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Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

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Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#61

Post by dqv »

> "The receptionist gave me a sheet and asked me to write down my complaint," she said. "I told her that I did not have any complaint, and she looked kind of irritated and then she insisted that I wrote down anything that I can think of."

I’m always surprised that people can’t rephrase their sentences when someone doesn’t understand. How hard is it to say “oh no, not that kind of complaint! I mean symptoms like coughing or sneezing or a headache”.

As to what is good English? Consistent pronunciation (that’s what Hansen teaches). Everything else is negotiable, but decoding an inconsistent accent is very difficult for anyone to understand. And it’s not specific to non-native speakers… plenty of native speakers don’t use consistent pronunciation and it’s sometimes difficult to decode what they’re saying.

Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#62

Post by scantron4 »

dmurray wrote: post #33
Google234 wrote: post #29

> "Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to Rodríguez's way of pronouncing the word. > "Nowadays," Rodríguez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed." It must be fun to be a member of a humanities department today. I imagine every…

Tangential, but I can't imagine how Rodriguez was pronouncing intervene that would sound odd to an American. The British pronunciation, with or without the r, seems extremely close to standard "good" US English. I can imagine US dialects where it's slurred into something more like "innavene" but the professor was hardly mocking him for not speaking like that.

I think he meant interview? And it was the word choice that was laughed at not the pronounciation.

Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#63

Post by mierz00 »

Google234 wrote: post #29

> "Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to Rodríguez's way of pronouncing the word. > "Nowadays," Rodríguez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed." It must be fun to be a member of a humanities department today. I imagine every…

That's an interesting take on the issue.

As someone who struggled in university in another language, I am glad that this is not acceptable behavior anymore.

For me, this is something deeply personal. It took me a long time to be comfortable speaking another language and I can only imagine how they felt in that moment.

This is a step in the right direction and you should be fighting to keep your job if you find this kind of behavior acceptable.

Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#64

Post by 1MachineElf »

dTal wrote: post #60
1MachineElf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art. - Friedrich Nietzsche

In this quote, what is meant by "respect through imitation" - imitating, or being imitated?

imitating

Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#65

Post by ED_Radish »

code-anth wrote: post #49

Sometimes people can even feel embarrassed by their own/native language in a context where English is dominant, such as tech. I wrote about that feeling here: http://code-anth.xyz/posts

I have a kinda weird perspective on this seeing as I'm natively bilingual. At least for me seeing code in English feels fine while seeing code in my other native language would likely be a bit odd (at least theoretically, I don't think I've ever actually seen any code in it).

I feel like this phenomenon sorta extends past code in a way too, I would also find it a bit weird seeing information on my other hobbies that's not in English.

Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#66

Post by euroderf »

Mike8435234 wrote: post #15
metters wrote: post #6

Sadly I also experienced a native (Canadian iirc) speaker mocking me for my pronunciation of 'power'. Indeed, I used heavy German accent on that specific situation, because I was excited at that moment. It shocked me quite a bit and I didn't know what to do back then. Now I can laugh it off - English was my first foreign language but only one of three in total back then. And it must have sound funny (like Arnold Schw…

Many of us associate the accent exclusively with Arnold. LOL. Don't take it too personally. We like Arnolds accent and to us it sounds like all Germans are impersonating Arnold.

Similarly... at first it sounds like all Icelanders speaking English are impersonating Björk. But it's just the Icelandic accent.

Re: Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

#67

Post by code-anth »

ED_Radish wrote: post #65
code-anth wrote: post #49

Sometimes people can even feel embarrassed by their own/native language in a context where English is dominant, such as tech. I wrote about that feeling here: http://code-anth.xyz/posts

I have a kinda weird perspective on this seeing as I'm natively bilingual. At least for me seeing code in English feels fine while seeing code in my other native language would likely be a bit odd (at least theoretically, I don't think I've ever actually seen any code in it). I feel like this phenomenon sorta extends past code in a way too, I would also find it a bit weird seeing information on my other hobbies that'…

That's interesting. Curious to know what you thought of the post.
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