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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

#431

Post by FabHK »

crazygringo wrote: post #415

> But this scenario doesn't fit with Serrano's experiences of English, where nonnative English speakers who learned the language in a classroom are often more educated on grammar rules and complex technical terms than American native speakers. In my experience as an EFL teacher living abroad in multiple countries... this is not even remotely accurate. English students across the world are often "taught" a ton of nons…

It is not so much about English and Americans, but about learning a first language as a child versus learning a second language later in life. Learning a second language usually involves learning the grammar, and explicitly learning the rules that native speakers "just know".

I think it is quite plausible that, for any language, speakers that learned it as a second language will know the grammar and grammatical terms better than most native speakers (particularly monoglot ones).

Since you provided many examples, I will also give a few:

An astounding number of people overcorrect to "It was a present for my wife and I" or so, having trouble with the few remnants of cases (nominative, accusative, genitive) English still has. Similarly, many native speaker seem incapable to identify the much maligned "passive voice". Or, ask a native speaker under what circumstances you'd use the past perfect continuous.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#432

Post by xxpor »

qart wrote: post #360
xxpor wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that Indian English exists almost entirely as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) language, so it'll never sound as natural. It's not the language of the street or the discourse.

> The difference is that Indian English exists almost entirely as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) language A huge number of kids in India learn English as their first and only language. Especially kids born in cities, whose parents' linguistic backgrounds differ. > it'll never sound as natural It already sounds perfectly natural to everyone here. > It's not the language of the street or the discourse. Wrong. India is not homog…

>A huge number of kids in India learn English as their first and only language

"The 2011 Census showed English is the primary language—mother tongue—of 256,000 people, the second language of 83 million people, and the third language of another 46 million people, making it the second-most widely spoken language after Hindi"

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/in-india-who-speaks-in-e...

256K is not a huge amount. Even if that's up to 1.256 million in the last 10 years, that's nothing compared to the size of India.

>It already sounds perfectly natural to everyone here

It doesn't to anyone outside of the subcontinent. This could also possibly be explained by the complete lack of English language Indian media outside of India, in the US particularly. We get UK, Canadian, and sometimes even Australian and NZ programming in the US. Why no Indian?

>Wrong. India is not homogeneous like that. In Bangalore, an Indian walking into a shoe shop on Brigade Road will get addressed by the shopkeeper in English. Or an Indian visiting a pub in Koramangala, also gets addressed by the waiter in English.

I'm well aware. However, when a bunch of Kannada speakers are hanging out at a cafe, would they be speaking English? Of course not. English is a lingua franca, not the preferred option if there's a shared mother tongue.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#433

Post by korethr »

On that first example, "prepone" might not officially be a word, yet, but I encourage them to keep at it. Its construction follows the same structure as its intended antonym, even back to the etymology of "postpone". Unlike some of my English teachers in elementary school, the lexicographers at Oxford are not a bunch of solely prescriptivist assholes. Get the word into common enough usage that there are multiple sources for the editors of the OED to cite, and you just might get "prepone" added to the next edition. The story about an argument with Tolkien over the correct spelling of the plural of "dwarf" notwithstanding, I think included-in-the-Oxford is a standard few can argue with for an English word being officially real.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#434

Post by BrandoElFollito »

crazygringo wrote: post #415

> But this scenario doesn't fit with Serrano's experiences of English, where nonnative English speakers who learned the language in a classroom are often more educated on grammar rules and complex technical terms than American native speakers. In my experience as an EFL teacher living abroad in multiple countries... this is not even remotely accurate. English students across the world are often "taught" a ton of nons…

Isn't "I have a doubt" a way to say that you are not sure? Not that you do not understand it know, but that, well, you doubt.

Like in "homeopathy is backed by science" to what someone would understandably say "I have a doubt" (in a mocking way in that case)

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#435

Post by WillSlim95 »

user05202021 wrote: post #380

>I happen to grow up in a corner of India where languages and dialects differ every quarter-mile. So, English happened to be the common thread. Hindi should be that common thread instead.

If in North India that is the common thread, not the case for rest of India.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#436

Post by WillSlim95 »

Causality1 wrote: post #172

"I grew up with three languages, as my parents did not share the same 'mother tongue' " Madani says. "And, in any case, how would this manager know what language I grew up with? The careful omission of a statement whether English was one of those three languages leads me to believe it was not. The manager knew he didn't speak it from infancy because Madani spoke it fluently but without the style of a native speaker.…

Uh if parents did not share the same mother tongue in India, it is a very good possibilty that English is one of those three languages.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#437

Post by BrandoElFollito »

chris_j wrote: post #72
pdpi wrote: post #26

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,…

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.

It also depends on the kind of education.

I studied physics so moving the burgers to the periphery of the bbq is great. Precise, unambiguous and what not. Moving them to the side may mean so many things: one side (which one), how bug the side is. Heck, is that side still on the bbq?

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#439

Post by BrandoElFollito »

hervature wrote: post #390
WalterBright wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A native English speaker would never have said that English has its barbarian roots overlaid with French words from the Norman conquest of England. The French aristocracy moved in and took over. The modern result of that is the "English" words of French origin are tells of upper class origins. Americans use that, consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes it's referred to as "coded speech". For example, someone from u…

Very interesting. The connection to French is not immediately obvious as both "purchase" and "buy" would translate to "achat". However, "por chase" in French is "for the chase/hunt" which begins to resemble some definition of "purchase".

In which French did you find "por chase”? (this is not aggressive, I am french and this does not mean anything but it may be a dialect or some as ancient French?)

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#440

Post by xdennis »

bradrn wrote: post #202
jakub_g wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a famous picture for that: https://9gag.com/gag/arOAPm6 Basically in Polish (and other Slavic languages) you take several concepts that are separate fixed words / grammar orders in English, and you meld them together with prefixes and postfixes to form a super-word that contains all information: (I/you/he/she/it/we/you/they) x (future/now/past) x (surely/maybe) x (finished/unfished) x (statement/question) x…

It always amazes me somewhat when people talk of languages like Polish as having complex words, because Indo–European languages generally have pretty simple words compared to most languages outside Europe. Consider, for example, the average word from Yimas: planmaawkurampikacakapimpitɨprak ‘he got those two and hid them and lay them down inside’ Or Wichita: kiya꞉kíriwa꞉cʔárasarikitaʔahí꞉riks ‘by making many trips, he…

My favourite word is in Nuxalk: clhp'xwlhtlhplhhskwts' . It has no vowels and it's pronounced [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]. You can here it here[1]. It means "he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant".

[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/x%C5%82p%CC%93x%CC%A3%CA%B7%C...

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