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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

#371

Post by kayodelycaon »

InfiniteRand wrote: post #148

It’s interesting when a phrase has slightly different meanings between cultures. For instance, I have seen several Indians use “too many” to mean “a lot”, Americans use “too many” to mean a lot sometimes but there is a negative connotation for Americans where “too many” means “a lot and there should be less.” Usually this difference is small enough that it doesn’t matter but there are cases like an Indian saying, “th…

> American hearing that might interpret it

I think most Americans would interpret it this way given it plays directly into the stereotype of "All Indians/Asians Are Incredibly Racist/Sexist."

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#372

Post by kelnos »

ORioN63 wrote: post #219
chris_j wrote: post #154

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: 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 per…

In case it wasn't clear (I don't think anyone has mentioned this, but maybe I missed it), it's not that "periphery" is overly-detailed, it's just an overly-formal, uncommon word. I think the more common phrase would be "move the burgers to the side of the barbecue". "Edge" might also be used too, which is probably a little clearer.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#373

Post by mrec »

pmoriarty wrote: post #230
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.

"A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education." There's the opposite problem, too, where people with poor educations will try to use fancy words to impress people (but often wind up just sounding pretentious). One of my pet peeves is hearing people using the word "utilize". Just say "use"! It sounds far less pretentious and means the exact same thing. I…

> I try to use a five cent word when even a five dollar word would do

"Short words are best, and old words when short are best of all." -- Winston Churchill

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#374

Post by WalterBright »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #368

My girlfriend recently enrolled in a university and one of the requirements was a certificate from one of the official places (TOEFL etc., I forget the rest). They exist just to leech money off non-native speakers. Anyone can pass an exam as long as they go to the right place and pay the fee, and besides, why do you need a long written and spoken test to test people's English? Someone's level of English is immediatel…

> How would someone live in the damn country for 20 years as a teacher and not be able to speak the language?

By lying on their resume. That's why people ask questions like that, to uncover frauds.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#375

Post by dsr_ »

kadoban wrote: post #347
trashtester wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that also applies to someone from the Hebrides. I used to have a supervisor from there, and even his English coleagues often had problem to understand his dialect.... Or is "British" still an euphemism for "English"?

I think in this exact usage it's a euphemism for some kind of specific London accent that I don't actually know the name for.

RP, Received Pronounciation.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#376

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

cecilpl2 wrote: post #170

My favorite example of one of the difficulties of learning English comes from my friend who's an adult ESL teacher. Multiple adjectives always have to be in the order: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose. You can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife, or a beautiful big new oval blue nylon sleeping bag. Those sound completely natural and intuitive, but any tw…

That word order this is not a hard and fast rule doesn't stick out at all if it's shifted.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#377

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

shayanbahal wrote: post #181

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...

You can ignore preferred pronouns until someone tells but even then it doesn't matter. It didn't affect the language at all.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#378

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

finnthehuman wrote: post #203
shayanbahal wrote: post #181

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...

>I'm having hard time to understand how to talk amongst strangers (people whom I'm not familiar with their preferred pronouns) If you're ever worried about how you'll be perceived in these kinds of scenarios, just make sure you're speaking with enough of an accent to communicates English is not your first language. The people who would otherwise be offended will not recognize you a target of the current cultural tens…

And then they'll be offended that you are a bigger minority than them

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#379

Post by darth_avocado »

It is great that this is being addressed. I think English is a language which has been evolving over time. Especially in the colonial era, the language spread and a different branch of English emerged. A lot of words from English became mainstream in local languages and a lot of words from local languages made it back to English.

However, the dark underbelly of this phenomenon is that there are some serious racist undertones that come with this. Some words are "proper English" because it came from specific parts of the world, meanwhile similar words from other places are "Wrong English".

Certain speakers have accents that are "beautiful" and rewarded even if they completely butcher the language, it is completely understandable and held in high regard. Meanwhile others are considered "funny" or "stupid" and the speaker's intelligence gets questioned because of the accent.

As a non native speaker, I've had so many experiences where my intelligence is insulted and get shut down, because of my accent. Meanwhile the French guy next door gets applauded for saying the same thing again and gets a promotion. Language politics is real and it has severe consequences.

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