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> Another obstacle is that simple vocabulary is a turn-off for some people, no matter how elegantly it is used and regardless of the content. Sometimes it comes
by mwcampbell 5y ago
> Another obstacle is that simple vocabulary is a turn-off for some people, no matter how elegantly it is used and regardless of the content. Sometimes it comes down to a fear of sounding “childish”.
A related objection: I imagine that if I, as a native English speaker, were to speak to a non-native speaker in minimal English, it would seem patronizing. I wonder what the actual intended applications of this are.
- gerdesj 5y ago"it would seem patronizing" Unlikely. If anything, you will reduce the parsing load on the poor recipient. I'm a Brit who has an employee who is Polish. His grasp of English is phenomenal, in my estimation. Now let's bear in mind that Polish and English are very, very different. I can't even pronounce his family name properly but then to be fair, neither can he pronounce mine properly either. I deliberately use complex English idioms and language structures and Tom(asz) laps it up. It is quite obvious when I've gone too far because Tom asks me to clarify what on earth I've said. To my eternal shame, all I've managed is a few words in Polish. I can get by in French, I can survive in German, I can be laughed at in Dutch. I need to pull my finger out and get to grips with Slavic languages. English is a lingua franca ie French! Keep it simple but not too simple. If you are being condescending or patronising then that is not due to your choice of words.
- elless 5y agoWeirdly, it's the people producing the language that seem to have this hangup. The people we've surveyed who are reading and listening to it, love it.