Volkswagen: I was taught how to walk since I was young

[skylee]

This is a line from a Volkswagen TV ad in HK (see link below). I just wonder if this sentence is acceptable. Is its meaning clear to you? I find the tense confusing. What do you think?

Youtube -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?client=mv-google&hl=zh-HK&gl=GB&v=ZB-0PihbDiE&nomobile=1

[陳德聰]

Even though I understand what he means, and can believe that other people would say the same thing the same way... To me, it makes him sound uneducated.

"I was taught how to walk" sounds like a completed event, and then adding "since I was young" sounds like it's trying to make it a lasting event until now. Instant feeling of dissonance there.

"I have been taught how to walk since I was young" would make more sense, but then it wouldn't match the simple past tense of the rest of the lines.

The problem is that whoever wrote it was trying to be poetic, so it may well be "acceptable" under the guise of poetry. I understand it to mean "I have been taught how to walk since I was young" because of the surrounding lines talking about life being a journey, as if he really has been learning how to walk his entire life.

It's not jarring to hear, but I don't like it and I think whoever wrote it should be fired.

[anonymoose]

I more or less agree with what 陈德聪 wrote. Technically, I think it is poor English, but even native speakers don't always use the language correctly. Maybe it was deliberate to make it sound more 平民化.

[renzhe]

I think that it's typical for native speakers of German. Every language has its own set of common mistakes, and misusing "since" is the most common one for Germans. Wrong use of present perfect (replacing it by simple present or simple past tense) is another. Croatian native speakers (including me) usually mangle articles, etc.

[roddy]

I'd have put a big red cross through it if it had come across my desk. I wouldn't have liked "along this direction" either, but I'd have sent it back before getting that far.

Love the "You can be a Hong Kong Exec AND a trendy park-rocking guitar god" theme though.

Does the Cantonese version sound better? I suspect it's a dodgy translation.

Also, at 0:40 in the longer Cantonese version - is that Hong Kong, and if so where? I thought that might be Tai Mo Shan in the background, but it's not.

Also also, re "even native speakers don't always use the language correctly"

True, but I wouldn't say this is a mistake native speakers are likely to make.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Germans tend to confuse "since" and "for", because they both translate to the same word in German, but here "for" wouldn't make much sense either.

I think it's more likely that it's a translation from Cantonese.

[renzhe]

Germans tend to confuse "since" and "for", because they both translate to the same word in German

Only in some cases.

[skylee]

I agree it is likely a translation from the Cantonese script.

I have no idea where the ad was shot.