Gernsback probably had English as his third or
fourth written language (after French, German, and possibly Hebrew) and
his fourth or fifth spoken language (after Letzeburgish, French, German,
and possibly Hebrew). He wasn't a great writer; but his English is as
good as that of other sf writers of his time.
Colin McLean (sp?) is an adventure writer in English; I believe his native
language is Scots Gaelic.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Paul O'Brian
> People who don't have English as their first language can never learn
> the nuances of that language well enough to write acceptable
> literature in English (with the exception of some rare geniuses such
> as Nabokov or Conrad). Therefore, unless they happen to be Nabokov or
> Conrad, any non-native-speakers should forget about writing in
> English, and keep to their native language (or hire a native to do
> their writing for them); any attempts to write in English will be so
> bad that nobody will want to read them anyway.
>
> (I hope I haven't distorted your argument, Nick; please correct me if
> I have).
Perhaps not a distortion exactly, but I do think that the above is an
exaggeration of what I've seen Nick post. I don't think he was arguing
that "any attempts to write in English will be so bad that nobody will
want to read them anyway." Instead, he was suggesting that writing of very
high quality is quite difficult to achieve in a second language.
What we might note here are several assumptions:
1) The obvious one is that writing of very high quality is a necessary
feature of good fiction, interactive or no. Dr. Asimov and others might
contend to the contrary, that in some types of fiction the writing simply
needs to be serviceable and effectively communicate the ideas behind the
work, which are (they would argue) the more important part.
2) The not-quite-so-obvious assumption has to do with what we mean by
"very high quality". Clearly, Nick seems to be interested in highly
nuanced prose, where subtle connotations of the chosen words all sing in
pitch-perfect harmony with one another. He appears to be privileging the
kind of values typically associated with the word "literary" rather than,
say, the word "transparent." However, I'm not convinced that writing of
very high quality must necessarily contain these values. It seems to me
that sometimes "literary" fiction (and I put the word in quotes because it
is so highly contentious) might be of not very high quality, and that
sometimes high quality writing does not necessarily contain excessively
subtle and nuanced prose.
3) Even if we assume that all high quality writing is literary and vice
versa, there's one more assumption: that the ability to produce such
writing stems from long association with a particular language. I'm not
convinced on this one either. Obviously, one must be well acquainted with
a particular tool in order to craft something excellent with that tool.
However, does it take a genius to be that well acquainted with a second
language? On the other hand, if we're talking about high literary prose
here, mightn't the ability to write it be limited to geniuses anyway?
After all, how many people can write the kind of prose Nick is looking for
in their *native* language, let alone a second one?
Edo Marinus
> I have heard that T.S. Eliot wrote Murder in the Cathedral in French.
Either I have just learned a fascinating new fact, or somebody has
made an equally fascinating mistake inspired by the name "Beckett".
You see, _Murder in the Cathedral_ is (unless I am mistaken) about the
murder of St Thomas à Becket, while Samuel Beckett was an Irish author who
wrote a lot of his stuff in French.
Not so much pedantic as amused,
Edo
--
REPORT ALL OBSCENE MAIL TO YOUR POTSMASTER
Edo Marinus
> How is translation going to help? If you are that sure that only rare
> exceptions (like Conrad, like the other chap) can master a second
> language as if it were his first, then where is Mikko going to find a
> translator that can turn a well made Finnish work into an well made
> English one?
In my experience (as a translator) I find that your command of the
language you are translating something *into* (the target language) is
what counts. You only have to be good enough at the source language not to
make any silly mistakes, misunderstand idiomatic expressions, that sort of
thing.
A good dictionary helps with that, and a read-through by the author of
the draft translation will no doubt resolve any real problems.
Alma Hromic
wrote:
>In a discussion about the writing of text adventure games (computer
>games where the main output from the computer is prose, written by a
>human author - like "Zork" and "Adventure"), a somewhat bold assertion
>was made:
>
>People who don't have English as their first language can never learn
>the nuances of that language well enough to write acceptable
>literature in English (with the exception of some rare geniuses such
>as Nabokov or Conrad). Therefore, unless they happen to be Nabokov or
>Conrad, any non-native-speakers should forget about writing in
>English, and keep to their native language (or hire a native to do
>their writing for them); any attempts to write in English will be so
>bad that nobody will want to read them anyway.
>My reaction to this is that it is utter nonsense.
absolutely so.
>Surely there must be lots of published writers who write directly in a foreign
>language. The problem is that I can't come up with any good examples,
>except for George Mikes, which adds just one more exception to the
>list above. This could simply be because if a non-native speaker
>writes well enough in his/her second language, one doesn't notice, and
>the author's first language usually isn't mentioned in cover
>blurbs. It could of course also be because such writers are just as
>rare as the original poster claims.
oh, poppycock
you want an example? me. i was born into a language that had
absolutely nothing to do with english. and so far i have three
published books to my credit, almost 300 book reviews, stories in a
dozen anthologies, and published poetry not to mention travel articles
and straight journalism. so not only do i write in what the pedantic
might call my second language i write that second language in half a
dozen subtly or not-so-subtly differing formats - the language used in
a newspaper feature article is hardly the same as the language used in
a poem or a fantasy story. so far i managed to make people both laugh
and cry, in my second language. and i've been accused, somewhere along
the way, of having swallowed an (english) dictionary when i was five
years old because i keep on using as a matter of course all sorts of
weird words that native english speakers have to sit up and say
"whuh?" to. the blanket statement that "People who don't have English
as their first language can never learn the nuances of that language
well enough to write acceptable literature in English" is arrogant in
the extreme. it is fact that many foreigners learn english well enough
to write brilliantly in it. less often do you get the reverse. in
fact, there are staggeringly few people whose native language is
english who EVER learn to speak, let alone write, a second language
fluently - perhaps that's to do with the fact that english is such an
international language that they don't ever feel the need to. but that
is no reason to dismiss anyone for the simple reason that they didn't
imbibe english with their mother's milk.
>I'm of course not denying that it *is* in many ways more difficult to
>write in a foreign language than in one's native tongue. Nor am I
>denying that it is often painfully obvious that a text was written by
>somebody who wasn't writing in his native tongue. But there are many
>native speakers who can't write as well. Sturgeon's law and all that.
absolutely. and i am not saying that every non-native speaker writes
brilliant english. but those who speak the language fluently should be
accorded the respect due to any speaker of english. assuming that a
foreigner speaks or writes worse english just because they are a
foreigner is patently xenophobic.
>So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
>to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result?
plenty. award winning african and caribbean writers who grew up with
local languages have written in english and have received accolades
for it.
> Or should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
>answer to the second question is "no").
the answer to the second question is most EMPHATICALLY no.
A.
***************
"The difference between journalism and literature
is that journalism is unreadable
and literature is unread."
Oscar Wilde
Jake Wildstrom
Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>and cry, in my second language. and i've been accused, somewhere along
>the way, of having swallowed an (english) dictionary when i was five
>years old because i keep on using as a matter of course all sorts of
>weird words that native english speakers have to sit up and say
>"whuh?" to. the blanket statement that "People who don't have English
This brings up what strikes me as an unusual quirk of very good non-native
writers, in English and presumably other languages. Taking Conrad as an
example: he's an excellent writer, but something about his style seemed, in
lack of a better word for it, overcorrect. Narrative writers tend to write in
a conversational tone, it seems to me, and this element is missing somehow in a
language learned in maturity. This perhaps manifests itself in your writing by
way of your tendecy to use nonconversational words.
Just an observation--not a criticism. I have nothing against this style.
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into |
| theorems. -Paul Erdos |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jake Wildstrom |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Alma Hromic
>In article <389e3207...@203.29.160.5>,
>Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>and cry, in my second language. and i've been accused, somewhere along
>>the way, of having swallowed an (english) dictionary when i was five
>>years old because i keep on using as a matter of course all sorts of
>>weird words that native english speakers have to sit up and say
>>"whuh?" to. the blanket statement that "People who don't have English
>
>This brings up what strikes me as an unusual quirk of very good non-native
>writers, in English and presumably other languages. Taking Conrad as an
>example: he's an excellent writer, but something about his style seemed, in
>lack of a better word for it, overcorrect. Narrative writers tend to write in
>a conversational tone, it seems to me, and this element is missing somehow in a
>language learned in maturity. This perhaps manifests itself in your writing by
>way of your tendecy to use nonconversational words.
>
>Just an observation--not a criticism. I have nothing against this style.
<G> 'cept that i learned the language when i was ten. don't know how
mature i was at the time...
Adam J. Thornton
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>In article <87502n$ilc$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>>should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
>>answer to the second question is "no").
>fourth written language (after French, German, and possibly Hebrew) and
>his fourth or fifth spoken language (after Letzeburgish, French, German,
>and possibly Hebrew). He wasn't a great writer; but his English is as
>good as that of other sf writers of his time.
Joseph Conrad's native language was Polish.
Adam
--
ad...@princeton.edu
"My eyes say their prayers to her / Sailors ring her bell / Like a moth
mistakes a light bulb / For the moon and goes to hell." -- Tom Waits
Magnus Olsson
>
>> the nuances of that language well enough to write acceptable
>> literature in English (with the exception of some rare geniuses such
>> as Nabokov or Conrad). Therefore, unless they happen to be Nabokov or
>> Conrad, any non-native-speakers should forget about writing in
>> English, and keep to their native language (or hire a native to do
>> their writing for them); any attempts to write in English will be so
>> bad that nobody will want to read them anyway.
>>
>> I have).
>
>Perhaps not a distortion exactly, but I do think that the above is an
>exaggeration of what I've seen Nick post. I don't think he was arguing
>want to read them anyway."
OK, that was an exaggeration; sorry for that.
>Instead, he was suggesting that writing of very
>high quality is quite difficult to achieve in a second language.
Yes, and the problem I have with this is not the suggestion itself,
but what we mean by "very high quality". If one means the quality of
writing associated with authors such as Nabokov it's a fairly
non-controversial statement.
But here's what Nick actually wrote (readers of r.a.sf.c should
note that the context is game writing):
>It's not a horrible idea to write the game in English - for certain
>purposes. Even if you can communicate well in English, through, unless
>you're Conrad or Nabokov - someone intimate with English diction,
>its shades of meaning and twists of syntax - it's not going to be
>well-written. It might still be enjoyed by some people, as well as
>helping you to master aspects of IF craft.
>
>For some people, though, writing that is above-average with a few great
>moments is worth more than dozens of gripping puzzles. If these people
>are part of your readership, consider other options:
What he seems to be saying is that one has to be as intimate with
English as Conrad or Nabokov in order to produce above-average
writing. Not Nobel class writing, not "high literature", but merely
above-average writing with a few great moments.
But this is rather irrelevant to my question; I'm just bringing this
up to avoid misrepresenting Nick's position.
It's perhaps rather obvious that this is a sensitive issue for me, so
let me get personal for a moment. It's partly a metter of hurt pride,
but mostly it's that posts like Nick's very much make me question what
I'm doing, both the writing and the criticism. Every time I've sent
off a critique to Critters, I wonder what business I have criticizing
an author's way of using his or her own language (especially since my
critiques seem to have a tendency of degenerating into line-by-line
edits, which are probably not at all what the author really wants,
expects or needs).
So it's good to hear that you don't have to be Conrad or Nabokov to
get published in a foreign language after all. Kind of makes one's
prospects seem a little more hopeful.
Iain Merrick
[...]
> So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
> to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result? Or
> should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
> answer to the second question is "no").
This really depends on your definition of 'foreign language', I think.
There are plenty of examples of people writing fluently in two or three
languages which they grew up with; this seems to cover most of the
examples people have given in this thread. But is it common for people
to write well in languages they learn in later life?
As far as I can see, it's next to impossible to pick up all the
linguistic tricks of a native speaker unless you learn the language
properly at a young age. You can learn to express yourself, sure, but
only in a gawky, stilted manner. I hope I'm wrong, since this would mean
I'll be limited to writing in English for the rest of my life.
Counter-examples, anyone?
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
Iain Merrick
[...]
> I don't mean to suggest that there are hordes of Finnish-to-English
> literary translators out there just waiting to sign on to collaborate
> with a programmer/writer and translate an IF. But if you never ask
> people to collaborate with you, you won't find out.
I don't think you'd need a Finnish-to-English translator, even.
You could probably get good results with a Finnish writer who is able to
translate his or her ideas into some sort of English, and a native
English speaker who can rewrite the rough translation into beautiful
'literary' prose.
You wouldn't need a single person with perfect knowledge of _both_
languages, just two native speakers, at least one of whom has a
smattering of the other's language.
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
Magnus Olsson
This is an interesting way of looking at it: using "imperfect English"
as an intermediate language, just as machine translators use some sort
of abstract representation as an intermediate language, or a compiler
may use C as an intermediate language (betwee, say, C++ and machine
code).
But I can't see that this differs very much from what I and several
others suggested, viz. to write in imperfect, "non-native" English
and then let a native edit the text (or even just suggest edits).
I'm a bit surprised that Nick is so quick to dismiss this idea - "not
even sloppy journalism is written that way" - because editing is a
standard procedure even for native writers. Not in journalism,
perhaps, but in book publishing. I've even heard of dyslectic authors
who wrote almost unreadable manuscripts that were then edited into
publishable shape, and went on to become bestsellers.
As for collaborating with a writer who actually writes text to spec: I
think that's a good idea (sorry, Nick, if I gave a different
impression), *if* that's what you want to do. I seem to recall people
having volunteered to collaborate in this way on IF projects.
Magnus Olsson
Iain Merrick <i...@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
>Magnus Olsson wrote:
>[...]
>> So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
>> to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result? Or
>> should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
>> answer to the second question is "no").
>
>This really depends on your definition of 'foreign language', I think.
>
>There are plenty of examples of people writing fluently in two or three
>languages which they grew up with;
Define "grow up with". What I've heard is that in order to learn a
language as a native speaker, you have to learn it before the age of
five or so.
You can't extend this time by too much, since foreign language teaching
in most countries seems to start rather early, before age 10. And I think
we can all agree that learning a language in school doesn't necessarily
make you very good at that language.
>this seems to cover most of the
>examples people have given in this thread.
Really? I'm not so sure about that.
>But is it common for people
>to write well in languages they learn in later life?
Yes, that's exactly the question.
>As far as I can see, it's next to impossible to pick up all the
>linguistic tricks of a native speaker unless you learn the language
>properly at a young age. You can learn to express yourself, sure, but
>only in a gawky, stilted manner.
Tell me, do you think I express myself in a "gawky, stilted manner"?
I'm not being sarcastic, just wondering, since while my school started
teaching English in third grade (age 9), I can't really claim to
have learned it properly at that age - I don't think the teaching really
took off until seventh grade (age 13).
David Silas
Edo Marinus wrote in message ...
Edo
You, I think you're right. Amazing where the mind goes when it jumps the
tracks.
Thanks.
David.
Lois McMaster Bujold
>
> Magnus Olsson wrote:
> [...]
> > So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
>
> This really depends on your definition of 'foreign language', I think.
>
> There are plenty of examples of people writing fluently in two or three
> examples people have given in this thread. But is it common for people
> to write well in languages they learn in later life?
>
> linguistic tricks of a native speaker unless you learn the language
> properly at a young age. You can learn to express yourself, sure, but
> I'll be limited to writing in English for the rest of my life.
>
> Counter-examples, anyone?
I don't know at what ages he learned the languages, but I'd
heard that Robert Van Gulik, the Dutch writer of the delightful Judge
Dee mystery novel series, did his own translations into English,
Japanese, and Chinese.
Ta, Lois.
Iain Merrick
[...]
> >But is it common for people
> >to write well in languages they learn in later life?
>
Ah. That seemed to be an unstated assumption of some people, while
others were misinterpreting it. Someone mentioned Nabokov, for instance,
and I'm pretty sure he grew up tri-lingual.
> >As far as I can see, it's next to impossible to pick up all the
> >linguistic tricks of a native speaker unless you learn the language
> >properly at a young age. You can learn to express yourself, sure, but
> >only in a gawky, stilted manner.
>
> Tell me, do you think I express myself in a "gawky, stilted manner"?
Since you ask, definitely not.
> I'm not being sarcastic, just wondering, since while my school started
> teaching English in third grade (age 9), I can't really claim to
> have learned it properly at that age - I don't think the teaching really
> took off until seventh grade (age 13).
Okay, so it's not a clear-cut thing. I'd count learning from age 9 as
'learning at a young age'. I wasn't taught any foreign languages until
12 or 13, and the lessons I got weren't very useful on their own.
So my current situation is that I know a few random French words, but
can't remotely hold a conversation in French. It seems pretty unlikely
that I'll ever speak or write 'like a native' in anything other than
English. Unless someone wants to post a heartwarming story about how
they learned Japanese at the age of 73...?
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
Second April
English is a second language (I believe):
Friday Afternoon, by Mischa Schweitzer
Uncle Zebulon's Will, Aayela, and Dungeons of Dunjin, by Magnus Olsson
Leaves, CC, and King Arthur's Night Out, by Mikko Vuorinen
Purple, by Stefan Blixt
Halothane, by Ravi Rajkumar
Not an extremely long list, and admittedly I doubt any of these will make
anyone forget Conrad or Nabokov, but all of them are good enough that the
reader can enjoy the story or puzzles (i.e., without getting distracted
by the writing), and some are good enough that the reader can enjoy the
writing too.
Duncan Stevens
dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu
But buy me a singer to sing one song--
Song about nothing--song about sheep--
Over and over, all day long;
Patch me again my thread-bare sleep.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
Dan Schmidt
| Define "grow up with". What I've heard is that in order to learn a
| language as a native speaker, you have to learn it before the age of
| five or so.
I know three people who came to the US when they were around ten and
now speak English 100% as a native speaker would. My father came from
Germany, and I don't think he had had any real exposure to English
before he emigrated. The other two are friends who came from Japan
and Israel, and probably had been exposed to English a bit from school
and the general culture.
--
Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
Nick Montfort
<i...@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
> >I don't think you'd need a Finnish-to-English translator, even.
True, you wouldn't *need* one. It's just a better avenue to investigate
than write-and-revise, I think. Clearly the people involved in this
discussion can all communicate well in English, but that isn't the same
thing as being an expert writer of fiction in English.
The central issue to me doesn't have anything to with with "native
speaker versus non-native speaker." It's a matter of recognizing that
writing is an art, that extraordinary writing is difficult to achieve,
and that through all means -- including collaboration with expert
fiction writers -- IF developers should be trying to better the
literary aspect of their works.
But I'm unusual in that I consider IF to be primarily a reading and
writing experience, with puzzle-solving a secondary aspect.
In article <876up8$uvf$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>, m...@bartlet.df.lth.se
(Magnus Olsson) wrote:
> I'm a bit surprised that Nick is so quick to dismiss this idea
> [revising writing by done by a non-expert writer]
It may work. I'm dismissing it (or, more accurately, considering it as
less preferable than the other options I mentioned) based on my
personal experience. If I see an example of truly stunning writing that
was produced through this process, I would reconsider.
There are many hints in this thread that people seem to consider the
writing of interactive fiction as something that any literate person
can do as well as any other. If I want to create a Myst-like,
photorealistic, graphical IF, and I'm an expert in designing puzzles
and programming, of *course* I would want to collaborate with an expert
artist/designer to develop the graphical components. Even if I know how
to use 3D Studio. It's for similar reasons that I think expert puzzle
designers and programmers might benefit from teaming up with expert
writers.
Magnus Olsson wrote:
> As for collaborating with a writer who actually writes text to spec:
I
> think that's a good idea (sorry, Nick, if I gave a different
> impression), *if* that's what you want to do.
Whew!
As I mentioned earlier, I do think there are some disadvantages to
collaborating like this (or in any other way) - there's a lot of unity
and clarity of vision that can be realized in a one-person work of art
or literature, IF or otherwise. But collaborating has its benefits,
too, particularly when there are many areas of expertise that come into
play.
I should add that I didn't *only* suggest working with a writer who
"writes text to spec." That is one option, but it puts the writer in a
subordinate role which could be a bit unfair a volunteer collaborator.
In a deeper sort of collaboration, the writer could define the plot,
setting, and characters, and work with the programmer to develop
puzzles and other interactive aspects. The programmer would be in
charge of interactive design. The writer would have responsibility not
just for the text but also for the overall narrative elements.
This is how the Synapse games (Breakers, Mindwheel, Brimstone, etc.)
were developed, I believe. The Douglas Adams Infocom games were put
together in a similar way, I'd guess.
Alex Jay Berman
In Harlan Ellison's eulogy of A.E. Van Vogt this past week, he spoke
of a time when he and Van Vogt were walking together. The Grand Master
was, oddly enough, wearing headphones, and when Ellison asked the
reason, Van Vogt said, "I'm learning Urdu."
Now that, to me, is impressive.
I've taken quite a few languages over the years (Hebrew, Spanish,
Russian), but not long enough to gain any fluency at them. I remember
the grammar and the pronunciations and the writing, but the vocabulary
slips my mind.
I'm thinking about trying a immersion/tapes course to see if I really
CAN retain this stuff.
Anyone know how well a new language can be learned AFTER the time of
childhood?
Alex Jay Berman
"If a man is to have a fault, it should be a passionate one, like insatiable curiosity.
It would be a pity to be damned for something paltry."--Gary Jennings, THE JOURNEYER
Holly E. Ordway
>Anyone know how well a new language can be learned AFTER the time of
>childhood?
I have a data point, depending on how you define "childhood". My husband is
from Spain. He started learning English in high school (first few classes
in it during his freshman year), and started immersion his senior year in
high school (study abroad to a high school in Michigan). He stayed in the
U.S. for college and thereafter. He's fluent both in speaking and writing,
at a near-native level. His writing looks exactly native 99.9% of the time,
the 0.1 percent being an occasional idiom or slightly odd use of a
preposition. Same thing with his speaking, except that he (apparently) has
a very, very slight foreign accent. (I can't hear it any more, but people
do seem to peg him as not being from the U.S. The thing is, they can't
figure out *where* he's from. My favorite was someone who guessed
"Canadian?" No one ever guesses "Spanish" -- I think it's because he
started learning English at a school in France, and continued it in summer
classes in London. A "triple-blended foreign accent" :)
Second data point: I started learning Spanish when I was about 20 (from
scratch: no classes) (I'm 25 now). I range from advanced to almost-fluent
depending on how long it's been since we've visited Spain and how long
we've been in Spain on that particular visit. Speaking is definitely my
weakest area and can get pretty lousy; but I read fiction and newspapers
(without a dictionary) and watch movies comfortably in Spanish; and I
understand my husband perfectly when he speaks in Spanish, my in-laws
almost always perfectly, and other people somewhat less well, depending on
their accents and speech habits. So it's certainly possible to achieve at
least a useful level of fluency starting in adulthood.
--Holly
Brent VanFossen
wrote:
>Tell me, do you think I express myself in a "gawky, stilted manner"?
>I'm not being sarcastic, just wondering, since while my school started
>teaching English in third grade (age 9), I can't really claim to
>have learned it properly at that age - I don't think the teaching really
>took off until seventh grade (age 13).
I'd say that your written English is better than that of probably 95%
of the native speakers' written English. I know of many native
English speakers who can't write a whole sentence without misspelling
two or three words, and I even know some who can't make a verb match a
subject on a consistent basis.
I think writing takes a creative, alert mind coupled with a high
attention to detail. In a foreign language, it certainly might take
more effort. I'd say that anyone who wants to write should tell his
story in the language appropriate for that story. Have it proofed by
someone you can trust to give you correct and honest feedback, then go
back, fix the problems, and learn from your mistakes. Post or publish
your results, and keep trying.
I have no idea whom to attribute this quote to, but I love it:
"A writer is someone for whom writing is harder than it is for other
people."
Brent VanFossen
Brenda
Alex Jay Berman wrote:
>
>
> Anyone know how well a new language can be learned AFTER the time of
> childhood?
>
Hmm. My parents moved to the US in their late teens, speaking only Chinese. They're now
totally fluent, both speaking and writing, in English -- my father was a journalist, in
fact.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough, author of HOW LIKE A GOD, from Tor Books
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Heather Anne Nicoll
> As far as I can see, it's next to impossible to pick up all the
> linguistic tricks of a native speaker unless you learn the language
> properly at a young age. You can learn to express yourself, sure, but
> I'll be limited to writing in English for the rest of my life.
> Counter-examples, anyone?
I *used* to be fluent enough in Spanish that shopkeepers in Barcelona
who replied to my companions' Spanish in English answered me in Spanish
too fast for comprehension.
That was, uh... my fourth year of Spanish study. I started studying it
at the age of <calculate calculate> eleven, which is, of course, in
traditional moronic American schooling principles, just after it's
possible to easily learn languages.
I also wrote poetry and short stories in Spanish; I won't say they were
any good, but I did write them. I still remember the commands to make
my keyboard do accents and enye's. (N with ~) I have, however,
horribly lost my fluency, to the point that I go to the effort of
looking up the Spanish-language press releases before the English ones
when I'm looking such things up, and read the English afterwards for
nuance.
I don't know that I'm a particularly good subject, though; if there's
some genetic predisposition to being able to learn languages easily, I
most certainly have it - I know language-skills seem to run in my
father's family (he knew Latin, German, and Spanish in addition to
English, but has also lost fluency; I believe his father knew seven or
eight languages).
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.dslonramp.net/~darkhawk/
Win or lose now, you must choose now, and if you lose
You've only wasted your life. - Peter, Paul, and Mary
Dan Schmidt
| I know of many native English speakers who can't write a whole
| sentence without misspelling two or three words, and I even know
| some who can't make a verb match a subject on a consistent basis.
Wow, do they do that when they talk too, or is it just sloppiness in
the writing process?
Dan Schmidt
| People who study such things scientifically say that grownups are
| better at learning a second language than children. But this
| doesn't always translate out to proficiency in the real world,
| because grownups are better at avoiding the necessity of learning a
| second language, also.
Hi,
Can you provide any references for the above statement? It's at odds
with what I've read about language acquisition, so if there are any
data or papers you have handy I'd be interested in them.
Adam J. Thornton
Second April <dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
>Halothane, by Ravi Rajkumar
Look, I'm totally confused now.
Would the real Quentin D. Thompson please stand up, and is he a native
speaker of English?
Lucy Kemnitzer
Berman) wrote:
>Just another thing I came across recently.
>
>In Harlan Ellison's eulogy of A.E. Van Vogt this past week, he spoke
>of a time when he and Van Vogt were walking together. The Grand Master
>was, oddly enough, wearing headphones, and when Ellison asked the
>reason, Van Vogt said, "I'm learning Urdu."
>
>Now that, to me, is impressive.
>I've taken quite a few languages over the years (Hebrew, Spanish,
>Russian), but not long enough to gain any fluency at them. I remember
>the grammar and the pronunciations and the writing, but the vocabulary
>slips my mind.
>
>I'm thinking about trying a immersion/tapes course to see if I really
>CAN retain this stuff.
>
>Anyone know how well a new language can be learned AFTER the time of
>childhood?
People who study such things scientifically say that grownups are
better at learning a second language than children. But this
doesn't always translate out to proficiency in the real world,
because grownups are better at avoiding the necessity of learning
a second language, also.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lucy Kemnitzer
wrote:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
>
>| People who study such things scientifically say that grownups are
>| better at learning a second language than children. But this
>| doesn't always translate out to proficiency in the real world,
>| because grownups are better at avoiding the necessity of learning a
>| second language, also.
>
>Hi,
>
>Can you provide any references for the above statement? It's at odds
>with what I've read about language acquisition, so if there are any
>data or papers you have handy I'd be interested in them.
>
Start with the name Kenji Hakuta, and work out from there: I
imagine that the other work I read for the same class can be found
on the NCBE website.
There are many facets to language acquisition. First language has
to be well acquired young, so that the language facility is
developed -- capital-l Language is inherent, all right, but its
development is contingent.
The findings are that the young child, who is still learning what
to expect from language, has some trouble learning two sets of
rules at once and is slowed down considerably in both languages
(this is not an argument against letting your child learn a 2nd
language, by the way: it all evens out in late childhood, all
other things being equal, and when it does, the very proficient
speaker of two languages is ahead of monolingual cohort in more
than one way). Meanwhile, the adult -- if the adult is actually
bothering to learn the second language at all -- while very
articulate about his or her pain, is better off in a couple of
ways. One, he or she is only _learning_ one language, not two, so
there's less work being done. Two, the language facility is
already developed. Three, the comparison and contrast between
first and second language is helpful for learning. Four, and this
is a subtle distinction from the others, the adult has already
learned the concepts which the language is used to talk about, or
most of them, anyway.
The point isn't that kids are especially _bad_ at learning a
second language, but that adults, given the same support, are
better.
Another factor is that in general adults tend to gloss over,
misinterpret, minimize, and discount children's discomforts, so
they don't notice that the kids are sweating with the second
language. And when we remark about how the children of immigrants
"pick up" the second language so quickly and serve as interpreters
for their families, we don't take into account that those exact
same children, unless they get significant intervention, are
usually considerably behind their monolingual peers in vocabulary
and grammar development in both languages.
Which is why there is a school of bilingual educators who advocate
keeping children in 1st language monolingual classes in
kindergarten and first grade when its practical, which is, of
course, hardly ever.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Alma Hromic
wrote:
<snippage>
>Another factor is that in general adults tend to gloss over,
>misinterpret, minimize, and discount children's discomforts, so
>they don't notice that the kids are sweating with the second
>language. And when we remark about how the children of immigrants
>"pick up" the second language so quickly and serve as interpreters
>for their families, we don't take into account that those exact
>same children, unless they get significant intervention, are
>usually considerably behind their monolingual peers in vocabulary
>and grammar development in both languages.
having been both a child of immigrants and thus having had contact
with children of immigrants both as a kid myself and as an adult, that
(in MY experience) just isn't true, lucy. the bilingual kids that i
know are no less yappy in either of their languages than their
equivalent monolingual peers are. i know families whose children lapse
into fluent colloquial english amongst themselves, and then talk quite
as happily in their OWN mother tongue to their parents and families.
no problems, in either language. i myself can switch languages mid
sentence and keep talking at exactly the same speed. where do you get
the data that those kids are "usually considerably behind their
monolingual peers"?
>Which is why there is a school of bilingual educators who advocate
>keeping children in 1st language monolingual classes in
>kindergarten and first grade when its practical, which is, of
>course, hardly ever.
and, IMHO of course, counterproductive.
but each school of thought to their own, i guess.
Dan Schmidt
| where do you get the data that those kids are "usually considerably
| behind their monolingual peers"?
Probably in the same place she told us to look, from the article
you're replying to:
rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
| Start with the name Kenji Hakuta, and work out from there: I
| imagine that the other work I read for the same class can be found
| on the NCBE website.
Which is where I'm looking now; there seem to be a bunch of papers
on these topics at <http://www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/>. Thanks for the
pointer, Lucy.
Lucy Kemnitzer
wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 07:43:51 GMT, rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer)
>wrote:
>
><snippage>
>>Another factor is that in general adults tend to gloss over,
>>misinterpret, minimize, and discount children's discomforts, so
>>they don't notice that the kids are sweating with the second
>>language. And when we remark about how the children of immigrants
>>"pick up" the second language so quickly and serve as interpreters
>>for their families, we don't take into account that those exact
>>same children, unless they get significant intervention, are
>>usually considerably behind their monolingual peers in vocabulary
>>and grammar development in both languages.
>
>having been both a child of immigrants and thus having had contact
>with children of immigrants both as a kid myself and as an adult, that
>(in MY experience) just isn't true, lucy. the bilingual kids that i
>know are no less yappy in either of their languages than their
>equivalent monolingual peers are.
I think you and I are looking at different stages of the process
(there's a social issue, too, which I will get to)
Remember I said that it evens out in a few years, with a potential
edge in the case of the bilingual kids?
i know families whose children lapse
>into fluent colloquial english amongst themselves, and then talk quite
>as happily in their OWN mother tongue to their parents and families.
>no problems, in either language. i myself can switch languages mid
>sentence and keep talking at exactly the same speed. where do you get
>the data that those kids are "usually considerably behind their
>monolingual peers"?
Masses of studies, both here in the US and all around the world:
but given the right sorts of conditions, it's a temporary
condition.
>>Which is why there is a school of bilingual educators who advocate
>>keeping children in 1st language monolingual classes in
>>kindergarten and first grade when its practical, which is, of
>>course, hardly ever.
>
>and, IMHO of course, counterproductive.
>
>but each school of thought to their own, i guess.
Well, and also you have to consider the other conditions besides
what language the child is starting with. There's a considerable
effect of social class, for example, and relative status of the
home and school language. A telling set of studies was done on
Swedish home speakers in Finland and Finnish home speakers in
Sweden. The Finnish speaking kids had less success in language
(and school in general)in Sweden than the Swedish speaking kids in
FInland, which correlated to the social class of the kids.
There is an abundance of factors related to social class that
interfere with language acquisition and school success.
The point is not that kids shouldn't learn a second language
early, but that people exaggerate the ease of doing so.
Subsidiary points are that the total process is a bit longer when
conditions are good -- which ties in with a tenet of
"developmental" educators who say that faster isn't always better
-- and that kids who are learning two languages at once deserve
some specialized attention and support, particularly when their
social class is lower.
None of this denies your experience at all: it just puts it in a
global perspective.
Lucy Kemnitzer
J. Holder
> Well, there obviously are people who do translations with a high
> literary standard (or there wouldn't be any English editions of
> non-English classics). Nick will probably say that translating is
> easier than writing original literature. I don't think so; at least I
> don't think the linguistic skills required by a translator are less
> than those required by an author.
A great book on translation (to bring it up again) and the issues
involved in being a good translator, see Douglas Hofstadter's book
"Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language".
Of course, being Hofstadter, it is both more than about translation
and less than about translation.
John
--
John Holder (jho...@frii.com) http://www.frii.com/~jholder/
<jholder> do you like FreeBSD?
<hal> I need to get the ISDN line running so that I will tell it to pass over
me and replace my SuSE box with FreeBSD.
Magnus Olsson
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>Well, and also you have to consider the other conditions besides
>what language the child is starting with. There's a considerable
>effect of social class, for example, and relative status of the
>home and school language. A telling set of studies was done on
>Swedish home speakers in Finland and Finnish home speakers in
>Sweden. The Finnish speaking kids had less success in language
>(and school in general)in Sweden than the Swedish speaking kids in
>FInland, which correlated to the social class of the kids.
In this case, I think it's also important that Swedish is an official
language in (parts of) Finland, while Finnish has no similar status
in Sweden. Or perhaps this is what you meant with the relative status
of the languages?
BTW, on a totally irrelevant tangent, what does "ritaxis" mean?
J Walrus
Dan Schmidt <df...@harmonixmusic.com> wrote in message
news:wkln54p...@turangalila.harmonixmusic.com...
I know one native English speaker who fails to match subject and verb so
consistently that he corrects others when they say 'they were' or 'he
was'.
JW
Dan Goodman
>
>
>Alex Jay Berman wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Anyone know how well a new language can be learned AFTER the time of
>> childhood?
>Hmm. My parents moved to the US in their late teens, speaking only
Chinese. They're now >totally fluent, both speaking and writing, in
English -- my father was a journalist, in >fact.
Try this for mixed results: my greatuncle was about 12 when he arrived in
the US. After WW II, he worked as a translator for the CIA. Got a bonus
for each language he learned, and learned one per year. At least one
(Spanish), I'm told he could speak without an accent.
But he spoke English with an accent. (Or a combination of accents; I
think part Russian, part Ukrainian, and part Yiddish.)
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
T. Kenyon
> People who don't have English as their first language can never learn
> the nuances of that language well enough to write acceptable
> literature in English (with the exception of some rare geniuses such
> as Nabokov or Conrad). Therefore, unless they happen to be Nabokov or
> Conrad, any non-native-speakers should forget about writing in
> English, and keep to their native language (or hire a native to do
> their writing for them); any attempts to write in English will be so
> bad that nobody will want to read them anyway.
>
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I have a feeling that everyone is going to hand
you another exception to that asinine rule, so here's mine: Bharathi
Mukergee didn't start out speaking exclusively English.
Also, in some writing paradigms, having a distinctive voice should be
cultivated and is highly praised. If we all sounded alike in our writing
voices, literature would be far more boring because language shapes the
way we think, and we would be more limited in our responses.
On the contrary, you have something valuable and rare.
TK Kenyon
"God not only plays dice [with the universe], He also sometimes throws
the dice where they cannot be seen."
--Stephan Hawkings
Brent VanFossen
wrote:
>| I know of many native English speakers who can't write a whole
>| sentence without misspelling two or three words, and I even know
>| some who can't make a verb match a subject on a consistent basis.
>
>Wow, do they do that when they talk too, or is it just sloppiness in
>the writing process?
Both. I have one friend who said "We was..." so many times that I
quit correcting him even though he asked me to help him fix his
English. His problems were too deep and I didn't want to ruin the
friendship.
This from my father-in-law with the package of fudge at Christmas:
"Hope I got you something you can not get their. Your mother said I
should not send it to you, too fating. So your better share it. Love
you, Dad"
He's a man of average intelligence with two associate degrees. His
writing is certainly careless, but I tend to think that he really
doesn't know any better.
Brent VanFossen
Jake Wildstrom
Second April <dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
>Purple, by Stefan Blixt
With due respect to the authors, the writing in both CC and Purple are
distinctly below average. The plots are interestingly done. But the writing
on these two is hardly the sort I'd use to try to prove that non-native
speakers can write good English.
>Halothane, by Ravi Rajkumar
Heh.
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into |
| theorems. -Paul Erdos |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jake Wildstrom |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Magnus Olsson
Nick Montfort <nickmo...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <3896F7...@cs.york.ac.uk>, Iain Merrick
><i...@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> >I don't think you'd need a Finnish-to-English translator, even.
>
>True, you wouldn't *need* one. It's just a better avenue to investigate
>than write-and-revise, I think.
But where do you find a translator who is good enough both to
understand every nuance in the Finnish original and to translate those
nuances into English, *and* who is also familiar with the conventions
of IF, and of the genre you're (possibly) writing in? I suppose such
people exist, but I'm not sure they're prepared to work for free.
If you can't find a translator willing or able to do this, you could
perhaps find someone who's willing to turn imperfect English with a
Finnish accent into perfect English.
I'm not sure what you mean by "write-and-revise", by the way. You have
the whole continuum from just requesting feedback for your own
revision to full-scale editing. More or less all writing involves
revision. And almost all published books are edited as well.
>The central issue to me doesn't have anything to with with "native
>speaker versus non-native speaker."
No, but what I reacted against was what I perceived as a blanket
statement, advising everyone to write in his or her first language
only.
>It's a matter of recognizing that
>writing is an art, that extraordinary writing is difficult to achieve,
>and that through all means -- including collaboration with expert
>fiction writers -- IF developers should be trying to better the
>literary aspect of their works.
Surely we should all strive for excellence. But each artist strives
for excellence within limits set by himself. No mater how good a piece
of IF is, it's unlikely to earn its author much money, if any at all,
so we're talkin about a labour of love here, and I really think its up
to the person who wants to create a piece of IF to decide whether they
want to do the programming, the writing, the overall design, think out
puzzles, or any combination of these. If you feel that you really want
to write it yourself, then "hire a professional author" is a lousy
piece of advice. It's like telling somebody who loves driving to take
the train because it's safer.
Of course, if you have decided to write the text yourself, then you're
obliged to do it as well as you can, and that onligation includes
getting outside help if necessary.
>But I'm unusual in that I consider IF to be primarily a reading and
>writing experience, with puzzle-solving a secondary aspect.
You're not unusual at all. In fact, this seems to be the majority
position among the regular posters to the IF groups. (I suspect it's
the minority position among IF fandom as a whole, though).
>In article <876up8$uvf$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>, m...@bartlet.df.lth.se
>(Magnus Olsson) wrote:
>
>> I'm a bit surprised that Nick is so quick to dismiss this idea
>> [revising writing by done by a non-expert writer]
>
>It may work. I'm dismissing it (or, more accurately, considering it as
>less preferable than the other options I mentioned) based on my
>personal experience. If I see an example of truly stunning writing that
>was produced through this process, I would reconsider.
The problem is that you may already have seen such an example, without
knowing it, because you normally only see the finished result, with no
idea of how the author arrived at it.
>There are many hints in this thread that people seem to consider the
>writing of interactive fiction as something that any literate person
>can do as well as any other.
I haven't seen any such hints at all (but then I know that I have
missed some posts, including some of yours, due to propagation
trouble). What has been said is that the required skills aren't as
rare as you seem to think.
>If I want to create a Myst-like,
>photorealistic, graphical IF, and I'm an expert in designing puzzles
>and programming, of *course* I would want to collaborate with an expert
>artist/designer to develop the graphical components. Even if I know how
>to use 3D Studio.
But not if what you're really interested in is creating the
graphics. Why do amateurs paint? Surely not because they think they
can paint as well as Picasso.
>I should add that I didn't *only* suggest working with a writer who
>"writes text to spec." That is one option, but it puts the writer in a
>subordinate role which could be a bit unfair a volunteer collaborator.
>In a deeper sort of collaboration, the writer could define the plot,
>setting, and characters, and work with the programmer to develop
>puzzles and other interactive aspects. The programmer would be in
>charge of interactive design. The writer would have responsibility not
>just for the text but also for the overall narrative elements.
>
>This is how the Synapse games (Breakers, Mindwheel, Brimstone, etc.)
>were developed, I believe. The Douglas Adams Infocom games were put
>together in a similar way, I'd guess.
But these were commercial projects, where the aim was to earn money,
not to realize some inner vision or just to have fun.
But, OK, let's buy your reasoning. Let's amplify the saying that if
it's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing, a bit. Let's say that
if you can't produce a piece of IF that doesn't meet professional
standards, then you shouln't write one. Or, at least, if you have an
idea for a game but can't write like a professional author, you
should leave the writing to one.
I'm sure the quality of released IF would go up.
But where would you find the expert writers? You can perhaps get expert
programmers from universities, but how do you get expert writers if
nobody who isn't already an expert should write? The only way to learn
to write is to write. You don't become an expert writer by delegating
all the writing to someone else.
I'd like to encourage all the aspiring IF authors at least to try to
write something, in English or in Finnish or whatever they like. They
may very well find out that it would indeed have been better to leave
the writing to someone else, but then they've at least learned a
lesson. They may also find that OK, the result wasn't very good, but
the next time they'll do better, because they've learned from the
experience. They may even turn out to be the Nabokov of IF.
Hedgehog
<URL:mailto:m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
> Tell me, do you think I express myself in a "gawky, stilted manner"?
No.
I've had no reason to doubt your fluency in English, from what I've seen
you post; maybe analysis would uncover Deviations, but there's been no
eh-what moments for me.
--
Hedgehog
Jonathan Blask
> In article <Pine.HPP.3.93.100020...@merle.acns.nwu.edu>,
> Second April <dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> >Leaves, CC, and King Arthur's Night Out, by Mikko Vuorinen
> >Purple, by Stefan Blixt
>
> With due respect to the authors, the writing in both CC and Purple are
> distinctly below average. The plots are interestingly done. But the writing
> on these two is hardly the sort I'd use to try to prove that non-native
> speakers can write good English.
>
I remember the writing in CC being just fine (in fact, I've liked
almost all of Mikko's games). What I think that some people are
forgetting is that not everyone wants to write a Photopia; some of us just
like simpler games in which descriptive prose is not a necessity.
Also, I think it's important to keep in mind that normal fiction
and IF, although similar, are two different mediums and certainly require
different approaches.
-jon
"If I got stranded on a desert island (with electricity)/
And I could bring one record and my hi-fi/
I'd bring that ocean surf cd (Relaxing Sound of Ocean Surf)/
So I could enjoy the irony." - Dylan Hicks
Zeborah
Alex Jay Berman <smeg...@erols.com> wrote:
> Now that, to me, is impressive.
> I've taken quite a few languages over the years (Hebrew, Spanish,
> Russian), but not long enough to gain any fluency at them. I remember
> the grammar and the pronunciations and the writing, but the vocabulary
> slips my mind.
Vocab really annoys me, mainly because I hate memorising stuff and
that's the only (obvious) way to learn vocab. (The unobvious way, my
favourite, is to read lots and lots of books in one's chosen language
until it seeps in by osmosis. OTOH, you end up reading obscure books
like translated Star Trek novelisations or Victor Hugo novels and
knowing how to say "warp drive" or "fardel" and still having no clue how
to ask directions to the nearest post office.)
> I'm thinking about trying a immersion/tapes course to see if I really
> CAN retain this stuff.
>
> Anyone know how well a new language can be learned AFTER the time of
> childhood?
It depends strongly on both opportunity and motivation -- if you're
needing the new language to survive in a foreign country you want to
stay in for the rest of your life then you're going to learn a lot
quicker than if someone's making you learn it at school when you'd
rather be doing something useful. Partly because you get more chance to
hear it when you're immersed, partly because you learn better when
you're really open to it.
(There was a study on Martha's Vineyard where IIRC teenagers who were
planning to stay on the island developed the local accent much more
strongly than those who planned to leave and live on the mainland.)
I've learned all (well, almost all, but I've forgotten all my Japanese
anyway) my non-English languages starting at age 13 at least. I'd call
myself fluent in French -- not native, and I've got enough of an accent
that almost everyone in Montreal answered my French in English, but (if
they'd let me!) I can carry on a decent conversation in French. (And
I'm hoping I'll do better after the next seven months in New Caledonia.)
If I'd been as enthusiastic about Spanish, German, Chinese (ignoring
those hideous characters for now) and Maori, and had as much opportunity
to practise them, then I imagine I could do just as well in them.
I do better in classes than when working through how-to books, but OTOH
I do even better when the teacher doesn't mind if I ignore his/her
teaching at my discretion and read books or translate history essays
into the language. I'd love to learn Icelandic and/or Latin, but my
how-to books are sitting barely used on the shelf. Inuktitut or some
other grammatically-similar language would be cool, but I don't even
have how-to books for that....
So a new language can definitely be learned very well after the time of
childhood, just a matter of wanting to and having the opportunity. I'd
recommend books (check out the local library for children's books) and
movies (preferably not subtitled, otherwise cover up the subtitles) as
well as the usual tapes course. Oh, and try writing stories in the
language, even if you have to start off with "John and Mary went to
school." Buy a dictionary so you can write slightly more interesting
stories. A good immersion course (or a trip to a place the language is
spoken) is helpful because it will let you interact with real people,
and get a chance to talk to them and listen them (and, in courses, to
learn from other students' mistakes as well). Basically, look for
situations where you can use the language.
Zeborah
Quentin.D.Thompson
ad...@princeton.edu (Adam J. Thornton) wrote:
> In article <Pine.HPP.3.93.100020...@merle.acns.nwu.edu>,
> Second April <dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
>
> Look, I'm totally confused now.
>
> Would the real Quentin D. Thompson please stand up, and is he a native
> speaker of English?
>
Quentin D. Thompson is standing, he admits to the name of Ravi P. Rajkumar in
offline life (which probably forms 99% of it, but who's counting..) and he
is, to all intents and purposes - if not a _native_ speaker - someone who's
spoken English as far back as he can remember.
I think I'm reconsidering this whole pseudonym idea now :-)
-- - Q.
"You know where you're at with../Floor collapses, floating.....
Bouncing back, and one day..../You'll know where you are.."
-- Radiohead, "Let Down"
(Official "Halothane" theme tune)
David Langford
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> writes:
>>
>> My reaction to this is that it is utter nonsense. Surely there must be
>> lots of published writers who write directly in a foreign
>> language.
>
>To add grist to the mill from another hopper, here are some non-French
>writers who wrote in French:
[snip list]
William Beckford of =Vathek= fame was another ... an actual fantasy
novelist!
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.co.uk/
Richard Horton
On 3 Feb 2000 08:19:02 GMT, rc...@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
>To add grist to the mill from another hopper, here are some non-French
>writers who wrote in French:
Don't forget Milan Kundera, a Czech who wrote many novels in his
native language but who has written has last few in French.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Second April
> In article <878ali$1m7$2...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
> ad...@princeton.edu (Adam J. Thornton) wrote:
> > In article <Pine.HPP.3.93.100020...@merle.acns.nwu.edu>,
> > Second April <dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> > >Halothane, by Ravi Rajkumar
> >
> > Look, I'm totally confused now.
> >
> > Would the real Quentin D. Thompson please stand up, and is he a native
> > speaker of English?
> >
> Sorry for the confusion.
>
> Quentin D. Thompson is standing, he admits to the name of Ravi P. Rajkumar in
> offline life (which probably forms 99% of it, but who's counting..) and he
> is, to all intents and purposes - if not a _native_ speaker - someone who's
> spoken English as far back as he can remember.
Whoops--sorry. No offense meant.
Duncan Stevens
dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu
But buy me a singer to sing one song--
Song about nothing--song about sheep--
Over and over, all day long;
Patch me again my thread-bare sleep.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
Magnus Olsson
Steve Taylor <st...@afs.net.au> wrote:
>Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>
>> So, what *is* the Tongan for "no"? I've always wondered.
>>
>> (No doubt some of you understand why.)
>
>Only since I got a particularly nice Christmas gift this year. Collected
>works, all in one box.
Apparently, I didn't get the same Christmas gifts as Steve. Anybody care
to explain?
Dylan O'Donnell
> In article <38992652...@afs.net.au>,
> Steve Taylor <st...@afs.net.au> wrote:
> >Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> >
> >> So, what *is* the Tongan for "no"? I've always wondered.
> >>
> >> (No doubt some of you understand why.)
> >
> >Only since I got a particularly nice Christmas gift this year. Collected
> >works, all in one box.
>
> Apparently, I didn't get the same Christmas gifts as Steve. Anybody care
> to explain?
Flanders and Swann. "Songs for Our Time", from "At the Drop of a Hat".
"Oh, it's hard to say: 'holima kitiluka cheecheechee',
But in Tonga that means: 'no'.
If I ever have the money,
'Tis to Tonga I shall go.
For each lovely Tongan maiden there
Will gladly make a date;
And by the time she's said 'holima kitiluka cheecheechee',
It is usually too late."
--
: Dylan O'Donnell : Hora aderat briligi. Nunc et slithia tova :
: Demon Internet : Plurima gyrabant gymbolitare vabo; :
: Resident, Forgotten Office : Et borogovorum mimzebant undique formae, :
: http://www.fysh.org/~psmith/ : Momiferique omnes exgrabure rathi. :
Magnus Olsson
Jake Wildstrom <wil...@mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <389e3207...@203.29.160.5>,
>Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>and cry, in my second language. and i've been accused, somewhere along
>>the way, of having swallowed an (english) dictionary when i was five
>>years old because i keep on using as a matter of course all sorts of
>>weird words that native english speakers have to sit up and say
>>"whuh?" to. the blanket statement that "People who don't have English
>
>This brings up what strikes me as an unusual quirk of very good non-native
>writers, in English and presumably other languages. Taking Conrad as an
>example: he's an excellent writer, but something about his style seemed, in
>lack of a better word for it, overcorrect.
Well, I think that's pretty natural. When you learn a foreign language by
learning all the formal rules (grammar, style rules, etc) first, you're
very reluctant to break them. By enough exposure to the language, you'll
eventually learn that the *real* grammar differs a bit from the formal
grammar (i.e. that the natives tend to "break the rules"), but you're still
reluctant to follow suit.
>Narrative writers tend to write in
>a conversational tone, it seems to me, and this element is missing somehow in a
>language learned in maturity.
Conversational tone is normally learned by exposure to the language,
not from textbooks.
Of course, this is nothing compared to hearing people speak. Whether
you've learned a language at school (where the textbooks as well as
most of the teachers' usage tends to be rather formal and somewhat
dated) or by reading literature, it's easy to sound very bookish,
because you speak like the dialogue in the literary texts or textbooks
you've read.
Poeple who've picked up a lnaguage by living in a country, on the
other hand, tend to speak very fluently and are good at informal
speak, but have difficulties with the written language.
All this being dreadful generalizations, of course.
Dorothy J Heydt
Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>In article <38992652...@afs.net.au>,
>Steve Taylor <st...@afs.net.au> wrote:
>>Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>>
>>> So, what *is* the Tongan for "no"? I've always wondered.
I CAN ANSWER THIS!!
But it'll take a bit of digression.
>>> (No doubt some of you understand why.)
>>
>>Only since I got a particularly nice Christmas gift this year. Collected
>>works, all in one box.
>
>Apparently, I didn't get the same Christmas gifts as Steve. Anybody care
>to explain?
I will explain. Caution, an abundance of trivia ahead.
There's a Flanders and Swann song (and the nice Christmas gift
will have been a collection of their recordings, and I wish I had
it too), having the following lyrics:
Oh, it's hard to say "ooni-luku-maka-chee-chee-chee,"
But in Tonga, that means "No."
If I ever have the money, it's to Tonga I shall go,
For each lovely Tonga maiden there
Will gladly make a date,
And by the time she's said "ooni-luku-maka-chee-chee-chee,"
It is usually too late!
Well. Randall Garrett once flew to Australia for a con and
discovered that the stewardess on his flight was Tongan. Oh,
wow, thinks Randall. "And how do you say 'no' in Tongan?" he
asked. "'Hai'," she said. Shucks, he thought, Japanese
loanword.
But I mentioned this once on rasfw, and a nice lady named Karen
Lofstrom at U-Hawaii, *who had actually done fieldwork in Tonga,*
said,
>He misheard. The word is "'ikai" -- note the glottal stop at the
>beginning.
So there you are. The Tongan for "no" is _'ikai_, don't forget
the glottal stop.
Dorothy J. Heydt
(a treasury of useless information)
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
John F. Eldredge
wrote:
>Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>> A dear friend of mine is from Hong Kong and went to school and
>> undergrad university in England. She speaks English with an English
>> accent on top of a Chinese accent.
>
>That's sort of like one of my dad's fellow grad students in Boston
>thirty-odd years ago -- this fellow was from somewhere in the orient,
>but had gone learned to speak English while spending several years in
>Atlanta. And so he spoke English with a very definite Southern accent.
>I gather this was considered quite unusual in Boston....
>
>- Brooks
One of my friends has an impossible-to-place accent. Both his parents
were born in Jamaica. They met and married while studying in England.
He was born after they moved to Toronto, Canada. They moved to Miami,
Florida, when he was in his early teens. He attended high school
there, got his Bachelor's and Master's degrees at Tulane University,
in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is now working on his doctorate at
Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee.
--
John F. Eldredge -- eldr...@poboxes.com
PGP key available from http://www.netforward.com/poboxes/?eldredge/
--
"There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power;
not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace." - Woodrow Wilson
Adam J. Thornton
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>--Z (and in case anyone is curious: it's the opposite of a mome rath.)
If there's one thing I hate worse than dragons, it's Ingribers, and Milkman
Dan. Er...
If there are TWO things I hate worse than dragons, they're Ingribers,
Milkman Dan, and....
Adam, expecting the Spanish Inquisition
--
ad...@princeton.edu
"My eyes say their prayers to her / Sailors ring her bell / Like a moth
mistakes a light bulb / For the moon and goes to hell." -- Tom Waits
Karen Lofstrom
: Of course, this is nothing compared to hearing people speak. Whether
: you've learned a language at school (where the textbooks as well as
: most of the teachers' usage tends to be rather formal and somewhat
: dated) or by reading literature, it's easy to sound very bookish,
: because you speak like the dialogue in the literary texts or textbooks
: you've read.
: Poeple who've picked up a lnaguage by living in a country, on the
: other hand, tend to speak very fluently and are good at informal
: speak, but have difficulties with the written language.
: All this being dreadful generalizations, of course.
Seems spot on to me. We had a Tongan girl living with us for a while
(brought her here so she could go to university) and she commented
that the people in her English as a foreign language class seemed
divided between those who had learned English in school overseas, and
were more comfortable with formal, written English, and those had
learned English as immigrants and were much better at speaking than
writing.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
---------------------------------------------------------------
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind--or never to have a mind.
How true that is." -- Mr. Edible Starchy Tuber Head
Peter Knutsen
Magnus Olsson wrote:
>
> [ Note about the somewhat unusual crossposting: This discussion
> started in rec.games.int-fiction, which is a group about text
> adventure games, a.k.a. Interactive Fiction. However, the question I'm
> about to ask is relevant to writing in general, and I'd like to hear
> what the pros and the publishing people on rec.arts.sf.composition
> have to say. ]
>
> In a discussion about the writing of text adventure games (computer
> games where the main output from the computer is prose, written by a
> human author - like "Zork" and "Adventure"), a somewhat bold assertion
> was made:
>
> People who don't have English as their first language can never learn
> the nuances of that language well enough to write acceptable
> literature in English (with the exception of some rare geniuses such
> as Nabokov or Conrad). Therefore, unless they happen to be Nabokov or
> Conrad, any non-native-speakers should forget about writing in
> English, and keep to their native language (or hire a native to do
> their writing for them); any attempts to write in English will be so
> bad that nobody will want to read them anyway.
I don't really have English as my first language. I've lived in
Denmark all my life, and could speak fluent Danish when I were
18 months old (later I developped a stutter, so I'm not actually
fluent anymore, but... you know what I mean).
At the age of 12, I read my first English novel, and it was really
an adult novel, both in page count (about 200-250 IIRC) and in
theme (it was John Norman's "Tarnsman of Gor", and as the first book
in the series, it was really just an adventure story with BDSM-
and sexist undertones). I started reading English computer maga-
zines at the age of 10, and was able to understand them pretty
well at 11, with help from my father and some dictionaries he
bought for me. By now (I'll be 23 in a few weeks) I've read
hundreds of English novels and short stories, and numerous usenet
and WWW texts, and I even prefer English texts to translated
versions, because I'm convinced some of the nuances are lost in
the translation.
Here in Denmark, English education starts when we're about 11
years old (it may have been shifted 1 year earlier in the last
couple of years), but I never learned any English in school,
I was way ahead of the class. One reason why it's so easy for
Danes to learn English, and why almost everyone can speak and
understand it (although not always read it proficiently) is
that we're exposed to English very often. We don't dub or synchro-
nize our movies (except children's movies. Disney movies are
shown in two versions in major Danish theaters), we watch a lot
of USAn commercials on TV, listen to USAn and English pop music,
and so on. Lots of exposure, priming us for the language. Denmark
is the most USAnized nation in Europe, we seem to be more attracted
to USAn culture than the other countries. Partially because we're
a small country (France and Germany are still very isolationist,
linguistically) but there must be other reasons, otherwise Norway
would be as USAnized as Denmark.
Still, for many years I suspected I was some kind of linguistic
genius. Okay, I never did learn a third or fourth language, but
that was due to a total lack of interest, not ability. I did not
see any need for German or French.
Then, last year, I read a posting in a Danish newsgroup, from
some kind of teacher, who wrote that children are able to inter-
nalize a language if they start learning it before the age of
10-12. There's a special flexibility in the brain that gets lost
after that age. (we all know that childrens brains are more flex-
ible, but we tend to think of it as a gradual decline, while this
is an abrupt decline). I can think in English, when I read English
I take it right in and understands the English words, with no
translation - same when I write English, I just formulate the
words in English, bypassing Danish completely. Not necesarrily
because of some special linguistic gift (although I still suspect
I have it), but because I managed to "board the train" at an
early age. Because of this, I'm almost bilingual.
> (I hope I haven't distorted your argument, Nick; please correct me if
> I have).
>
> My reaction to this is that it is utter nonsense. Surely there must be
> lots of published writers who write directly in a foreign
> language. The problem is that I can't come up with any good examples,
> except for George Mikes, which adds just one more exception to the
> list above. This could simply be because if a non-native speaker
> writes well enough in his/her second language, one doesn't notice, and
> the author's first language usually isn't mentioned in cover
> blurbs. It could of course also be because such writers are just as
> rare as the original poster claims.
>
> And, of course, in many cultures people have had to write in a second
> language, because the vernacular wasn't considered good enough for
> literature (for example, take Europe in the middle ages). But it's
> perhaps different when everybody does it
Some years ago, I wanted to write science fiction and fantasy
stories in Danish, and publish them, but I've decided that
the Danish market simply is too narrow. There's a population of
5.3 millions, it's a technophobic culture (memetically) with a
strong tradition for mundane litterature. There is no Danish
tradition for writing science fiction, or even fantasy. Tolkien
and Bradbury are considered "wild" and "escapistic" My chances of
getting anything published would be zero, so I've started to write
in English only. One of my friends is still trying to write in
Danish, but he can't get published, the publishing houses are
totally misunderstanding his stories (part of the reason is that
he writes bad Discworld ripofs, but it is still clear that the
publishing house is stupid when it classified his book as a
"memoir" book rather than an SF book. As Homer Simpson says:
"Doh!")
I have a large vocabulary, and I'm familiar with a lot of the
subtleties in the English and USAn language - I don't know all
(two years ago, I didn't know that "sorcery" carried negative
connonations) but I'm constantly learning more. This means
that either I'm the exception that reinforces the rule, or
else the rule is invalid.
> So, does anybody have any idea of how common it is for fiction writers
> to write directly in a foreign language, with a successful result? Or
> should we give up even trying? (For the obvious reasons, I hope the
> answer to the second question is "no").
In one of your next postings, you write about "subtle meanings" in
the text, the idea that the author can convey meaning through his or
her use of words. I don't know why that should be a particularly
"literary" method of writing. The words you use can tell the reader
something about the POV-character. What nouns, verbs and adjectives
the narrator chooses to describe a certain event. Same with dialogue,
it's a great tool for characterization - and there's nothing wrong
with subtletey, as long as the text also contains an immediately
apparent meaning (stuff happens, people say things that makes at
least a kind of sense). The point (or rather one point) when a story
becomes unreadable is when there is no apparent meaning, only
subtleties upon subtleties that you have to decode in order to enjoy
the story at all. *That's* wrong. Subtletey isn't a sin in itself.
Some writers can make great fiction without much linguistic
artistry. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a Danish translation
of Clarke or Asimov to someone, especially if the translator is
one I'm familiar with and confident in (we have a small group
of quite skilled science fiction translators here in Denmark, and
I tend to recognize their names). If your force lies in plot-
complexity (either science fiction'ish ideas or traditional
plotting) then you don't need to do the subtle linguistic stuff.
If not, you need to find some strong side in yourself that you
can use to make your writings enjoyable. Linguistic artistry is
one option, but I'm sure there are some others.
> --
> Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
> ------ http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon ------
--
Peter Knutsen
Helen Kenyon
<i...@cs.york.ac.uk> writes
>
>So my current situation is that I know a few random French words, but
>can't remotely hold a conversation in French. It seems pretty unlikely
>that I'll ever speak or write 'like a native' in anything other than
>English. Unless someone wants to post a heartwarming story about how
>they learned Japanese at the age of 73...?
>
A couple of odd datapoints...
I've been trying to learn Welsh for many years. My first attempt was
many years ago from a radio programme in my late teens. Since then,
I've been to several evening classes and some intensive weekends and
week long courses. I understand it reasonably well (depending on
accent, speed of speech, radio reception etc.). I can cope with radio
news, understanding anything between 90%-20%, depending on the
particular story and the complexity of the vocabulary. I lack the
confidence to speak the language.
My husband showed no interest in learning, until he was more or less
given the ultimatum, learn Welsh or you'll lose your job. Suddenly
motivated, he went on a week's course, discovered it was fun and worked
damn hard at it, attending courses and listening to tapes and watching
TV. He rapidly overtook me and he now understands the language far
better than I do and can speak it reasonably fluently. Both of us would
be much better if we *had* to use it every day. There are many Welsh
learners who -- if they don't exactly speak like a native -- can read,
write and speak Welsh fluently enough to converse with their neighbours
and to do their jobs.
So, motivation counts for a lot. If you really, really need to learn,
you'll learn much faster and end up speaking more fluently than if
you're just "playing" at it or doing it because it seems like a nice
idea.
Helen
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
Now with added serious stuff (basic maths and how to be an NVQ assessor).
**Please delete the extra bit from e-mail address if replying by mail**
Anna Mazzoldi
Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
> Then, last year, I read a posting in a Danish newsgroup, from
> some kind of teacher, who wrote that children are able to inter-
> nalize a language if they start learning it before the age of
> 10-12. There's a special flexibility in the brain that gets lost
> after that age.
See posts above (by me and others). This is not really true.
> Not necesarrily
> because of some special linguistic gift (although I still suspect
> I have it), but because I managed to "board the train" at an
> early age. Because of this, I'm almost bilingual.
I'd also count myself as "almost bilingual" -- and I started
speaking English around 20.
I wouldn't know, however, about a "special gift". "Interest" is
certainly part of the answer. "Good general education" is
another. And "favourable conditions" another.
---
Anna Mazzoldi writing from Dublin, Ireland
mazz...@iol.ie
http://www.iol.ie/~mazzoldi/ (Translation links and more)
<*> "Mush, mush," Tom said huskily <*>