No experience is necessary?

[shabushabu]

Hi,

I saw a sentence which is confusing in an advertisement: "... No experience is necessary, but you should have a high level of energy and be able to travel extensively...."

"No experience is necessary" means:
(A) People don't have to be experienced.
OR
(B) People shouldn't be experienced.

According to the text, it should be (A); but (B) is possible, right?


Thanks

 

[riquecohen]

No. It means only that experience is not required for the job. It does not bar you from applying if you do have experience.

 

[Tdol]

I can see how you could try to interpret it in that way, but it means that experience is unnecessary.

 

[emsr2d2]

"Lack of experience is obligatory" would be how to express your alternative reading of the original. It's a very unlikely thing to see.

 

[Tdol]

It is an unlikely requirement, but the more I look at it, the more I can understand why the OP asked the question.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I cannot understand it. Nobody requires a lack of experience. It is completely illogical.

 

[Raymott]

You may not understand it, Mike, but that doesn't make it illogical.
In fact, there are situations where a lack of experience is required. In some psychological tests, no previous knowledge of the content is a requirement. They need 'virgin' participants. Some university courses stipulate something like: "If you have no previous experience in X, you should enrol in X100, otherwise, X101 is the foundational course." Or, "If you have previously passed X101, you may not enrol in X100."
I'm sure there are many other examples. They are easier to think of once you do understand the concept.

 

[MikeNewYork]

With all respect, that understanding in nothing but silly.

 

[Tdol]

If you come to it as a non-native and apply a literal interpretation, the possible meaning, which the OP put down as a second possibility, becomes clearer- native speakers wouldn't go for it, but I can see why non-native speakers might get the wrong end of the stick.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I might agree for a NNES. But if that were the intended meaning, it would be written as "Lack of experience is required".

 

[Tdol]

I don't see it as an intended meaning, but a possible interpretation for an NNES. It's one of those things that takes on a logic through someone else's eyes. :up:

 

[Raymott]

Yes, that's the spirit in which I answered it too.

 

[MikeNewYork]

If that be true, should we not correct the misconception rather than feed it?

 

[emsr2d2]

No-one is feeding it. I wanted the OP to know that I understood exactly how they could come to that interpretation. However, I then said that that interpretation would be worded "A lack of experience is obligatory" which is pretty much what you suggested several posts later.

The wording might be wrong but a lack of experience is certainly what is required by some companies. When I moved to Spain, the first job I started training for (as an English teacher) demanded that participants (preferably) had no teaching qualification and no TEFL/CELTA. They used their own patented teaching method and they didn't want to have to knock other methods out of people. They wanted us to be blank slates.

 

[MikeNewYork]

A tabua rasa.

 

[Rover_KE]

Actually, it's a tabula rasa.

 

[MikeNewYork]

That is what I intended.