Comments on: Give Joseph a chance? You must be joking.

By: cikki

cikki — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:14:24 +0000

@ Amanda Mallia

Sadly I find that alot of young people, whose parents speak
good English, don’t. There are alot of literal translations
from Maltese like “higher it” meaning turn the volume up
or “close the tap”. Maybe it’s because their teachers don’t
speak fluent English. I’m referring to children who go to
good private schools.

By: hope

hope — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:45:24 +0000

@ Amanda mallia

Because that’s the way it is. I can give you one task to prove myself. Go to our university and if you find 10 people whom speak English as their first language, and can fluently speak Maltese; then you are right but I am 100% sure that you’re not. I can tell you that because I know lots of students like that.

By: Amanda Mallia

Amanda Mallia — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:56:59 +0000

hope – Why is it always (wrongly) assumed by people like you that people with a good command of the English language cannot speak Maltese properly?

By: chris

chris — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:08:08 +0000

And its 1 – nil to Daphne.
Give up Hope, give up ( sorry it was too good a pun to miss)

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:28:15 +0000

@Hope – rest assured that my written Maltese is near perfect and my spoken Maltese is pretty good. Contrary to popular belief, I was raised in a family where the grown-ups spoke nothing but Maltese to each other, and spoke to the children only in (idiomatic) English until they had learned it. After that, it was Maltese.

The point is this, Hope. Speaking a language isn’t enough. You have to know the grammatical rules and must have an ear for idiom. Once you know one language very well, you tend to be equally fussy about any other language you learn, because you are sensitised to the importance of grammar and syntax. I don’t speak Maltese as a first language, but oddly, I seem to be more familiar with certain words and phrases than many people who do, and I find myself throwing the Maltese-language newspapers aside in disgust at the poor writing, terrible sentence construction and clunky choice of words.

By: chris

chris — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:11:19 +0000

Dear Hope,
you are either a newbie to this blog or can’t bother to read what was said before you. To accuse Daphne of not knowing Malta’s national language, is a bit like wondering if the Pope is Catholic.
She would trounce at a game of Maltese Scrabble with her eyes closed, whilst preparing dinner for an entourage of VIPs and preparing a winning billboard campaign which won’t attract libels and win the election.
If Daph falls into temptation, and take sup your challenge, i’d run..fast!

Luckily for you, she probably won’t. Too easy. Like taking candy from children.

By: hope

hope — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:43:18 +0000

@ Chris

What did I say wrong? …Kindly explain!

Thanks

By: David Buttigieg

David Buttigieg — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:31:52 +0000

@Daphne / @Amanda

You are both quite right actually, I did learn of them from home and not school.

By: chris

chris — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:37:45 +0000

Re: Hope’s statement

‘I bet that you can’t even speak good Maltese, our only national language’

Oh dear, this is like waiting to see a car crash in slow motion, ghoulish, but eternally fascinating.

Will Daphne cede to temptation and is there no hope for Hope?

We wait and see!

LOL

By: hope

hope — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:40:16 +0000

@Daphne

“if the university seriously considers applications from people like you, who are barely literate”

You are also being offensive!! Shame on you. First of all you must learn to discuss with others. Maybe my English is not up to standard but you are the least person whom can barely talk about this because I bet that you can’t even speak good Maltese, our only national language –and that is a real big shame!

With the phrase “people outside”, I was refering to floaters, ‘light’ nationalists, ‘light’ labourites …obviously not to the hard cores, blind people!