Language Madness: to fail a test
July 17, 2008 – 7:47 amThis morning I read the paper copy of the Hong Kong free street newspaper The Standard. One headline at the last page stood out pretty much:
Duenas is country’s second Tour rider to fail test for EPO
Duenas is a bike rider for team Barloworld Team at the Tour the France. For those unfamiliar with the bike sport, Tour the France is one of the most famous and important races for any professional in this sport. Taking part in this race is a great honour. Winning this race is equal to becoming immortal.
Lets get back to the headline. This guy failed the test. I don’t know what You are thinking. For me a test asks for something, and then the participant has to deliver. In this very test, it was asked: Do You use EPO? According to the newspaper he failed. My first idea was, he didn’t use any EPO. I continued reading….
…. and found out he in fact did use EPO. A little confusing….
In fact to pass a test doesn’t always mean to archive the result that was asked for. Instead here failed meant, he got the result that was tested for. In this case this is still acceptable, as most people see it negative when someone uses a illegal body power enhancing drug. So far everything everything is fine, but lets add the cultural factor.
Cultures are different! We have seen, to fail a test doesn’t always mean the participant failed to archived what was tested for, instead to fail a test means he got a result that is perceived negative by bystanders. Problems arise, when 2 bystanders have a different cultural background. Someone might see a result as positive, while another person might see the same result as negative. Then to fail a test is no longer clear. Indeed When these 2 people hear, their friend failed, they might have different notion of the test result. The same problem arises with to pass a test. Let’s make an example to illustrate this:
Example: A man and a woman have sex. The woman wanted a baby, but the man still wanted his freedom and a life without obligations. A few weeks later the woman should have had her menstruation, but she didn’t. So they went to a doctor. Eagerly waiting the doctor finally came back to the couple and presented the result: You passed the test.
You can probably imagine, that the woman and the man from the example had different things on their mind, when the doctor announced the result. For the woman pass pass meant she has a baby, while for the man pass meant no baby.
Personally for me to fail a test means not reach the thing that was tested for, however for many people it means to not get a positive result. While positive is something based on their believes.
Conclusion: Language learning is not only learning a language, it also means to learn about the believes, prejudges and assumptions of the people who speak this language. Otherwise funny interpretations of what has been said can happen. This might be funny when in a bar, however not so funny during a business meeting.
For Chinese learners this means to actually go to China and not only attend a course in the West. A good start is to learn a semester in a Chinese university or get a job in China.
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