wen you realised you lived in yorkshire, why didn't you move anywhere else? start on the streets of a half-decent city and work your way up.

i know you cud do it if you tried reli hard.

Seems I hit a soft spot. Say hi to your friends in Mensa for me.

Spelling like a retard is accepted? Oh what a sad day...
But seriously, Tsubawaki has a point. I think it's just lazy and inconsiderate to write messages like a ten-year-old when it's SO easy to take an extra second and make sure you're using correct grammar and spelling. Especially when there's an international community using the site. I mean, you keep using "reli" for "really". That's not going to be in a dictionary so you'll confuse non-native speakers as to what the hell you're talking about. And is it really that hard to type an extra letter and use spell check?

Moreover, I'm gonna be completely honest here; Every time I see someone continually making basic spelling and grammar errors I can't help but think "What a retard". Sorry, but it's the truth. It's nearly impossible to take someone seriously wen thei tlk lyk dis.

If JF had a "Like (Y)" button, I'd be clicking it right now.

I hardly doubt in Mensa someone who is using this type of written language is accepted in discussions, at least in those I participated with my "teacher" I've never seen such a thing. And although maybe you have brains, you're lacking a lot in the common sense side, since you use such a style of writing on an international forum.

No need for sarcasm, if you had any common sense you would realise that many UK universities - same as anywhere worldwide - take in a high number of international students, and thus being in an English university does not mean that you are English.

Your level of English, like it or not, is somewhat appalling. I've thought you were a non-native speaker on many a post and thread, but your use of idioms and abreviations threw me a little. Your posts are very hard to understand in my opinion, and I'm a few months away from graduating in English Literature. Other native speakers seem to struggle, too, and they also have all said the same thing.

Now - logically - if non-native speakers struggle, or at the very least find your style irritating and offensive, what do you think the non-native members of this site will think? We have French, German, Japanese, Arabic . . . how many of them will understand "btw" or "ur", or will struggle with your infuriatingly awful grammar and punctuation? It's cruel, lazy and ridiculous to use such English and expect other people to understand you, or to get annoyed when they ask you many times (politely) to speak in a more formal manner. If you are in Mensa then I worry about their standards. You lack common sense, but you have shown also no academic sense or intelligence. You criticised Dogsbody's use of English too, other member's as well, but it's no defence of your own English, and - frankly - at least I can understand the other members.

Sorry, to everyone else. My rant is now over :mtongue:

I'm guilty of not having read this thread at all.

I'm just posting what the title made me think of;

The problem with learning Japanese is KANJI!! Damnit... even at a kanji a day it's 5.5 years to read a newspaper! If you just focus on conversational Japanese you can get very good very fast.. factor in Kanji then suddenly it takes a lot longer to be decent..

My spoken Japanese is... pretty damn good, but I know only about 200 kanji or so, give or take, cuz every time I have a few minutes to study Kanji I prefer to spend that time talking Japanese to someone to work on sounding native lol

problem with that though... once I get fluent but still don't know any kanji, I come off as a total illiterate dumbass

in other words, I hate kanji with a passion, but love speaking and having conversations in Japanese, I'm especially fond of Kansaiben!!

My policy is just block people who waste my time. Instead of responding, I just suggest everyone block the annoying person. This is the last time I'll be posting regarding this subject. Hopefully the small bit of time I've spent posting this message helps my JF friends save time in the future.

And that, ladies and germs, is a Mensa-level post.

Man, even when I am being agreed with, people pronounce my name wrong. It's TSU WA BU KI.　つ*わ*ぶ*き. :D

I would be careful making a claim that any slang "has somewhat become accepted."

I was always taught it was octopi. And that is what I teach to my students.

Common mistakes like "octopuses" are different than internet slang which would not be acceptable in most written discourse. I don't mean just academic writing either. It would not be appropriate for business memos. In fact, when I was in high school, the internet was young enough that I don't even recall notes being passed that were written in internet slang, although I have heard, anecdotally, that this happens now. I think the most we would have had is things like hearts for dots or Os.

You should care when in engaged in discourse about language learning. Also, it is "grammatical accuracy." "Grammatic," as a case in point, is not a word.

I would argue those are for students of English, but we are all students of English. When I received my English degree, it was my intent to teach mechanics, style, and literature to native speakers. This didn't happen; I teach in Japan. My point here is that if anyone needs help when it comes to the "rules," it's native speakers, who often incorporate the rules in daily speech without ever having formally learned what they are.

Also there is irony in your use of "wen" while outlining examples of English mechanics.

Perhaps if you were in General Discussion, I might agree. However, this is an "academic" forum dedicated to learning languages. Therefore, I would argue you have a duty and an obligation to be as clear as possible.

This is a perfect place to be "nit-picky."

I agree, after all you should respect the English Language a little more I guess.. after all it is our "World Language" ;)

thanks to the great, relentless British Empire :D

its octopodes

;p

So it is. I see that it is hypercorrection. However, it is still my assertion that a common mistake such as that does not fall into the same category as internet slang. This is not an issue of evolving vocabulary, as octopus is in relation to how vocabulary successfully deals with Latin and Greek, which few outside of academics study at this point in our history.

That being said, apparently the dictionaries themselves do not agree, with "octopuses" being most common, "octopi" being a hypercorrection, and "octopodes" being considered pedantic. For what it's worth, my own dictionary software underlines only octopodes, but does not underline "octopuses" nor "octopi."

Still, the point is that "internet slang" constitutes an extremely new addition to the lexicons (plural), and that such "internet slang" is not widely accepted the way "octopuses" or "octopi" are. Therefore, you have really presented a false comparison. Unlike the issue with the various plural forms of octopus, there are no credible linguistic sources of authority claiming that "ur" or "wen" or "thx" are valid and correct forms in written English.

Therefore, I still reject your earlier arguments as lacking justification, regardless of your raspberrying emoticon.

I think you misspelled "awesome." :)