Esperantists have been pointing this out for over a century now. As others have noted, this isn't just a problem with English, but the choice of any national language as a lingua franca. If we choose Esperanto instead of English as our language for international communication, we are all second-language learners, and no one has the advantage of being the native speaker. Plus, since Esperanto has so few idioms, we'll all be better understood.
Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
231–240 of 261 posts
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
(not op) well, we Germans are very direct. So we would write something like "Can you give me the coordinates? Thanks in advance." whereas a Brit would like it if it was written as "I would very much like to get the coordinates from you. Can you direct them to me? Thank you very much. Much appreciated." (well, my impersonation of a Brit is not the best since I am too German in this respect)
I'm not convinced by that example: I am British and would use exactly the same phrasing as your first example; the "thanks in advance" takes the edge off it perfectly well. The second example is like a bad impression of a subservient butler or something !
yeah, actually it took me a while to get to that point, with the "thanks in advance" :)
I think generally my argument holds true (at least a little bit, but it probably also has a lot to do with not being familiar enough with the foreign language) but as with the example in the OP what's even truer is that emails can VERY easily be misunderstood as being unfriendly no matter the language. Which is why it's very important to use more social ways of communicating, e.g. telephone once in a while (and especially with delicate matters).
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#233The same happens in other languages, of course to a lesser degree.
I now know how to speak in very standard and slang free Spanish, very different to the Spanish I use with friends.
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, of course, but it's an article for English language speakers published by the BBC, so it's written in terms of English being the native language. Perhaps there's an analogous article written in some Spanish publication for Spanish speakers. In any case, English is the most popular second-language in 55 countries, so it's not a bad guess to write this article in terms of English.
So the HN title has been changed, but the original article specifically calls out Native English speakers as "the world's worst communicators". The author could have couched the entire article from the point of view that a native speaker is difficult for non-native speakers to understand. I was simply pointing out that the article points an accusing finger at a particular group, when the issue at hand isn't a particu…
Both things can perfectly be true. I see no contradiction here.
It is just a matter of native nuances being difficult to understand for non-natives of any language...
And also the fact that English is the language most used for international meetings anywhere in the world.
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#235I 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.
The provocative title is surely one, if not the main reason, the article is here in HN, and not utterly ignored in a sea of other articles with effective and clear titles.
Clickbait exists, because we react to it.
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. Parent was attempting a weird joke, which failed badly.
I don't get the joke. It seemed somewhat plausible or serious to me because "ultimate" is slang for "really cool" in India. (At least it was when I was growing up; who knows what the cool kids there say these days.) But I was puzzled because I've spent the majority of my adult life in North America, and never heard "penultimate" used that way.
I was wrong. Apparently it is slang, in some places at least:
> The word penultimate as a slang word seems to have worked its way into common parlance thanks to the slang use of the word ultimate. As a slang term, ultimate means cool rather than last. So the hipster logic may have concluded that if ultimate means cool, then penultimate must mean super cool.
https://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/podcasts/grammar_gra...
I assumed the parent was making a joke that something like this would be the case. Turns out it really is. "Never underestimate the stupidity of..."
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#237Misused 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…
Ireland is still a member state. Plus, they'd have to decide on another common language. Would they rather it be German?
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
>but real misunderstandings caused by different understandings of what seems to be a set of perfectly obvious sentences to both sides. Yes. Especially true when it happens between an American and a Brit. Also true between Germans and Brits, when the Germans are so good with their English, the precision with their wordings which tends to trigger some Brits.
Do you have an example/anecdote for the last part? Not sure I know what you mean.
there's many info graphic variations rattling around the internet: what the brits say, what they mean and what everyone else understands. As a Brit in Germany it really helped bring to the front that I was not being as clear as I could be in a country that values directness.
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an ambiguous question in native English too and could only be fully, precisely understood from context. While I would interpret the sentence from only the context you provided in the way that you describe, I would characterize the question as unclear. A military chain of command would definitely phrase the question more like "Mr. President, can you confirm you are giving us the order to launch the nukes? Pleas…
French and German, at least, have handy words ( si and doch respectively) that just serve to contradict a negative question.
I think doch and ihr (plural you) really need to be in English. I sometimes use yous for ihr, but unfortunately no equivalent for doch yet.
Re: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation
#240I work with teams across the globe and I can say this has been true in my experience. The experience of communicating with others for whom English is not only a second language, but a lingua franca used to communicate across other language boundaries, is distinctly not one where I am the advantaged communicator, because I am the less versed speaker of the lingua franca version of the dialect. (Imagine switching from…
I work in a multinational company in a non English speaking country, and we use English officially. I'm not trying to be snobby when I say the English we speak is different from what I would speak in UK, and I've found myself adapting to the special grammar that we use. I've come to the conclusion that there are many equally valid "Englishes", e.g. American, Aussie, Indian, south African etc and being snooty because their particular grammatical styles or pronunciations don't match the ones you grew up with just makes you a prick. Lots of my compatriots still do though.