181–190 of 576 posts
[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderles...
I'm a native English speaker who's lived in other countries a lot and speaks three languages, now trying to learn a fourth. The weirdness of "English" is something I think about often. For starters, you have to live in it before you can really speak it. And our spelling is the least rational, least consistent thing I've ever seen. In addition to the weird way we spell a lot of things, many of the sounds are not prono…
What languages do you speak? I speak Spanish and have been learning Polish for a few years because my wife's family immigrated from there, and many are still in Poland, with some only speaking Polish... can't have the in-laws talking trash without me knowing :) Spanish is generally straightforward and consistent, though the huge number of dialects can be a challenge for practical communication. Polish is a goddamn ni…
Thai has refreshingly simple grammar but pronunciation is really hard for Westerners as is comprehension, and the writing system is, um, rich in complexity. Most Western expats simply give up, I hope I will not.
I have heard Polish is pretty difficult. Native Polish speakers, much like Hungarians, take great pride in the difficulty of their language.
AFAICT from spending a lot of time hanging around with natives and learning a few simple sentences, Spanish and Serbian are both pretty "easy" at least up front. I have plans to spend more time in the Canary Islands so I will have to learn some basic Spanish and I do hope it's as easy as it seems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then you need to learn more about it, Indian English is more than just that one phrase. That's like saying, "if there is one phrase that, to me, defines American English, I think it would be "Howdy".
that would be a fine thing to say. Seems like everything is fine.
As a non-native speaker, one fascinating phenomenon for me is the flip side to Uncleftish Beholding[1]. Many latinate words are considered more sophisticated, or fancier in general, than germanic words. Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough,…
Haven’t had a chance to try it with folk whose first tongue is a Germanic tongue because they all speak really good English, but if I came across someone who didn’t have great English I’d probably use more Germanic words.
I find this subconscious perception of speech with more Latin-origin words interesting though. Something about Germanic words just feels more earthy and real, Latin-origin words feel quite flowery and sort of hard to pin down.
As a non-native speaker, one fascinating phenomenon for me is the flip side to Uncleftish Beholding[1]. Many latinate words are considered more sophisticated, or fancier in general, than germanic words. Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough,…
Language is a living protocol that you can only learn by listening people use it and using it yourself constantly. Whether a made up word makes sense syntactically and grammatically doesn't matter. In fact whether it's in a dictionary also doesn't matter. What matters is being understood. So you need to use words people know. Sometimes you're in a position to make up a new word, when you need to. Talking to students about when their exam is... is not one of those situations.
And a heavy accent literally corrupts your communication. On top of making it hard to understand what words you say, your intonation becomes completely unintelligible, because you're speaking English, but intonating in another language. You're literally not speaking entirely in English. Strong Indian accent is especially infuriating for this, I find it very hard to listen to and understand.
And by the way, made-up words and strong accents are ESPECIALLY annoying to OTHER non-native English speakers, because we have an extra hard time parsing this on top of understanding a non-native language already.
I should know, I'm a Bulgarian, so... (I have slight accent).
I'm a native English speaker who's lived in other countries a lot and speaks three languages, now trying to learn a fourth. The weirdness of "English" is something I think about often. For starters, you have to live in it before you can really speak it. And our spelling is the least rational, least consistent thing I've ever seen. In addition to the weird way we spell a lot of things, many of the sounds are not prono…
You say the spelling is irrational, I challenge you to find reason in the Chinese spelling, and the French one is full of traps due to our insane obsession with keeping our Latin root intact in spelling but not in verbal French.
The genders make little sense in French, serve little purpose but constitute an immense barrier to a new learner. My wife will never, in her entire life, remember a table is a girl but a bridge is a boy. Because of that, she'll always sound like an idiot. My daughter might, but she hates French already and is incredible in English.
Cantonese, or any Chinese variant, has large issues with temporality while English finds the right balance between having several tenses but not the idiotic amount French would have.
I don't know, coming from a romance and an asian experience, English really is a good language you should be proud of. The pronunciation, sure, I'll always sound French, but that's a small problem compared to the vast advantage learning to read it provided me around 16 yo. Learn French at 16 yo and see if you move from the countryside of Normandy to an IB in Hong Kong thanks to it :D
As a non-native speaker, and coming from "genderless languages"[1], Persian, it took me quite some time to get used to gender based pronouns. With the new pronoun restructure in the English language in north America, I'm having hard time to understand how to talk amongst strangers (people whom I'm not familiar with their preferred pronouns) . [1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderles...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a funny example to use, since you can move up a date, but nobody talks about moving down a date. Same problem in the opposite direction. "We're moving up the launch" is common, but never heard anyone say "we're moving down the launch", even though delays are common. The issue with "prepone" is that "pone" isn't really used as a world. A quick googling shows that it is a word, but in regular speech it's not use…
Rather than 'up and down', I think the visual is supposed to be 'up and back' (like forward and backward). English is fun
There is such a thing as Indian English, maybe not officially but it certainly exists and it does differ from British and American English. As a matter of fact, if you look up prepone in Wiktionary "prepone" is mentioned as being used in India, so it's not that weird that the teacher in the article used it. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prepone
If Wikipedia is to be believed [0], India ranks third in the list of countries ranked by number of English speakers and it's only fair to regard Indian English as a form of the language that is at least as valid as those from other countries. Having said that, one of the things that you have to learn when you start speaking with English speakers from around the world is to recognise which of the words in your vocabul…