I wasn’t responding to the OP, I was responding to you. Would you find it odd if people in other countries expect Americans to be more familiar with the metric system than they themselves are with the English system?
Uh… at least one of us is being whooshed. I has making another analogy, this time between you thinking that I was saying that English is as easy to learn as the metric system, and me thinking that you were saying that Japanese is as easy to learn as English.
if anyone cares to know, i stopped paying attention 32 posts ago.
I’ve never said I thought it was odd that English is the language of science. Nor have I said that I thought this was unfair or illogical. So your analogy still makes no sense to the discussion at hand.
Of course if students from other countries want to succeed they should learn English. I just find it odd that someone would expect people from poorer countries to be able donate time and money to this task in ADDITION to doing science when American universities don’t even have such a strict requirement anymore.
But that’s not what I’m saying. I did not ask if you would find it odd if people in other countries expect Americans to be familiar with the metric system. I asked if you would find it odd if people in other countries expect Americans to be more familiar with the metric system than they themselves are with the English system. Which is a quite valid analogy: you are saying that it is odd that someone would expect people from other countries to spend more effort learning English than Americans spend learning languages of other countries.
The Ryan, I don’t know how I can make my point any clearer, but I’ll try.
If Spanish became the lingua franca of science, most Americans would be able to afford to take Spanish lessons.
Someone in a poor country most likely would not be able to afford Spanish lessons.
That’s why I’m finding it odd that you would expect poor universities and rich universities to have the same educational standards. The rich universities can donate more $$ to language instruction, while not sacrificing research. Poor universities do not have this luxury. Their poverty puts them at a disadvantage.
I would raise my eyebrows at a rich university in a non-English speaking country that did not emphasis English instruction. But I can understand why a poor university would not. In a place with very limited resources, maybe the choice is between a science program and a English program. But you can’t have both.
If you don’t agree with me, do you at least understand how you misunderstood my point?
hey, Calculus
ya know, if you’re going to start a thread, and then loose interest in it after some desultory participation, that’s fine. But what was the point of
I mean, except to be rude and/or insulting?