Everyone makes assumptions and a lot have been made here (not least by me). Other posters I feel did dismiss Patricia's concerns as racism and that is unfortunate.
What is great is that we can view people's stories in different ways and agree to disagree, however my problem is that Patricia's concerns were taken on their surface value by some posters and a deeper debate did not ensue.
I don't know what your point was about her spelling errors, some geniuses can't spell well and it is not a sign of a lack of education nor of ignorance.
As for having a thick skin, I don't mind people challenging my views or my opinions for that matter, but I do mind personal attacks so I will probably never develop a thick skin as a result.

I'm with you Lizzie.

I'll just clarify my point about the spelling errors and say my goodbyes for the day.

The title of the thread is 'language problem'. I thought it might be somewhat amusing and relevant to comment on some (lets face it, quite basic) spelling errors, given patricia's concern was primarily about the grasp of our language in the first place. Yeah? Someone worries that the language isn't being learned, but they struggle with the language themselves?

It's known in comedy circles as a reversal. Delivery is difficult on an internet forum, you have to imagine the timing and inflection yourself. It wasn't meant to be cutting or insulting, nor was I implying any ignorance on patricia's part. It's just a little feather rustling, which I consider all part and parcel of a healthy, lively debate.

..yeah.

Night!

Oh good. Glad we've all made up.

Can we shoot the dog now?

;-)

It sounds weird but I have been left baby sitting kids who didn't speak English, even though they had been born here and their parents spoke English and I don't speak xxxxx.

Celivca - sorry about the spelling but I am doing this from memory not cut and paste. The medium of instruction in Australian classrooms is English but in some classes the teacher pauses for the material to be translated into another language.

I have taught university students who were born and educated in Australia who said that I was the first instructor they had spoken to. Now that's pretty damning.

Unlike Holland which has a fine remedial speech therapy program for primary school children who don't ennunciate their Dutch vowels correctly, we let whole communities shuffle by with a version of English. Greek-Australian sounds course but is clear but Vietlish or Chinlish are very hard to decipher because they have learnt English from Australians who don't ennunciate their ending consonants and Chinese is tonal so the consonants totally disappear.

Yes, Australia needs a common language of communication and we should teach all communities to speak it to a set standard so we can understand each other.

You know what stee is? city

Dear Billie

Please add to your list of funny accents to include the British, American, European, Kiwi accents….

If people are already trying to learn and communicate in English, do you need to be that critical on their accents? You might be a university language academic, but not everyone is that picky and worried. Is language not a continually evolving entity? I did not see you write in Shakespearean. And why don’t you provide a quick tutorial to Patricia to improve communication in this forum??

As to Lizzie, amazing to see how we all picked on different aspect of the post by Patricia. Lizzie you obviously thinks it is about Patricia’s concern of unintelligible kids roaming the streets of suburbia (an assumption that appears to be hypothetical, rather than based on the story at hand). You considered that “a deeper debate did not ensue”, a debate that you wish to control. Similar to the attitude you took when you first perceive of the little incident of the barking dog, you have again displayed a one-sided “I am always right” attitude. I thought it makes sense to first come to an agreement of what the debate is and there appears to be many perfectly valid discussion points of Patricia’s experience. And in deed Patricia has made an alarming amount of assumptions which you have simply taken them for granted.

Oh dear…pushing my views too forcefully, trying to control the debate and always thinking that I am right are very bad habits that I am trying hard to overcome. I apologise if that is how I came across. I will bear your comments in mind when I make other posts, Goku.