I only allow myself to correct French, my mother tongue. (Moreover, my university degrees allow me to do so, even if no one is immune to errors… me first)
I don’t feel legitimate to correct languages that I think I speak fluently. So, even if I know (or I think I know), I refrain from doing so, out of courtesy and respect.
I am always surprised to see the number of people who think they are capable of correcting texts in French, when it is not their native language and they do not have an advanced degree in French.
It is very sad, because untimely corrections only complicate the life of those who, in the world, try to learn, sincerely, and with a lot of efforts, our so difficult language.
6 Likes
ChatGPT,
- Write a story of how I’m so cool and cautious about the writing corrections in Language Learning, and not satisfying my ego.
- Compare me with those, who aren’t like me
- By no means make any point, like what the purpose of this passage really is (because what we’re gonna do about it? Punish them? Forbid correcting? Or, maybe, praise me? Yeah, the third one is nice!)
Hi BlueBird14,
I understand your position, but that’s not how the Internet in general and LingQ in particular work.
Usually you will find a mixture of
- knowledge
- non-knowledge
and esp. - pseudo -knowledge, i.e., half-knowledge / non-knowledge masquerading as knowledge
online (and offline).
How do we deal with this epistemic “mess” (beyond “L2 writing exchanges”)?
The position that only “specialists”, esp. educated (near-) native speakers - maybe even with a university degree in the L2 , should correct L2 texts on LingQ is not realistic.
Instead, the “usual” solutions online are :
- A “wisdom of the crowd” approach: if several people (native speakers or not) present the same solution, it’s more likely that it’s ok.
- Using a more reliable source (for ex., online dictionaries).
- Doing a Google & Co search and comparing the search results.
- Having a discussion with native speakers on- / offline (our tutors, in writing forums, etc.).
- Using AI tools (ChatGPT, deepl translator / deepl write, etc.) and comparing the results they provide.
- Using Google ngram viewer (Google Ngram Viewer - Wikipedia - however, see esp. the “limitations” mentioned in the Wikipedia article!).
Etc.
In sum, mixing some of the strategies mentioned above works pretty well in SLA - and beyond…
Have a nice WE,
Peter
2 Likes
Hello S.I.
- “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
Donald Rumsfeld. - It’s not wrong ! (as Caradoc always says …)
- Без отдыха и конь не скачет.
Хорошего дня …
Blue.
The person can see who is doing the corrections and whether they’re a native speaker or not (unless they set their profile incorrectly). So they can choose to take those corrections with a grain of salt that come from non natives. I’ve had many of my submissions corrected by a non native speaker, but a) he’s often the only one that takes the time, b) he also teaches the language, c) he’s at a much higher level than me. So I would tend to think he’s got it mostly correct from a grammar point of view. Possibly he doesn’t know certain colloquialisms that might be appropriate for certain situations.
So in general, I’m in favor of any bit of input I can get (especially at my very basic writing level skill). If I get multiple submissions I can compare.
3 Likes