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Post by charliebrown on Mar 26, 2013 10:26:51 GMT
My Franek is turning to 12 soon. He enjoys reading on Kindle, I have bought him some Alex Rider series and he is reading the last book. He has also read Narnia and Hobbits, Lord of the Rings. He likes computer games very much, but I don't let him spend too much time on it. So I encourage him to read as much as possible. His English is good enough to read the material for young adults. Any suggestions on what to read next?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2013 12:27:25 GMT
Terry Pratchett.
Early Robert Heinlein (earlier than Stranger in a Strange Land, that and the books after are worth reading, but would probably be dull for a 12 year old).
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 26, 2013 17:44:16 GMT
Thanks Sven He has read also Michael Ende's The never ending stories, which I would like to read myself.
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Post by Moose on Mar 26, 2013 22:52:42 GMT
Has he read Harry Potter?
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 27, 2013 6:09:57 GMT
No. He watched some part of the movies. I will ask him if he is interested.
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Post by Mari on Mar 27, 2013 7:48:10 GMT
John Flanagan, the brotherband series and the ranger's apprentice series. Really good!
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 27, 2013 7:59:43 GMT
Ah, and he also read all the Le petit Nicolas series. He enjoys reading silly things and has great sense of humor
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 27, 2013 8:09:20 GMT
Terry Pratchett and John Flanagan both look interesting. Making notes.
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Post by Mari on Mar 27, 2013 9:04:28 GMT
You can download a lot of books in English from www.tuebl.ca All the books there are in e-reader format. If you have a tablet you can also just download the Moonreader app. Tuebl and several other book catalogues are built in that app.
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 27, 2013 10:13:46 GMT
Thank you Mari. I am also checking my iBooks app in iPad. And I downloaded some more free books for myself
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2013 12:25:50 GMT
Mark Twain. The eye-dialects may throw him off a bit, but Twain wrote brilliantly.
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 27, 2013 13:14:14 GMT
He read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and liked it. I will ask him to try other Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
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Post by Moose on Mar 27, 2013 18:35:42 GMT
I've never been able to get into Twain.
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Post by Mari on Mar 27, 2013 19:54:05 GMT
I hated the negro talk in Huck Finn. Just couldn't figure it out.
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Post by Moose on Mar 27, 2013 20:18:20 GMT
That word is considered pretty offensive in English now
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Post by tangent on Mar 27, 2013 21:04:35 GMT
Not when you're talking about it on a forum, only in r/l conversation.
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Post by Moose on Mar 27, 2013 21:13:37 GMT
Hmm no, on a forum too.
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Post by tangent on Mar 27, 2013 21:16:49 GMT
I don't see anything wrong with Mari's post. We should not blacklist words when they are used sensitively.
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Post by Moose on Mar 27, 2013 21:21:06 GMT
But it's an offensive word in the English language now. I know Mari did not know that, as a non English speaker, so I was not trying to condemn her use of it but just alert her to the fact that it's not used now. I don't see any way to sensitively use the word negro.
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Post by tangent on Mar 27, 2013 21:47:17 GMT
OK, I think as an English speaker I would have been happy to make Mari's quote... (but we disagree on this).
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Post by Moose on Mar 27, 2013 21:48:43 GMT
I think that virtually all black people would find it offensive.
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 28, 2013 6:10:53 GMT
I don't think I ever use 'negro' the word, no matter in what context. I would rather use other words to avoid any hard feelings. I like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. I read them at young age (Chinese translation). In fact I think it taught me about respect to other people, regardless of their upbringing or skin colors.
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Post by Alvamiga on Mar 28, 2013 9:47:12 GMT
I did not have any problem with Mari's use of it in its historical context. After all, it is the Spanish word for Black. Words are ultimately only offensive if you make them so, as use of the word "gay" has shown over time. It always used to be taken as an offensive term, but now is even on official forms.
I heard a recent radio programme about the use of the word Ni**er and its use by rap artists. Apparently many are also stopping using it, having previously littered their songs with it.
I always think that once you start conspicuously avoid using a word, you are drawing more attention to it and making a bigger deal of it than you would just using the word in the first place, as long as you don't go too far the other way, of course. Even referring to people as "Black" is discrimination and I think "Coloured" is as offensive as it ultimately means "Not white" which I would read in a KKK voice.
There is a comedy sketch (that I can't locate at this moment) where a woman at a party is trying to describe meeting someone earlier and is using phrases such as "The man over there... next to the bookcase... wearing jeans..." when it is clear that describing him as "Black" would be immediately definitive and it makes the point perfectly.
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Post by charliebrown on Mar 28, 2013 10:20:37 GMT
I am uncomfortable with the term 'colored': after all, white is also a kind of color The thing that I find annoying is that people use the stereotype of slanted eyes to describe Asians. I personally have no idea how to distinguish slanted eyes.The fact is that eyes come in different shapes and sizes, even among Asians. Though it's often used not in an offensive way, when I hear such reference, I just can't help rolling my eyes
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Post by Mari on Mar 28, 2013 17:56:29 GMT
Moose, I do know that it is considered an offensive word. However, I was using it in a historical context. There WAS such a thing as negro talk. We learned this in American culture classes. Referring to that as 'coloured people in the slavery period-talk' seems kind of silly.
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Post by Moose on Mar 28, 2013 19:06:24 GMT
coloured is offensive too . I know it must be hard to keep up if you're a non native speaker. Why not just say African American?
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Post by Kye on Mar 28, 2013 19:25:15 GMT
I always find it funny as people cast around in Canada for a term parallel to African American. It's not African Canadian since most of our black people come from the West Indies. Luckily, it's still okay in Canada to refer to them as Black.
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Post by Mari on Mar 28, 2013 20:33:45 GMT
Here we can just say 'negeroide'. Or if we are referring to someone from Turkey as 'dark skinned'. Saying someone looks Arabic is not done though.
I didn't know 'coloured' was bad too. I wonder why the accepted term is African American though. As Kye points out, not all AA people are from African decent or even American. Most black people in the Netherlands are from Suriname or thereabout.
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Post by Moose on Mar 28, 2013 21:17:59 GMT
Weird, there's nothing wrong with Arabic here
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Post by tangent on Mar 28, 2013 22:35:22 GMT
When I was a boy, 'black' was considered rude but 'coloured' was perfectly OK. I was shocked when they announced that we had to stop calling them coloured and use the word black.
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