*I’d get the Hell Out*

regards

remora

remora

Westernization isn’t always so effective with every country…

It seems like Japan is trying to Westernize its education system but is having trouble because its not really reforming a system that was flawed in terms of educational value.

With respect to English being taught at primary schools, it is happening, but only 1 or 2 hours a months at most. I think the idea of getting kids used to listening to another language and being comfortable in non-native context is valuable, but the piddlin’ amount of time they spend is probably counterproductive. I say get rid of yutori and get back the education system that once was… which should lead to what Ed talks about, people who can properly express themselves…

“Perhaps this money and time would be better invested in first teaching Japanese people how to express themselves in their native language.”

Exactly.

Regarding what De Mente is writing about, is it maybe this?

Imagine the amazing translation-aid tools you could make with the money they pour into these projects…. what a waste.

Sure likes his exclamation points.

Last I heard there is a debate going on as to whether to begin teaching English earlier in schools and the main counter-argument is that Japanese kids are becoming less proficient in Japanese. Not sure if that’s a fact but it shows how Westernized Japan is still becoming.

Despite foreign languages being far from a priority in US public schools, kids are still scoring poorly on standardized tests for well, basically every subject, including English. However, because in Japan the schooling system is much more rigorous don’t Japanese students as a whole have a better education then their US counter-parts? I mean, even if you complain about bad Japanese I can’t imagine that it would be all that terrible or prevalent compared to the average US citizen’s grammar and writing skills.

As a translator who is constantly struggling with poorly written Japanese text (by people who blithely edit my output into poorly written English text so it will more closely mirror the original Japanese), I will say what I always say about this subject. . . Perhaps this money and time would be better invested in first teaching Japanese people how to express themselves in their native language.

That’s actually a good question. I just googled him up and there isn’t a whole lot of details to be found about him other than a boilerplate introduction repeated often on different sites. (One site did indicate his year of birth to be 1928.) Could “Boyé Lafayette De Mente” be the Alan Smithee of the book publishing world?

Did somebody just make this Mr. de Mente up?

There’s the key – and that’s not exactly a breakthrough. I don’t see machine translation anytime soon. Forget about non-native speakers, even two native speakers often have trouble communicating. This is just not an area where computers, as they exist now, can ever excel.

Maybe once we have perfected android technology, we might finally arrive at machine translation that works.

(envision and imagine a world like that.)

no debates
no love chatter
no childrens laughter
no cursing
no singing
no poetry
no joking

nothing but SILENCE

remora