On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 17:54 +0200, Shakthi Kannan wrote:
Most Indian (students) in India, whom I have met have this notion that they don't want to speak in English because their grammar is bad, they are not "confident" of speaking, and that if they speak broken English, people will laugh at them or not accept what they say. But,
Maybe the case in rest of India but I've not observed that in the metros - well, atleast in Mumbai or Delhi.
Most students tease others in college if you speak English, with "Peter", "born abroad" jokes etc. But, because they are disconnected from the real world, and the Industry, they don't realise the facts.
There is no need of mentioning such behavior. It just shows the serious lack of maturity.
Put freshers from a college to a group discussion in English, they will never open their mouth.
Hehe.
If you've attended FOSS conferences/user-group meet-ups in India, (from what I have observed) most speakers don't care about grammar, as long as they can express themselves.
Hmm...touchy subject. But good English and good grammar give a GOOD experience for the audience. They dont need to spend tremendous amount of time to /understand/ what the speaker is saying if he/she can speak decent English. I'm not talking about Queen's English or Yankee talk. Just plain old clear English.
They don't see it as a limitation in conveying their thoughts, which is important, and that is the message we want to put across.
Well they couldnt be more wrong. Language is THE carrier of knowledge. I guess these same people would be up in arms if I dont make a valid XHTML / HTML 4.01 standards compliant page or write a valid CSS. If you care about broken lingo in the computer world then you better care for the broken lingo in the real world.
We accept that your English is not perfect, but, we don't want you to think of it as a limitation for you to come forward and openly share your doubts/questions in mailing lists/IRC/forums/meet-ups.
Look, nobody is perfect - granted. But atleast half decent? Come on these people are atleast 15-20 year olds. I'm not a convent educated but I can speak fluent English and get my ideas across effectively!