20 / 20 this Sunday

[Frankie]

Im working on cutting out the ads and compressing it down from 1Gb

If I find a plase to host it Ill post it tonight or tomorrow

[Frankie]

sorry the recording is corrupt for some reason

I can watch it with like VLC or BSPlay but cant edit it or anything

[jase]

Makes me sick and angry.!!!

[StoneChucker]

I've recorded it, will watch shortly. I managed to see a little of it while channel hopping during adverts on TOP GEAR

I almost made a comment here, but, I'll reserve it for after having watched the program...

[R6_kid:Me]

this will help with my case against the idiot who did a similar maneuver(sp) in front of me and a mate causing me to ditch and damage my mates bike and then the van the idiot was driving... he did indicate at the very last minute, but he did it on an intersection.

[onearmedbandit]

Saw it, no blame on the rider, all attributed to the banned driver. Even the police said his speed had no bearing, impact speed of 64km/h.

[Frankie]

Fucking hell... "I dont understand english" and hes been in NZ for three fucking years...

When I can to New Zealand in October 1995 I could barelly speak english like knew the alphabet and that was fucking it... Mid 1996 I start Primary school without a problem... ffs if I could learn to speak english very well in about 6-8 months I sure he could fucking do it in 3 god damned fucking years!

In regard to the laws of the road I really do think that the punishment is no where near hard enough...

Words just cant describe what Im feeling

[R6_kid:Me]

i agree, this whole i dont speak english bullshit is getting to me. it is so evident at school now its not funny. asians especially use it as a way to try and get out of trouble. BUT you have to pass a basic english test to get into the country so "go fuck your hand" if you cant. Thankfully our teachers no longer take it as a wat out of trouble, if they dont understand they get an interpreter which puts them on the spot

[onearmedbandit]

The a$$hole is just playing the 'don't speak the english' card. I say this because surely the officer who forbid him to drive the month earlier explained it to him. IE, "You are forbidden to drive any car on NZ roads until you obtain a NZ drivers licence. This means you can not drive any longer. Do you understand? No more driving until you get a NZ licence."

So that excuse doesn't wash at all, but the judge believed him.

[R6_kid:Me]

surely the guy wasnt that much of a dimwit. I've always been taught - if you dont understand a word, ask someone. If they dont know, ask someone else, if they dont know - look it up in the dictionary

[thehollowmen]

i agree, this whole i dont speak english bullshit is getting to me. it is so evident at school now its not funny. asians especially use it as a way to try and get out of trouble. BUT you have to pass a basic english test to get into the country so "go fuck your hand" if you cant. Thankfully our teachers no longer take it as a wat out of trouble, if they dont understand they get an interpreter which puts them on the spot

Ok
I'm gonna bite

Have you SEEN the IELTS exam? I have, my wife 8.5 out of 9, I know people who with a little basic english have scored a 6 or more.

Its very simple, "reading, writing, speaking and listening" and I am told that my wife's exam the "speaking" portion was directing somebody using a map. "left right left left" would have sufficed.

And you don't need the IELTS exam if you've had formal english training, visiting, or for some institutions. I don't even think you need it to get citizenship.

The only thing you might need it for is some universities, or for residancy under general skills catagory.

I don't think what happened here was right, but we need to get our english-speaking mess in order before we ask them to.

Can I get an interpreter for 'wat' ? Cause I really don't follow *THAT* sentance.

[Ms Piggy]

hell you haven't travelled much from your shelted live in the wet smoke
the ferries have them every 2m !!! especialy the fast(?) one

I was on the slow ones and you gotta be in quick to get a seat near a telly. I missed it. I wasn't sure if their tellys just played Sky or what.

[Stinger]

surely the guy wasnt that much of a dimwit. I've always been taught - if you dont understand a word, ask someone. If they dont know, ask someone else, if they dont know - look it up in the dictionary

Interesting story, when I was getting my learners licence the proceedure was that you had to take a scratchy test, then read from an eye check chart and then do your oral questions.

Now I was behind this asian lady doing her eye test. She had a translator with her, the testing guy says:

"Ask her to read the second to bottom line"
"She wants to read the top line"
"Tell her she has to read the second from bottom line"

After this went on for a while the guy got sick of this and I presume passed her, I'm not sure which line she ended up reading. But, the lady did not read any of the letters out - they all came out of the translators mouth. I think that's pretty dodgy personally, fair enough that she needed the translator for the instructions, but the letters ?!?! for an NZ drivers licence.

[MikeL]

Have you SEEN the IELTS exam?

Yes. I teach to it.

There are 4 separate modules (Listening/Reading/Writing/Speaking) and each is scored from 1 to 9. Then an overall score is calculated for the whole IELTS test. The official descriptors for each band are as follows:
9 Expert user
8 Very good user
7 Good user
6 Moderately competent user
5 Modest user
4 Limited user
3 Extremely limited user
2 Intermittent user
1 Non user.
For Listening and Reading it is possible to score half way between 2 bands (e.g. 5.5), but not for Speaking and Writing.
My course prepares students for university entrance, where the normal requirement is for an overall score of 6.0, with no band less than 5.5.
Chinese students generally start the course with an average level of 4.5 - 5.0, but there is a wide variation in the individual module performance. Because of their education system and teaching methods, their listening skills are usually way ahead of their other abilities. Speaking and writing are usually very poor. It takes a whole school year to raise most students' performance from about 5.0 overall to 6.0. Almost all of them get at least 6.0 in Listening, but most struggle to get even 5.5 in Reading. 6.0 in Writing is beyond the capabilities of many of them. In theory with 6.0 they are considered capable of taking first-year university papers, although some faculties insist on a higher standard.
There is no prescribed word list for IELTS. However in the Reading test they are expected to cope with scientific and technical vocabulary, and in one of the Listening test sections at least they are likely to encounter some advanced vocabulary. Because of the wide range of subject material vocabulary knowledge becomes something of a lottery.
Because these students generally live in a totally Chinese-speaking environment, using English only when absolutely necessary, and on the whole don't watch NZ television, listen to radio etc., it is I suppose possible that some may have missed out on learning a word such as "forbidden".
However, from my experience I would say that a student who has passed IELTS at 6.0 or higher and has been attending a NZ university for a year or more would almost certainly have come across the word in their academic reading at least.
But all this is beside the point. In the first place I can't imagine the police officer writing out the ticket and not ensuring, by questioning and explanation, that an obvious foreigner knew what it meant. And I can't imagine the driver, faced with a clearly very serious matter, not bothering to find out the meaning of the key word if he didn't already know it. Finally I can't imagine why the judge had sympathy for the driver's situation to the extent that he allowed it to override the general principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Many of the Asian students that I teach live in a state of almost permanent bewilderment. They are too young, too immature, too limited in their experience to be able to cope with a new country and new freedoms, different language, culture, customs etc. I feel sorry for them and do my best to help them whenever I can. But others are able to exploit their new situation aggressively, arrogantly and selfishly. When they get over their amazement at how easy many things are compared to back home, they laugh at us.
Since we have only seen this young man through the eyes of the media, we can only speculate as to which category he belongs in...

[thehollowmen]

MikeL : many thanks for that :-)

That question was more to gareth_d.

I do agree that many of the international students go a little nutty first time away from home with no supervision. A lot of local students do too when they move to university.

Should we have a mentoring program set in place for all home-leavers and international students to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow?