December 2011 Chatterbox - Ruston High School

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ditorials/Opinions Chatterbox
Ruston High School December 15, 2011 Page 12
Why Foreign Language Is So Hard
by Emma Jones
Education Reporter
I‘m sure if most of you are like me, learning a foreign language seemed a lot easier before you actually knew what exactly you had
gotten into. However, no matter how well you pick up the language, there is one reoccurring issue that a lot of students have trouble comprehending;
no matter what language you choose to study, it will not be parallel to English. In fact, even though languages all derive from
a root language, e.g. both French and Spanish are stemmed from Latin, languages can be similar, but never completely parallel. That‘s
why, whenever you‘re studying whichever language you take, you often find yourself wondering, ―…but what does it mean?‖ Every language
is diverse in some way, especially English with all of its finicky grammatical rules, or at least, finicky to people whose first language
is not English
Probably one of the most frequent of all linguistic vexations is a lexical gap. A lexical gap, or a lacuna, is when there is a word for one
thing in one language that doesn‘t exist in a different language. I am not just talking about slang, because that‘s a given. I am talking
about legitimate nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and any other syntactical element that comes to mind.
Some examples are more humorous while others just make you grit your teeth. A humorous example would be the English adjective
―shallow,‖ in reference to a body of water. In Romanian, there is no word for shallow. Instead, they literally refer to this word as ―not so deep,‖ so if a woman in Romania is
telling her child to swim in the shallow part of a pool, she would say, ―swim where it is not so deep.‖
Now, what I believe to be one of the most perplexingly frustrating of lexical gaps is the fact that in English, we do not use a second person plural in our language at all.
When someone is addressing more than one person around here, the pronoun used to refer to this group would most likely be ―y‘all.‖ If you went just about anywhere outside
of the south, you‘d hear them addressed as ―you guys,‖ ―yous,‖ ―yous guys,‖ etc. I know this may be completely shocking to some of you, but these are not actual pronouns.
They‘re completely made up. Foreigners learning English do not learn about these pronouns, because they are told that in the English language, you must address multiple
people as though they are one person. In fact, I‘m doing it right now in this article every time I use ―you.‖
So now do you understand part of the reason as to why foreign language can be so difficult to pick up sometimes? Just always remember that it is not going to be translated
perfectly into English every time. I know it is hard for us English speakers to understand, but other languages do not revolve around ours.
Distracting Media and Monkeys
by Polly Michelle Gwan
Academics Reporter
Positive Attitude
by Alexandria Cockerham
Sports Reporter
My Chatterbox editor and I have recently stumbled upon a silly little game by the name of ―Bloons Tower Defense‖ (you know, the game with
monkeys trying to defend your castle from a devastating balloon invasion) and I have to say, we have officially become hooked. We play it at
home, at the library, and, yes, even at school. Though this game is really fun, addicting, and surprisingly suspenseful, it has been causing some
minor issues. Joking around, while playing Bloons Tower Defense of course, my editor and I realized that instead of getting our work done we
were too busy playing this ridiculous game. Instead of focusing on our job we were completely distracted. Shocking, I know, that two teenagers
can get so distracted over something so simple. Actually, this happens to teens all over the world today. Students constantly get distracted by
simple things in the media today such as TV and Facebook. Instead of doing their ―time-consuming‖ homework, they spend time playing games
and watching shows that are really kind of pointless. Now I am not saying that Twitter or X-box or even NCIS are useless heathen entertainment
and that you should only focus yourself on studying and working. I am saying that before you log onto your Twitter account or before you turn
on your Call of Duty game think: ―Is this distracting me from something a little more important like chores or homework? If so how will this
negatively affect me in the future?‖ I believe if we, as students, think about this a smidge more then we won‘t be distracted and we will be a little
more focused. That way, when we‘ve finished all our chores and homework, we can go back and have fun. Just as now, because as soon as I
write this article, I will most definitely resume playing Bloons Tower Defense.
Having a positive attitude is the key point to your success. A positive attitude will change your life in just one minute. Having a positive
attitude cannot just change your life but someone else‘s life too. It can make every bad thing in your life a little bit better. There is an old
saying, ―Don‘t cry over spilled milk.‖ We shouldn‘t cry or get frustrated every time something bad happens. That doesn‘t mean you won‘t
occasionally feel mad, but you have remember to turn the bad things in your life into positive ones. When you have a positive attitude, you
can change someone else‘s negative attitude to a positive one as well. Someone might go around thinking the whole world has fallen on
their back, but with your good attitude, you can change the way they think. Showing others a positive attitude can make them think of better
things and not just about the bad things that are going on. You never know who is watching you, and they might look up to you and you
don‘t even know it. That‘s why it is a great thing to have a positive attitude because it can change your life and someone else‘s life too.