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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2024

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  • Language is defined by how it is used. You cannot be better than the natives who are using the language. You can use it correctly according to some book and often that book as written by smart people who are avoiding real issues with the language as it is used. It would in those cases be beneficial to everyone if they would follow that book, but if they don’t and you do it makes you wrong and a worse speaker.

    In English there is nobody who is authorized to write such a book - many try but they don’t agree with each others. Most have little influence on the real world.

    In French and Spanish (I do not know about any other languages) there are organizations who are blessed by law with the ability to define the language and they do have legal power to force how people speak. They are sometimes forced to accept a “bad” addition because everyone is using it to the point where they cannot fight it despite the power of law they have behind them.

    You cannot say your English is better than many Americans. That makes no sense. Unless you specifically mean English as it is spoken in some other part of the world. There are several different major ways English is spoken in the US, Australia has their own way of speaking (I don’t know if this is shared with New Zealand or if they are different), and England has many different ways of speaking the same language. However if you are in some part of the world where a significant number of people speak a language from birth you cannot be better than them at it . India doesn’t have many native speakers, but some native speakers are raising their kids English first and so you can probably find a significant population there that is native and has very different ways of speaking.




  • You are both right and wrong there.

    You need different opinions in your life, otherwise your echo chamber will tend to move to more extremist. Pretty soon you think those “others” are evil and so you are willing for anti-democracy coups by your side, or to fight wars to kill those infidels or other evil things. You need a steady input of other opinions to remind yourself that reasonable people can disagree and that is okay.

    Also sometimes you are wrong. Few people have the guts to read a well reasoned opinion and admit they are wrong, but it is one you should be willing for.

    Of course there is far more possible opinions than you have time to read. So eventually you have to say I don’t have time to deal with this subject and shut it out. So long as you avoid the problems of an echo chamber they are fine. Be aware of them though and make sure you are not falling into those traps anytime you shut something out.