Stan,
Thanks for your (undeserved) compliments. No,
I first met an English-speaking person (actually two persons: two
American girls in Leipzig, to whom I didn't speak, although I understood what
they were saying better than my German friend did) only at twenty.
Moreover, I studied German, not English, in school and then at the
University (where English as the second foreign language began in the
middle of the second year). But as a child and teenager I listened a lot of
pop and rock music (as you know, I was a passionate Beatles fan, chego
grekha tait', in my school days), paying little attention to the words
though (I still can't make out everything of what they sing when I happen to
see on TV some old video clips). I really began to study English only after
finishing the University, in order to read Nabokov's English novels in the
original. And I ended up as a translator of ADA and contributor of articles and
notes to The Nabokovian, Zembla and Nabokv-l!
I didn't know the word "doryphore". Am I
one?
Alexey
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 3:09
PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] correction
Alexey: your English is wonderful (ditto Jansy) and
puts me in awe, knowing the endless, subtle challenges. Did you, like VN, have
the benefit of an early Anglophonic environment?
Note: “pedant” can be
defined as “one who takes great care over the details.” Compare with
“doryphore”: “one who takes excessive delight in spotting the tiny errors of
others.”
CTaH
On 27/02/2009 14:33, "Alexey Sklyarenko" <skylark05@MAIL.RU>
wrote:
The phrase "would
have tempted" in my latest posting should read "would have been tempted". It
will be easy for you to excuse me, once you know that I've never been
to an Anglophone country and have no opportunity to practice my English
except reading the Nabokv-l and writing to the List. Kindly pardon the
pedant. I just hate making mistakes (of which there can be more in my
messages than I think).
A.
Sklyarenko
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editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.