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Lorean
Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Posts: 476
Location: Beijing
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 Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 1:34 pm Post subject: A test you can try out. |
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I came up with this after receiving so many emails and typed essays filled with spacing errors.
Write a short paragraph on the board, inserting spacing errors around the punctuation marks.
Example:
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| This is a paragraph . It contains several mistakes .Can you find them? |
I asked students to find the mistakes. Two of my classes could not do it.
I teach English majors at a university.
Interestingly, they have no problems using correct spacing in handwritten essays; however, mistakes pop-up in almost anything they type. |
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bearcanada
Joined: 04 Sep 2005
Posts: 312
Location: Calgary, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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You're right about the punctuation. Strangely, I find that adults (university grads) will consistently leave a space BEFORE a comma or period, as in '.... after I left ,John......', instead of AFTER the punctuation mark. And I've found that even repeated reminders aren't sufficient to change the habit.
Spaces in Chinese are often left both before and after the punctuation mark, but I wonder if someone drilled the above practice into them, for it to be so persistent and widespread....
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Lorean
Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Posts: 476
Location: Beijing
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| Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Spaces in Chinese are often left both before and after the punctuation mark, but I wonder if someone drilled the above practice into them, for it to be so persistent and widespread.... |
I believe their spacing rules are consequential rather than intended. In Chinese writing, every character is supposed to fit inside equal-sized square boxes. I hypothesis that when the Chinese added western punctuation marks to their writing system, they treated them as just another Chinese character. Thus, forcing them to be consistent with the one-character-per-box mold.
As an aside, one of my friends showed me his copy of "Chicken Soup" he bought in China. It's one of those editions which has one page in English and one page in Chinese. Anyways. The editors decided to eliminated all spaces next to punctuation marks  |
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SocratesSon2
Joined: 19 Nov 2007
Posts: 134
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| Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:52 am Post subject: |
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You've also got 3 sentences where there should be only 2. Language, be it written or spoken, should flow, not be halting and awkward 
This is a paragraph, which has several mistakes in it. Can you find them?
Or this one.
This is a paragraph, which happens to have several mistakes in it. Can you find them?
The use of that comma is also debatable in the first one but I'll throw it in for the more technically minded
Punctuation ain't the only thing wrong with the original sentence. |
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voodikon
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 1363
Location: chengdu
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| Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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yes, in my (chinese) writing class at sichuan university i was told that each punctuation mark gets its own box if you're writing on the paper that has boxes. and when you type chinese you don't need to insert spaces; the computer automatically spaces everything properly for you.
but, also, spacing around punctuation is different even within western languages; french, for instance, inserts spaces before colons and various other marks, which aren't coming to mind at the moment. you'd think it'd be a pretty simple thing to point out, but ... i dunno. old habits die hard, i guess. |
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