Should we try for perfection in all that we do?
In my opinion,we should try to be pretty close to perfect when we are expressing ourselves in paper. I have a hardtime doing this cause my mind drifts all the time. My mistakes are pretty bad, I have to correct myself a million times. When we vocalise our thoughts to our friends perfection is not important, but it is important that they don't get the wrong picture. Of course when we talk with higher authorities, we should be close to perfect.
Talking slang or the way "real people talk" is ok but is not the thing to do all the time.
12 Answers
'Lo perfecto es enemigo de lo bueno", decía mi padre. Mi madre también dice: 'Las cosas se parecen a sus dueños".
"Dime qué lees y muéstrame como escribes y te diré quien eres", reza otro adagio popular.
No se trata de ser o no perfectos, se trata de respetar los idiomas. Especialmente cuando escribimos, debemos esforzarnos al máximo por hacer las cosas correctas. El "modernismo', el "facilismo" y la pereza muchas veces permiten que nuestra comunicación escrita denuncie quienes somos, cómo pensamos y sentimos.
¡Que viva el Español bien escrito!
I think perfection is not what we look for in life, but we must at least try to be near what is generally thought to be right.
On this forum, perfection is not sought for. We allow all kind of threads except foul language discussions and we allow threads to drift, something completely forbidden on other sites. We think that kind of perfection, a forum with like a 150 rules....that is not what we are looking for.
We would like to think our forum is perfect, 
, normally free speech is allowed and drifting off topic....even incorrect spelling by learners.
It depends on what you need to use the language for. Making mistakes is actually OK, because they are the evidence of the learning process. You don't have to be perfect from the start, but if someone considers themselves to be intermediate or advanced and keeps making the same mistakes, the should definitely work harder.
Being perfect should be like a top of the mountain you are constantly climbing. And though it's impossible to reach the peak, we should never lose sight of it.
This is a very good thread with many excellent comments. I would add that it depends on how you define perfection.
For some people, perfection is not only using perfect grammar, spelling, and pronunciation, but also using large, complex sentences that demonstrate their command of the language. And quite often these people are the worst communicators, saying a lot of words to say nothing.
Communication is an art. If you can say it succinctly and to the point it is often far more powerful and effective.
And at the end of the day, that is how perfection should be defined.
Less is more.
I was looking for a thread of old,and ran into these one. I had a good time reading it. So event though it is an old one, I am sharing it with whoever wants to read it.
There is a huge difference between aiming for perfection and being obsessed with perfection. Wordsworth once wrote "A man's reach should exceed his grasp; else what's a heaven for?" One could argue that his intended distinction between "reach" and "grasp" has not survived the test of time (modern readers may wll consider them to be synonyms).
However, consider the opposite formulation: "I want to learn incorrect/sub-standard/ungrammatical Spanish." There are those who tell you that "real" people don't speak perfectly and, then, go on to suggest that since no one's perfect, it doesn't matter at all what you say; as though there were only two choices: "perfection" and "anything goes". The "anything goes" philosophy is also supported by (what I usually think of as the "touchy-feely" schools of philosophy that became popular in California during the 60's. Their basic mantra was "ignore the fascist, grammar police who insist on outdated ideas of "correctness" and concentrate on expressing your "true"/"inner" feelings". Apparently, the idea being that because they are your "true" feelings and you are true to your "nature", the normal rules of grammar (established patterns of language) do not apply; it is enough that you "communicate".
In the course of my experience with "other" languages, there have, been. of course, situations in which the primary consideration was "basic communication" (the main point was that the other person understand what I was trying to say even if I did not say it well. However those are exceptional cases. Under normal circumstances, I do not have, as my goal, to learn to speak broken Spanish/French/Japanese/etc. Perhaps I will never be as fluent in these languages as I might wish but that is my goal. My goal never has been (and probably never will be) to speak "broken" X ("X" being the language of your choice).
If you strive for "oh I have to be perfect", you lose sight of what is important...which is not to be perfect, but to effectively communicate what you have in mind, in spanish. Personally, in english I like the way the Southerns speak. No one would call that perfect, but it sure is fun. In spanish, I like the way normal folk speak. They aren't going to win any prizes for speaking spanish, but they sure know how to keep a person interested in what they say. So...you can speak perfect high spanish if you'd like...I don't think very many people in the normal course of life will wish to speak to you because they will more often than not be confused and frustrated with your overuse of words. That's just my opinion...in your life, maybe everyone speaks high english and high spanish...but around we talk like normal people, which is far from perfect. Bueno...puedo usar palabaras tan grandes para explicar esta misma cosa, puedo intentar a ser perfecto, pero por que? Que es que mi interesta? A demonstrar a todos que hablo espanol mejor que todos que estan? Eso se llama petulante, o sea, arrogante...o por lo menos se sale asi. A me mi gusta que todos saben lo que digo...
A couple of years ago while on a two hour drive with my wife, we were listening to an interview between a broadcast journalist and Vicente Fox who was then Mexico's president. I was astonished by Fox's masterful command of the English language. I expected his Spanish to be exemplary and impeccable. I did not expect his English to be of the same quality.
In Canada, my home and native land, we have two official languages, English and French. I am always awed by Canadians who slip back and forth between the two languages without skipping a beat, with near perfect accents and enviable choices of words from their personal vast vocabularies in either language.
I don't know about perfection. But, one writer once asked,"Someone has to write the next great novel, someone has to lead all war torn governments to peace, someone has to identify social needs to improve everone's life and health, someone has to do it, why not you?" For me, I just want to continue toward the goal of bringing my skills in Spanish up to the level of my English. I wannabe like Vicente Fox or Canada's former Pierre Trudeau in my language skills.
error on line
There are a lot of things that can't be done "perfectly" that are still worth doing. What is a perfect painting, a perfect piece of music, or a perfect understanding of the physical universe? Painting, composing, and do research in physics are all still valid pursuits even though perfection is unattainable if it is even definable.
Spelling, grammar, and arithmetic are another matter
Y todo lo que hagáis, hacedlo de corazón, como para el Señor y no para los hombres, sabiendo que del Señor recibiréis la recompensa de la herencia. Es a Cristo el Señor a quien servís.
