Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00172)

Morten Nymann Olesen wrote:
> Welcome.
> My english is also poor.
> I am from Denmark (Scandinavia).
Thinking about it, it occurs to me that maybe a number of my problems 
with your past posts had more to do with your ability to write in 
English than your ideas.

There was a story I read a number of years ago that illustrates the 
problems that can come up. An American living in a Caribbean fishing 
community was learning Spanish largely by listening to the people around 
him. The result was that, although he spoke Spanish poorly, the Spanish 
he did know included a lot of local colloquialisms. As a result, when he 
unintentionally insulted someone because of his poor command of the 
language, the person took it quite seriously, because the man's use of 
colloquial Spanish made it appear that his knowledge was much greater 
than it really was.

Bart