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Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

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Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#211

Post by MispelledToyota »

rocknor wrote: post #183
MispelledToyota wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that would be a fine thing to say. Seems like everything is fine.

No it's not. My point is that "do the needful" is not a proper representation of Indian English, as the parent comment implied. There are a lot more pecularities that makes the dialect what it is, but people are just not aware of them (yet). A quick google search will tell you that.

"Howdy" seems like a successful synechdoche for American dialect to me. Seems like what makes something a proper representation is somewhat personal.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#212

Post by crispyambulance »

mwcampbell wrote: post #31

As a midwestern white American, I've certainly had prejudices based on people's accents, and I've probably misjudged whether someone was a "native" speaker. Having read this article, I will renew my efforts to fight those ugly prejudices. For a few years now, I've thought that the ideal work environment for encouraging diversity and inclusion would be an all-remote team that used only written communication, preferrin…

I find this preference hard to fathom. Sure, written communication is great for much of the workday but sometimes you need nuance and, short of spending hours wordsmithing the right tone, it's better to meet face to face (or by video is that isn't possible). I say this as an English speaker that is completely comfortable with written words.

Maybe part of the problem is AV equipment? Once place I worked we had MAJOR communication difficulties with understanding Indian and SE Asian folks over the speakerphone. It was a perfect storm of unfamiliar inflections, vowels not being differentiated from each other strongly enough, consonants getting screwed up and rapid speech.

Really good headsets on both ears and repeated exposure seemed to resolve the discomfort and dread for many folks. I always wondered if there were similar complaints on the Asian side, I never heard anything about it. Do they find British/American accents hard to understand? I don't know.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#213

Post by andrewzah »

silicon2401 wrote: post #47

This article seems to take an angle that any of this is unique to English. Are things any different for non-native speakers growing up in India, China, Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc?

No. I had similar experiences when learning Korean in Korea.

There is a trend by native English speakers to bash english, and treat it like no other language can have any of these issues.

The only major difference is noted in the other response; English has a lot of different dialects. Korean has Standard Korean that everyone learns now, and unofficial regional dialects. With English you have people randomly learning American English, UK English, Indian English, etc, which all have various differences in vocabulary, idioms, grammar, etc.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#214

Post by dasyatidprime »

brk wrote: post #79

I think some of the confusion is that "pone" is not a root word or term. So, the opposite of postpone is not prepone, in the same way that prepartum is the opposite of postpartum.

It shows up rarely in that form in "standard" English, but the related morpheme "-ponent" shows up more often: component (put+together), exponent (put+out), proponent (put+forth). And then the "-pose" variants come from the same Latin root but modified via French: compose, expose, propose.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#215

Post by ghastmaster »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #180
benrbray wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got beat up a lot too As someone born in the 90s I'm always shocked to hear about how culturally accepted it was for children to be physically abused at school in my parents' generation. People talk about getting beaten up at school like it was nothing, like they deserved it for talking funny or liking comic books. It's so normal that the children's shows I grew up with on Nickelodeon / Cartoon Network / etc all…

Uh, it's arguably worse than ever today. It just doesn't happen on the playground anymore. I contend the situation was better when it was out in the open and not on handheld devices.

I much rather would have the regret of mocking and ridiculing scrawny Billy in 2nd grade online than the regret of physically kicking him while he was on the ground crying.

I think he would as well. There are different levels of abuse in the physical world and the virtual world. Comparing the worst form of online abuse to the least physical abuse would likely prove you correct. The opposite is true of the worst physical abuse vs. the least virtual abuse.

Virtual abuse is a somewhat new phenomenon only in that it is much more prolific. Prior to the internet, we had telephones, telegraph, pen & paper, and others. Abuse was common in these mediums and still is today. Because of the cheap, instantaneous, and inherently anonymous nature of the internet being quite new, I expect it will take a couple generations for society to create customs and norms that are more consistent with our physical world customs and norms.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#216

Post by bdefore »

david422 wrote: post #75

Reminds me of that scene from Die Hard where the non-native German speaker says "feels like it's gonna rain like, dogs and cats" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yQbpoQ0hY Something so subtle that a "native" - or maybe it would just be American? - speaker would never say.

As a native speaker, I don't remember anyone teaching me the rules of adjective order but I have internalized them and definitely notice when someone violates my expectations. I rarely witness a native speaker do so. https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/order_of_adjectives....

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#217

Post by StavrosK »

tcgv wrote: post #94
chris_j wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (native English speaker) have noticed this a lot. The example that I remember most vividly is receiving advice while trying to cook food on a barbecue: A Portuguese speaking friend suggested that I "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue". It make perfect sense but sounded incredibly fancy to me. A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education.

That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: > "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue" That would be really formal over here too, the kind of wording that I'd expect in a grilling manual explaining how to use it, but not at a barbecue. I can relate because sometimes I find myself speaking like that when talking to english counterp…

I'm Greek, and "periphery" sounds fancy here too :P We'd just say "to the edge".

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#218

Post by goatcode »

1. English is made up of several languages;

2. "Language changes" pretty much equates to people making mistakes, and those mistakes becoming part of the language. Since English has spread over so much of the world, in addition to it not having a central authority that is looked to for its structure (as does French), many mistakes have come in, and made the language weird. This overlaps a bit with (1).

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#219

Post by ORioN63 »

chris_j wrote: post #154
tcgv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: > "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue" That would be really formal over here too, the kind of wording that I'd expect in a grilling manual explaining how to use it, but not at a barbecue. I can relate because sometimes I find myself speaking like that when talking to english counterp…

> That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: The chap in question was from Portugal. If I understand correctly from your website, you're from Brazil, right? Is there any difference between how that word would be used in Brazilian vs European Portuguese?

I'm from Portugal. I'm not aware of any difference regarding that word in particular, but tbh I wouldn't know. I'm always surprised with some of the differences I find from time to time.

I can tell you though, that using the word "periferia" is actually common in some place (although a bit rare in most). It's mostly used as a synonym for 'around the borders'.

The example you've mentioned: "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue", actually seems perfectly fine. It seems a little bit over-detailed, I guess that a bit context-dependent but I wouldn't bat an eye to the equivalent of "move them to the periphery".

From what I recall 'periferia' is also commonly used in TV news.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#220

Post by gadders »

meepmorp wrote: post #65
heurisko wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And there are dialects that are pretty much incomprehensible to people who grew up in the mainstream dialect (true of many other languages as well) I think there are differences in accent, but I don't recognise anywhere as being "pretty much incomprehensible". I speak "standard" German as a foreigner, and have definitely found dialects that are "pretty much incomprehensible". I haven't found differences to such a d…

> I haven't found such differences in English. Find yourself a native Glaswegian to chat with, and see if you still feel the same way.

I had it happen to me with a taxi driver in Newcastle.
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