At 06:50 PM 10/27/2005 +0200, you wrote:


>The requirement that I was targeting was "(language) error-free". A
>communication (written, oral, otherwise) does not need to be *language*
>error-free to be effective and without *communication* (content) errors.
>The non-native speaker I has in mind might not have had "plenty of time
>to seek reviews by native speakers" (he might for instance have arrived
>from abroad a few days ago).

I've helped a few recent immigrants from South and East Asia spruce up
their resumes. In general, I tried to eliminate outright errors without
changing their words too much and without necessarily eliminating turns of
phrase that would mark their writing as that of a non-native. Otherwise
it could open the person to charges of "false advertising".

>One of the other advices was "content is more important than form". For
>me this is such an aspect. You might disagree, and between people with
>the same language background you might be right.

Form is one thing, but there are also real issues with cultural
differences and heavy accents.

>I have worked a few year on an international project. All communication
>was required to be in English. Makes sense, that gives the best chance
>that Dutch, Belgiums (of both kinds), Germans, Danes, Swedes, Itialians
>and the occasional Englishman could work together. But the communication
>was not required to be perfect English. Of course not, the majority of
>the readers would not know the difference. But it had to be content
>error free!

When there is more of a common cultural background and you can agree
to use a subset of whatever "standard English" is, that makes some sense.
It seems to be the world's second language, for better or worse. It's a
bit harder when you add more dissimilar parts of the world to the mosaic.

>BTW if you want anyone to use perfect English could you (US, UK, and a
>few other outbacks) please agree about what that is supposed to be,
>including spelling, idom and pronounciation :)

Certainly the applicant should be cut some slack in many cases, from
a "care to details" point of view, but at the same time it may be a
warning of potential problems in communication, particularly where
instructions are necessarily fairly vague (often where some customer
interaction or creativity on the part of the employee might be involved).
Good skills in other areas can compensate, to some degree, of course.

>Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
->> Inexpensive test equipment & parts http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspeff


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