Lang-8 Infuriates Me!

[Ocha]

I had decided that I wanted to give back to the community on Lang-8 and help correct some students of English. After spending a great deal of time painstakingly making these phrases comprehensible, someone decided to go through and "correct" my corrections. This is unbelievably frustrating. This person is going to think that these are correct answers, and will be absolutely lost with her studies.

Is there anything I can do? I do not see a report button. Should I write the people who run the site and have his "corrections" examined?

There really should be English administrators who go through and verify these answers, and then lock them once they are correct.

I do not recommend this site for any beginner of any language. This is worse than Wikipedia.

 

[Mike Cash]

Does this belong in "Learning Japanese"?

 

[nameless]

The owners of Lang-8 are Chinese living in Japan IIRC. I doubt their level of English would be good enough to judge this.

I've seen this happen before, too. People basically fish for points. A Japanese person once posted her English poem on Lang-8 and some guy ended up butchering it so it no longer rhymed or matched the style she was aiming for.

On Lang-8, other native speakers can mark your correction as a "good" correction (not "thanks points" but "XXX thinks your correction is wonderful"). If you know someone else on there, get them to do that. Otherwise, just point it out in the comments for the other person's correction and move on.

 

[Ocha]

Nameless,
I think I'll steer clear of that place with my current level of competency...and sanity.
Thanks for the input!


Mike,
Does that stick belong up your butt or do you just find it comfortable there, Mike?

I think all people who study any language need to know what a waste that site is.

Thanks, this is the second time you've replied to one of my posts providing nothing but a rude comment.

You'd think living in Japan you'd learn some manners.

 

[Mike Cash]

I've only replied to two of your posts and I have said nothing "rude" in either of them. Maybe the stick is chafing the thin skin of your own overly tightened sphincter.

If I had just wanted to be a d*ck I would have pointed out how hilarious I found it that you opened your rant about your English corrections being tampered with by displaying your own ignorance regarding the correct usage of the past perfect tense.

Since you're obviously more in tune with cultural stereotypes: Is this the place I start muttering about honor and respect and get together with 46 of my loyal retainers to hunt you down or is it the place where I realize my shame and engage in ritual disembowelment?

At any rate, I do look forward to future lessons on what effect living in Japan is presumed to have had on me.

 

[nameless]

> Newbie joins JREF
> Posts on the forum
> Mike Cash responds
> Newbie is offended
> Hilarity ensures

Repeat ad infinitum.

People need to grow a thicker skin. :|

 

[Half-n-Half]

Being able to "correct" someone's corrections is a useful feature of the site. It isn't so much correcting someone's corrections as it is giving your version. As you probably know, there are many ways to say the same thing in a language. As a language learner it is often useful to see how different people say the same thing. Whenever I had two or more people correct the same sentence differently, I never got confused and saw it as one person being wrong and the other right. Instead, I understood that there are many ways to use the language which, a lot of times, depends on personal preference.

 

[nekojita]

With Lang-8, like every other site on the internet, you simply have to remember that you have no way of knowing the abilities/qualifications of people you're talking to. A learner of English, particularly a beginner, can't really judge how good someone else's English is. So they have to rely on the fact that you can get multiple corrections, or learn which other users have a good reputation (again, probably from whether other people agree with their corrections). To say someone

will be absolutely lost with her studies

is a bit excessive; the person could wait for a third opinion, go to another place to ask, start a new entry asking what the difference is between the two versions (people often do this on Lang-8), etc.

Many problems seem to arise when the corrector misunderstands (or it isn't clear) what the original intention was, e.g. the correction makes the sentence grammatically correct but changes the meaning. So even if there's only one correction to your entry, if you don't understand why the correction was made, you shouldn't assume that it's accurate.

 

[ariso07]

When I write my entries on lang-8, I always evaluate all the corrections I received before deciding which version I like the best. I often keep a final, edited and revised, copy of whatever I wrote; that way I can study it or use it later. So, don't think the students even see your corrections as "definitive". Its not like there was meant to be one correction only. Like Half-n-Half said, there are many different ways to say something.

Though, I must rant here for a minute: the Filipinos and Malaysians who correct my corrections incorrectly, and then argue with me about it when I provide hard evidence as to why they are incorrect, drive me crazy! I know my English is not perfect (I didn't catch the misuse of the past perfect that opened this topic, lol) but I have a master's in TESOL and English IS my native language. Don't mess with me. And if you do, at least submit to citations and references as proof that you, sir, are wrong.