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Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation

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

#151

Post by xxpor »

domano wrote: post #117

I see this happening regurarily and i have to say that it heavily depends on the native speakers nationality. Americans (at least if they don't speak some thick dialect) are easy to understand due to movies etc. Brits are ok enough, but some dialects get tricky. Irish and scottish usually are not understood by the absolute majority of participants. I pride myself in my ability to understand spoken english (relative t…

That's fascinating. I know there's a lot of variation in how "strong" Irish accents can be, but when listening to someone from Dublin, sometimes it takes me, as a native English speaker with a slight Philadelphia accent, multiple sentences to realize they're not American. The giveaway will usually be a word beginning with voiceless th, like "three", which most Irish people pronounce like "tree".

For example, the housing expert here: https://youtu.be/UwmxehOidaY?t=73

Edit: Ha, turns out that guy lived in LA until he was 11: http://www.karldeeter.com/about/

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

#152

Post by stan_rogers »

freeflight wrote: post #129
tomcooks wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? Which languages and in which contexts?

Gendered articles and honorifics come to mind, that's where for example German has more "details" that afaik don't really exist in a comparable version in English, like duzen vs siezen.

Articles themselves are relatively rare (though they're a European areal feature, to the extent that they're added into some languages that otherwise wouldn't have them). Gender is another thing that isn't universal at all - and where it does exist, is more likely to distinguish between, say, long pointy things, humans, and non-flesh food than between masculine and feminine.

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

#153

Post by stan_rogers »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #23
bogle wrote: post #18

You can learn how to be better understood as a native speaker without having to go abroad or even speak to a lot of people using English as a second language. In the UK, live in a city like Birmingham, for instance, with a strong local accent and even, in some parts like the Black Country, a unique syntax, e.g. "How am ya?". Now go live for a while in, for the sake of argument, Glasgow, with their own particular pato…

Even easier: pick up an introductory Greek or Latin textbook. I didn't know English grammar until I bought a Greek book and worked through it on my own.

Greek and/or Latin will get you to "schoolbook English" grammar... which was deliberately designed to make learning Greek and Latin easier, and has only a distant relationship to the actual grammar of English.

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

#154

Post by mbgerring »

I spent a semester in college in the Czech Republic with international students from all over Europe, all of whom spoke English. All the Americans learned to speak “European English” — slowed down, more verbose, without slang — because we were frequently told that we could not be understood otherwise. It became pronounced enough that people I would talk to back home would notice it. And for what it’s worth I couldn’t understand the students from the UK when they were speaking to each other either.

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

#156

Post by frosted-flakes »

robocat wrote: post #141
secondcoming wrote: post #80

Misused English words and expressions in EU publications [0] > Over the years, the European institutions have developed a vocabulary that differs from that of any recognised form of English. It includes words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers outside the EU institutions and often even to standard spellcheckers/grammar checkers (‘planification’, ‘to precise’ or ‘telematics’ for exa…

Interesting - similar to many institutions of course. Bovine, Ovine, Caprine, Porcine and Asinine animals Comitology, Decommitted, Negative evolution Unfortunately the list seems to concentrate on British English usage - for example “Hierarchical superior” makes perfect sense to me. There are some very surprising examples of EU English where I would read the exact opposite meaning (however New Zealand English is my m…

It's a lingua franca.

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

#158

Post by syrrim »

mbgerring wrote: post #154

I spent a semester in college in the Czech Republic with international students from all over Europe, all of whom spoke English. All the Americans learned to speak “European English” — slowed down, more verbose, without slang — because we were frequently told that we could not be understood otherwise. It became pronounced enough that people I would talk to back home would notice it. And for what it’s worth I couldn’t…

I was on the bus on time, a cute family was ahead of me, speaking some incomprehensible babble. "I wonder what part of scandinavia they're from", thought I. Then the father turns to me and asks some pleasantry with his british accent. I think those types recognize the degree to which they're dialect can't be broadly understood, and tune it appropriately. Perhaps americans are less aware of the need because accents are locally much more homogeneous.

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

#159

Post by Iv »

markdown wrote: post #142
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,…

A: "Should I launch the nukes?" B: "Fuck no" A: *Initiates launch*

Laugh, but talking with Japanese, something that often happens is:

A: "Shouldn't I launch the nukes?"

B: "No."

Can be understood as "yes, do it" because they are used to an opposite logic when answering negation. "Yes" means "I agree with the negation" and no the opposite.

And they seem to have a hard time accepting that the logic is different in English.

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

#160

Post by HKH2 »

bsder wrote: post #144
teekert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever spoken to a French person while imitating their accent and found that they understand you much better?

Have you ever spoken to a Glaswegian while imitating their accent and found that they understand you better? I was really worried that people would think I was making fun of them, but, in reality, they just thought that my horrible American accent had gotten a little bit better. :)

I think enjoying parroting is one of the keys of getting good at pronunciation in a second language as an adult. If you smile while doing so it'll probably help the conversation along too.
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