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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

#91

Post by jakub_g »

Agingcoder wrote: post #85

There is another aspect beyond raw vocabulary and grammar, and that's unspoken cultural assumptions :not abbreviations and slang, but real misunderstandings caused by different understandings of what seems to be a set of perfectly obvious sentences to both sides . A branch of my company went through a merger with another branch in a different country, and with a different language. Needless to say, it was difficult,…

Meeting in person and regularly is extremely underrated.

This can happen also within a single culture. When two companies do some business together but instead of meeting often and talking directly (or zoom), spend weeks to carefully craft emails and never talk face to face.

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

#92

Post by jokethrowaway »

Accent is another sore point, I find understanding non-native speakers' accent to be way easier than understanding what some native speakers say.

Probably if you're a native speaker you've been exposed in your life to the different dialects and accents - as a non-native speaker the chances of you knowing how the different dialects influence words and pronunciation are much slimmer.

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

#93

Post by sime2009 »

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?

> Isn’t this a description of native vs non-native speakers in many languages?

Not necessarily. The key idea from the article in the phrase "specific to their own culture". There isn't one English in the world. There are now many versions which are bound to cultures and differ in the idioms and sayings used. Think about all of the sports based sayings and metaphors you are used to. Many of them won't mean much to English speakers in other countries.

Either way, communicating with people from other cultures, even when using the same language, remains a sticky wicket.

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

#94

Post by jjgreen »

solatic wrote: post #69
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 the…

In French: à la soupe !

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

#95

Post by dynm »

I'm interested in the minimal "Globish" subset of English this article mentions. It would be an interesting idea to have a variant of hemmingwayapp or grammarly that tries to automatically test if a bit of text conforms to it. This doesn't seem all that technically difficult, and would be the kind of thing some organizations would pay for if there's proof that it makes a bit of writing harder to misinterpret.

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

#96

Post by refactor_master »

narag wrote: post #11
elmerfud wrote: post #2

I agree with this totally and I am a native English speaker. English often has many confusing and ambiguous terms that can only be known by having a very well developed sense of context. Have many non-native English speaking friends, I understand their difficulty with the language. When communicating with my friends I try and choose appropriate words to avoid misunderstanding until I can grasp the level at which they…

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in any language-related discussion is that understanding is often a matter of discarding possible "neighbouring" meanings. To do that, you need to have a comprehensive knowledge of the language. In English it's particularly bad because of the proximity between some vowels. In many cases a monosyllabic word is one of six or seven almost identical. And that's for basic vocabulary…

I’ve experienced this problem for native and non-native speakers alike, where perfectly capable English speakers almost freeze up when they mishear a word, rather than try to help the conversation along. I’d usually ask the other party to spell it out, whereas some simply drop the conversation dead and awkward silence ensues.

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

#97

Post by hodgesrm »

Misunderstandings like the "one word" issue cited at the beginning of the article are common among native speakers. I'm sure everyone has been to meetings where parties walked out the door having agreed to diametrically opposite things.

It is not necessarily a matter of English vs. non-English speakers but whether you have empathy with your audience. (Plus a bit of project management to ensure everyone understands decisions.)

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

#98

Post by cruano »

Agingcoder wrote: post #85

There is another aspect beyond raw vocabulary and grammar, and that's unspoken cultural assumptions :not abbreviations and slang, but real misunderstandings caused by different understandings of what seems to be a set of perfectly obvious sentences to both sides . A branch of my company went through a merger with another branch in a different country, and with a different language. Needless to say, it was difficult,…

I think tribalism goes beyond language, I joined a company with two offices in different countries and while there was some rock-throwing and mistrust of each other, it all went away when we got acquired. Somehow belonging to the "old" company was a stronger bond that speaking the same language, so all this negative feelings got shifted towards the parent company

Damn monkey brains

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

#99

Post by lazide »

hodgesrm wrote: post #97

Misunderstandings like the "one word" issue cited at the beginning of the article are common among native speakers. I'm sure everyone has been to meetings where parties walked out the door having agreed to diametrically opposite things. It is not necessarily a matter of English vs. non-English speakers but whether you have empathy with your audience. (Plus a bit of project management to ensure everyone understands de…

Also everyone dancing around discussing/bringing up concrete objective milestones because it’s hard! Hah.

If the details never come up and need to be agreed up (including dates or hard deliveries), it’s easy to not realize you don’t agree at all.

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

#100

Post by lazide »

II2II wrote: post #82
js2 wrote: post #74

I think some commenters are taking issue with this article for singling out English. Yes, the larger issue is native vs non-native speakers in any language. But this article is specifically addressed to native English speakers because English often serves as the common language in a room of mixed-language speakers. I'm a native English speaker. I don't find the article offensive, and I appreciate it pointing out how…

> I'm a native English speaker. I don't find the article offensive, and I appreciate it pointing out how I can be a more effective communicator. If you want people to communicate more effectively, then you state how to communicate more effectively. It is best to avoid criticism since the recipient is liable to take it poorly. Trying to be provocative will only result in the intent of the message being ignored.

Unless they’re German or Eastern European, in which case if you don’t point out exactly where they personally are wrong they might think you’re complimenting them, seeking help in figuring out who IS doing something wrong, or don’t have any actual issues, and everything is ok.

Speaking of cultural differences.

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