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Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

bbc.com

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Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#61

Post by ajford »

Gauge_Irrahphe wrote: post #51
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #8

This is a terrible title and a terrible article. The claims made here are tied to the fact that English is more or less the primary language of international business. Its well known that people who learn secondary languages tend to know the "rules" around the language and tend to be more specific when using secondary languages. Its pretty weird for the article to conflate using slang/abbreviations/language tied to c…

I think the problem is that the way English phrases things is often completely bizarre compared to virtually any other language, which is confusing, as a seemingly straightforward sentence may imply something completely unexpected. I think it might be because of its lack of real grammatical topic, which is otherwise ubiquitous and often more important than the subject.

I think a lot of this odd structuring is due to English leaning heavily on borrowed forms and rules that really have no ties to the underlying language.

Not that I'm blaming the language, just think it's curious at how many conflicting and skewed rules have just become a part of the language over hundreds of years.

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#63

Post by silicon2401 »

pbourke wrote: post #21

> The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang and references specific to their own culture, says Chong Isn’t this a description of native vs non-native speakers in many languages?

Yes. This is just another article trying to attack English by singling it out for scenarios that occur in every language. It's part of human communication and behavior, not a flaw inherent to English. Otherwise, what's the implication, that non-English speakers universally speak slowly and without any kind of idioms or color? That's disproven within a year of learning any new language

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#64

Post by Gauge_Irrahphe »

pbourke wrote: post #21

> The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang and references specific to their own culture, says Chong Isn’t this a description of native vs non-native speakers in many languages?

I'd say that most languages go into a much deeper level of detail than English does, by default.

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#65

Post by pbourke »

Gauge_Irrahphe wrote: post #64
pbourke wrote: post #21

> The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang and references specific to their own culture, says Chong Isn’t this a description of native vs non-native speakers in many languages?

I'd say that most languages go into a much deeper level of detail than English does, by default.

What do you mean by level of detail? That concepts are spelled out more explicitly?

I think most languages and cultures have conceptual shortcuts. Every culture/language has their “Shaka, when the walls fell” from Star Trek (here I go with the conceptual shortcuts).

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#66

Post by gus_massa »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #47
IshKebab wrote: post #20

So what was the word?? This is like those articles about photos that don't actually include the photo.

It's probably not this, but a native English speaker saying "That's the shit!" probably means "That thing is great" but someone who's not very fluent might think the speaker doesn't like the thing.

I guess it happens in all languages. Here in Argentina sometimes you can use some insults as a great compliment to a friend. [It's tricky to know when you can use them, which one, and have the correct intonation and body posture, so don't try it.]

And you can use a compliment like "Muy bien. Te feliciiito." ("Very good. I congratulate you." But with a long ee sound in the middle of the last word) And it means something like "You are an idiot" / "You made a big mistake".

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#67

Post by jfengel »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #9

> Native English speakers are the world's worst communicators The article makes this claim, but doesn't substantiate it. The content of the article has nothing to do with a comparative study on communication. Always disappointing to see clickbait from the BBC. I suggest the title be changed to something like Native English speaker are generally bad at tuning into language variation . edit I see NikolaeVarius beat me…

I'd suggest "People are generally bad at tuning into language variation." I'm not sure that native English speakers have any particular lock on that.

They may get more opportunities to make that mistake, since (a) they're often monolingual, and (b) they're more likely to be speaking to a non-native speaker (what with English being the international language these days). But it's not inherent to either the language or the speakers.

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#68

Post by Gauge_Irrahphe »

pbourke wrote: post #65
Gauge_Irrahphe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that most languages go into a much deeper level of detail than English does, by default.

What do you mean by level of detail? That concepts are spelled out more explicitly? I think most languages and cultures have conceptual shortcuts. Every culture/language has their “Shaka, when the walls fell” from Star Trek (here I go with the conceptual shortcuts).

I mean more like they seem to prefer spelling out the exact problem, instead of using a generic phrase, like "this solution has proven inadequate".

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#69

Post by solatic »

MereInterest wrote: post #33

I think the point of avoiding acronyms and abbreviations isn't strong enough, because it doesn't explain how much they can creep into most conversation. As an example, here's how something can become gradually less specific, and gradually shortened. (I have an American Midwest accent, so not all of these shortenings will be applicable to all accents.) > I'm hungry. Would you like to get lunch and continue discussing…

To be fair, "Did you eat yet?" in this context seems to be universal across languages and cultures for office workers. The "Djeet yet?" will naturally be different depending on language and accent, but my point is that this is not exclusive to the English language. Someone who is familiar with the practice of asking if a coworker has eaten their midday meal in their native tongue will recognize the same nuance if they know the literal English translation.

Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

#70

Post by phkahler »

hn8788 wrote: post #32
phkahler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> but it was the person who sent the message originally's fault? That's not what the article said at all. It seemed to place the blame on the word. I'm with you that one person should have sought clarification since they knew there were two meanings, but that's not actually the root cause. Another person may have only been aware of one of those meanings and made the "mistake" without ever thinking they needed clarif…

The article specifically says that native english speakers are to blame, not the word. > When such misunderstandings happen, it’s usually the native speakers who are to blame. Ironically, they are worse at delivering their message than people who speak English as a second or third language, according to Chong.

>> Months later, senior management investigated why the project had flopped, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. “It all traced back to this one word,” says Chia Suan Chong, a UK-based communications skills and intercultural trainer, who didn't reveal the tricky word because it is highly industry-specific and possibly identifiable. “Things spiralled out of control because both parties were thinking the opposite.”

Yeah, where does it say that? We could blame the sender for choosing an ambiguous word, or we could blame the recipient for not getting clarification, but they clearly place it on the word without pointing a finger at either human.

The overall article does point a finger at native english speakers for being imprecise, but the specific example doesn't IMHO.

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