Official Language (Akira Imada)
- Which language we are going to use?
I propose to use English when we talk/disucss our topics in this page.
Actually Russian is not so local. As a matter of fact, once I was in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a conference,
when I talked with a guy, while I struggled to speak something in Spanish,
all of a sudden he asked me "Oh, you speak Russian."
Though I didn't know why he asked me so without any such context,
I guess I answered with "Da" in stead of "Si" unconciously at that moment.
We are, however, in a Scientific Community where it is a must to communicate
with each other in English.
Once French used to be so. Russian could also have been so, when we
consider the boom of Russian when the former Soviet Union launched the "Sputnik"
for the first time in the history of human being.
But unfortunately, I don't know if it's unfortunate or fortunate though,
English is the official language, in most scientific convention all over the world.
whichever you might like it or not. Otherwith, we tend to think in a way that
though they say it's International but acutally it's a local conference, and hesitate
to take part in.
So let's get used to communicate in English.
- Your English & their English.
I noticed a couple of crucial differences between english in this area and
the one where English is a native language. The diference is probably due
to an influence of Russian. Just have fun to read.
- "Yes, I don't know."
The most typical example in a textbook is when you are asked "Do you mind if I smoke."
Your answer "Yes" means "Please don't smoke" while "No" means "O.K. you may smoke."
Yes/No is not determined semantically, but sintactically.
if what you want to say is "I DON't mind" then you start with "No"
and if your intention is "I mind" you start with "Yes".
So, when, e.g., the answer for "Don't you know this?" is "Yes, yes. Sure!'
what might be the interpretation?
- "No one dosen't know nothing."
In English "doble negative" cannot be used, and the sentence above is "triple-negative."
In Russian, on the other hand, it is quite legal, right? They say, e.g.,
"NIKTO NE ZNAET NICHIBO"
And you know, in New York, not a few people say "I dan' know nothing!"
meaning "I don't know anything." I often came across this expression
when I enjoyed "Ditective Cojac" on TV in which Cojac turned it off
by saying "Knock it off. I'm fucking sure you know it."
- "I and you" or "You and I"?
In English, they usually don't say "I and you" if not never.
In Russian, however, it dosen't seem to be true.
Once "our" Dasha (Mendel) told me "Ah, that's BON-TON in Russian."
(Alas, I still don't know what it literaly means.)
This probably due to the difference in mentality and/or tradition.
It's not an essentionl problem.
In my "humble" opinion,
when we speak in English, "I and you" sounds egoistic, more or less.
This is a mater of modesty or humility. We are sometimes needed to be
modest and humble, in the way that I used the word "humble" above.
Even if we are 100% sure of something, sometimes we start to say that
with IMHO (In My Humble Opinion).
Anyway, in conlusion,
when we speak English, let's use "You and I" instead of "I and you" as much as possible.
even if you are a very big person. Big person is a person who doesn't need to demonstrate
that (s)he is a big person.
- "I" or "We"?
For somewhat of a similar reason as above, we tend to use "WE" rather than "I" in many contexts.
As Dasha is not mine but ours, I wrote "our" Dasha above. It's Okay.
Everyone understand it.
Not to change the thread, but see. as an example, G. Bush's statement on Oct. 11, 2000.
He said "If we're an arrogant nation, foreigners will resent us.
If we're a humble nation but strong, they'll welcome us. ... We've got to be humble."
I don't know if this reflects the reality or not, though.
It's quite reasonable, isn't it? What if the president of a country say
MY COUNTRY insted of OUR COUNTRY, or The rector of our university say
MY UNIVERSITY?
Or, what about in a rather small office, the boss of the office
hires a private secretary?
Even in this case, "our secretary" usually sounds more comfortable than "my secretary"
We don't need to declare "She is not yours but mine."
A me-me-me-always-me attitude is sometimes ugly. Of course "my husband" is always okey.
Please don't say "our husband".
Hence, let's use we/our/us rather than I/my/me as much as possible.
Expecially in a conference, let's start with "We talk ..." instead of "I talk ..."
If a "result" is exactly from "my thought", we usually say, like
"In this talk we show our results..." instead of "... I show my results..."