Forums > General > Living, Working, Retiring> (Separated thread) Writing in Spanish in Mexico

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YucaLandia

Mar 16, 2012, 7:13 AM

(Separated thread) Writing in Spanish in Mexico

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Rolly, good for you if the letter worked but you should have an educated native speaker review it. It has errors. I've noticed that sometimes an office worker in Mexico will be rather sloppy (and perhaps uneducated).

I suggest that education levels are likely not a significant factor in this.

Spanish writing competency levels are just like English (etc.) writing competency levels. Our lab in the US had over 500 employees pass through during the 13 years I worked there. Basically all of them had US university degrees, and only 2 were foreigners. As the Director of Client Services, I oversaw pretty much all of our written communications with clients and government.

Ironically, only 50 or so of these US college grads could form a decent paragraph, and only 15 of that small group could write well. Less than 5 could write concisely and accurately, describing an event or idea that could be interpreted in just one way. Ironically, the 2 foreigners were part of those elite groups who could write well: a Peruvian refugee and an Iranian refugee.

As a university prof/teacher at 2 US universities, I had to plow-through and grade the scientific writing of over 2,300 students (mostly recently graduated from High School), and only 4 of them wrote at high levels of English competency.

It's easy to judge & improve other people's text. Creating tight accurate text on-the-fly is a whole other beast.

As a professor at the second oldest University in this Hemisphere, my wife observes that most Spanish grads also cannot write well, (30 years there). She notes that even the best prepas and Universities do not focus on developing and honing writing skills, so, she winds up doing significant editing for even the 2 Ph.Ds who work for her - just to correct grammar. She further relates that "style" does not really figure much at all into typical secondaria, prepa, or University writing instruction here. The combination of 14 verb tenses(?), strong focus on personal relationships & oral communication, and less focus on literature appreciation(?) all seem to contribute to the generally low state of English & Spanish writing skills on both sides of the border.

Tweets, texting, twitter, txtspk, and brief internet forum posting have pretty much trashed both English & Spanish writing competency, K ? e.g. Proper use of the Oxford comma is nearly unknown in most English circles, eh? NOB & SOB...

BTW CYL8R

**Edited after-the-fact to improve read-ability. ;-}
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Read-on MacDuff
E-visit at http://yucalandia.com

(This post was edited by DavidMcL on Mar 16, 2012, 5:00 PM)

Edit Log:
Post edited by YucaLandia (Veteran) on Mar 16, 2012, 7:13 AM
Post edited by YucaLandia (Veteran) on Mar 16, 2012, 7:15 AM
Post edited by YucaLandia (Veteran) on Mar 16, 2012, 7:17 AM
Post edited by YucaLandia (Veteran) on Mar 16, 2012, 7:18 AM
Post edited by DavidMcL (Webjefe) on Mar 16, 2012, 5:00 PM: New theme title