View Single Post
  #2 (permalink)  
Unread Apr 17th, 2007, 10:05 am
susan53 susan53 is offline
Sue
 
Join Date: Oct 8th, 2006
Location: Milan
Posts: 1,406
susan53 is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Does the computer leak over into class?

There was a sketch on Italian TV a couple of days ago with someone imitating Bill Gates. Everything he said was computer language even though he was talking about other things. It was in Italian unfortunately and doesn't necessarily translate - but it was exactly what you were talking about.

Italian has however adopted a lot of the English computer words. Interestingly students use some of them every day- but this doesn't help them remember them in another context : apple, word and windows for example have to be learnt all over again to refer to everyday objects, even though the literal meaning has been clear from the start - due for example to the Apple logo. The brain seems to compartmentalise. Then there are the ones whose meaning has been misunderstood along the way - "start" is generally understood to mean "open" and the fact that a a "file" can be made of paper flummoxes everybody.
__________________
An ELT Notebook
The DELTA Course
Reply With Quote