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Post by Alvamiga on Mar 28, 2013 23:10:32 GMT
When I hear the term African American, it just sounds patronising to me...
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Post by tangent on Mar 28, 2013 23:55:42 GMT
The first black person I met wasn't American or of African decent, he was Trinidadian British.
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Post by Shake on Mar 29, 2013 3:41:24 GMT
I've never considered 'black' to be rude or knew anyone who did. I've also known some "blacks" who were not of African descent! I've also heard some blacks saying they didn't like "African American" ... they say, "I've never even been to Africa! I consider myself American first!" This is part of the whole, why do we need extraneous labels, argument.
Anyway, though the speech is difficult to get through — even for a native English speaker, I can't imagine how it is for those of you who have a different first language — the style of speech Twain used in his books is historically accurate. He simply wrote the character to sound the way he would have.
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Post by Mari on Mar 31, 2013 15:53:36 GMT
Just like how the way handicapped people are referred to has changed a couple of times during my lifetime already. And cleaners aren't cleaners anymore, they are interior carers... *rolls eyes*
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Post by Moose on Mar 31, 2013 16:15:35 GMT
I've never heard that one
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Post by Mari on Mar 31, 2013 17:19:20 GMT
Very true though. You can even get a diploma in it. It doesn't teach you how to deal with difficult stains though.
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Post by tangent on Mar 31, 2013 18:44:02 GMT
I see, I used to take my suit to the dry cleaners but that will have to change
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Post by Mari on Apr 1, 2013 6:57:15 GMT
I don't mean that kind of cleaning, I meant the cleaning of a house. Shake, sorry, I didn't see your posts there (stupid forum ). Yeah, historically accurate though it may be, if I have to decipher a text based on sound (so reading out loud), I can do it, but it doesn't make me a happy bunny.
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Post by charliebrown on Apr 2, 2013 14:35:44 GMT
So Franek finished the Alex Rider series. He is not interested in Harry Potter. He has chosen to read the Diamond Brothers detective stories by the same author Anthony Horowitz. Franek has tried to read Sherlock Holmes before, but he told me that after reading a few pages, he had no idea what he was reading about, oh well...
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Post by Mari on Apr 5, 2013 21:40:23 GMT
Give him a simplified version first. The original, but also the more or less abridged version are terribly detailed making it hard to understand for someone so young. In simplified versions they tend to stick to the story.
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Post by jayme on Apr 6, 2013 2:41:47 GMT
I was at a party, and we were talking about this. A black guy said he did not like being called African-American, as he had never been to Africa and didn't feel African. He preferred to be called 'black'.
Also, if you are talking about baseball, it is totally ok to call the negro league "negro league". And religious songs that come from the slavery era are often called "negro spirituals". But other than that, I would never use the word negro without expecting to be punched in the face.
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Post by jayme on Apr 6, 2013 2:44:42 GMT
When I hear the term African American, it just sounds patronising to me... Yes, this. ^
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Post by Mari on Apr 6, 2013 7:54:40 GMT
So how do you call Arabic looking people?
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Post by tangent on Apr 6, 2013 8:38:15 GMT
I've often wondered about this. Jesus was probably quite swarthy. Would you call him 'black'?
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Post by Alvamiga on Apr 6, 2013 9:43:31 GMT
I was at a party, and we were talking about this. A black guy said he did not like being called African-American, as he had never been to Africa and didn't feel African. He preferred to be called 'black'. Just saw the Father Ted episode where a woman is talking to a Black priest... "I mean, the level of commitment amongst the African Church. You're bringing the faith to the people. It's marvellous, isn't it?" The black priest replies in a thick Irish accent, "Sure, I wouldn't know, I'm from Donegal!"
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Post by jayme on Apr 6, 2013 14:05:09 GMT
So how do you call Arabic looking people? Arabic or middle eastern. Usually middle eastern, as I can't usually tell someone's nationality from just looking at them. I think Arabic refers to people from or descended from Saudi Arabia, or the Arabic language, which is spoken by a lot of people who aren't of Arabic descent, so it's really sort of confusing, and I try to just talk about the weather instead. ETA: Forgot to add that the few arabs I've met call themselves arabs.
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Post by charliebrown on Jun 27, 2013 15:32:54 GMT
Franek finished reading A Series Of Unfortunate Events. He also dropped his Kindle by accident and broke it. I will buy him a new one when we get to Taiwan.
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Post by Miisa on Jun 27, 2013 16:19:20 GMT
My daughter also loves reading and loves the Harry Potter series. They should not be judged by the films It is considered extremely rude and presumptuous here to refer to a person or group them with others based on some sort of racial/genetic characteristics. You might call someone a "Romani", but only if they outwardly choose to identify (through clothing, etc) as part of that social/ethnic group. No-one is a Romani simply because their parents were, and the same goes for people from different parts of the world. We have a "black" politician, born in Africa, but he sounds and behaves more Finnish than I do, why should he in any way be grouped with people he has no cultural identity in common with? He is Finnish. Does he need to be referred to by his skin pigmentation? This is why I always find it bizarre when people in American TV and movies so casually refer to someone as "black", as that is racially labeling someone, not even necessarily culturally at all, and race is not really a real thing in my biology-centered mind. Oh, and "Negro spirituals" is still used about the type of music, though some people have started just calling it "Spirituals".
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Post by charliebrown on Jun 27, 2013 16:33:00 GMT
I think the Harry Potter movies have ruined the fun for Franek. He is not enthusiastic about reading them. (He watched some parts of the movies on TV). I also think it meaningless to label a person by his/her skin color. For example, Asians (generally yellow, but in fact some of them have darker skin colors) could be so different in culture (as we observe the fact of the weirdness in Japanese popular culture), so 'yellow' doesn't really give you any information about this person.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jun 27, 2013 18:36:16 GMT
I have seen the films, but I also enjoyed the Radio 4 broadcast of the first Harry Potter book, read by Stephen Fry, when they played it over eight and a half hours on Boxing Day a number of years back. I think I have difficulty getting into reading books for any length of time because I spend all day reading computer screens and usually that's enough for one day!
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Post by Mari on Jun 30, 2013 20:29:09 GMT
A lot of my kids love 'The Ranger's Apprentice', as do I. How old is Franek again? He might enoy 'diary of a wimpy kid', or the Eragon series, depending on his age. The Dutch Harry Potter audio books are really good, and I loved part 1, 2 and 3, liked part 4, absolutely loathed part 5 and never got back into it after that one.
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Post by Miisa on Jun 30, 2013 20:51:50 GMT
I really quite liked six, five was depressing.
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Post by Mari on Jul 1, 2013 6:57:26 GMT
Miisa, your daughter might like 'dragon slippers', part I of a series by Jessica Day George. The heroine is a practical country girl who gets sent to a dragon cave to get captured by a dragon so she can be saved by a prince and marry him and raise her family out of poverty. That's the outset anyway. It all goes a bit different than her aunt had planned... Your daughter is about 10 or 11, right? She might enjoy Tuesday Castle by the same author as well, the heroine is a bit younger in that one.
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Post by Miisa on Jul 1, 2013 7:09:33 GMT
I'll have to keep them in mind, she only just started the sixth Harry Potter and then is hoping to catch up with Lemony Snicket and The Hobbit. She just turned 10.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jul 1, 2013 7:27:19 GMT
Lemony Snicket and The Hobbit sounds like one of those cross-over fan fiction books.
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Post by Mari on Jul 1, 2013 14:50:43 GMT
I didn't like Lemony Snicket. It's easy enough to read I suppose, but it's the same over and over again and because the writer uses unnecessarily complicated language which he then explains with side notes making sentences incredibly long, it gives you a feeling of things just dragging on and on.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2013 12:22:33 GMT
ahh for me reading a book is more toughest thing to do. i prefer to listen the stories from some one..
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Post by JoeP on Aug 23, 2013 13:34:06 GMT
What are you favourite stories ukfurnitures?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2013 15:05:43 GMT
I recently treated myself to a huge dose of nostalgia.........I got a few of the 'Just William'' books , by Richmal Compton , from the library, BOY ! did they bring back memories !
Might be worth a read for a young'un ?
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Post by Thingy on Aug 24, 2013 10:23:40 GMT
I'm with Mari on this. Whether we approve or not, that was how they were described in the novel and Mari is using the term in context.
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