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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

#511

Post by mumblemumble »

saltcured wrote: post #491
kadoban wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any antenna that's parabolic in shape that isn't designed/used to communicate with a satellite is just called a satellite dish is common usage, but technically really shouldn't be.

It's funny, I can't recall every hearing anybody say "satellite dish" for a terrestrial antenna in my years in metro and suburban California. I've heard "reflector dish", "dish antenna", "microwave dish", or "directional antenna" (which could also apply to YAGI and other non-dish structures). I wonder if it is regional or has other socioeconomic factors? Actual satellite dishes weren't common structures when I was gr…

Probably? One of the subtexts of this article and the ensuing conversation is that English has an absolutely mind-smashing amount of variability in usage.

In my general area, just a few hundred kilometers separates two groups of people who are frequently confused by each others' usage of the word "party store." Expanding a hyponym's meaning to encompass that of its hypernym is so common that I'm not even sure it requires special explanation. I've got some family members whose favorite kind of coke is Pepsi.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#512

Post by ncpa-cpl »

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…

I had to take an English 101 class again a couple of years ago because otherwise I would have had to pay for some extra bureaucracy to skip the class.

I remember getting answers wrong on some tests like:

a) How is 12:45 pm read? I said "twelve forty five pm" but the only valid answer was "a quarter to one"

b) What is the ethnicity of Laos? Which may be Lao or Laotian depending on who you ask. The teacher only accepted Laotian.

c) On one test he also insisted that NK and SK were "one country" and also had that answer marked as wrong. Which may or may not be depending on who you ask.

I tried to appeal some of those answers in the tests but it only annoyed the teacher.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#513

Post by scrubs »

Native speaker: repetitious usage of stock phrases by other native speakers has begun to bug me recently. Some examples:

* Listening to market business analysis one will often hear "And this way the customer tries to gauge the value of THAT bag/watch/car..." where the word 'that' is emphasized with an almost implicit nod in the direction of the object. It's not so much grammar usage (which v. that). Rather it's a cloyingly emotional hustle (as I see) it to both magnify, mystify, and focus on the object in question.

* "... That said ... " / "...that being said..." appears often in writing, and even HN.

* Listen to any pitch in the software world. See if you can get through one without hearing any of these words or phrases: "... experience ...", 'actually' as in " ... Now press OK and it actually [does XYZ which was the whole point anyway]"; or "All we wanted to do was simply [some in, in fact, quite complex task] ... so we set out to [save the world]". More abstractly modern marketing emotionally plays on the feelings of connectedness or family in an insincere way. If you know Absolutely Fabulous you might know the Patsy line: "Get your dry cleaning back and it's a revolution" ... you know because the dry cleaners are practically your close loving family looking out for your chores so you have time to save the world / be a teacher ... so now everything is practically either an act of magic or Old Testament level miracles.

* In verbal conversation the word "like" is used far too much

* Finally, I have a number of friends for whom Portuguese is their native language. I don't understand it. Still I have tried to listen carefully for the parallel in English when we say "ummm" or "ahhh" to buy time while we think of the next line or the "like" example to start a sentence ... or the rising intonation to make a statement, and not asking a question. For a great example of rising intonation: look for the Noon dieting TV commercial and listen for the African American Lady who's got a line: "It's amazing how the little things ...". By the time she's done she's talking quickly at high pitch. I don't hear this in Portuguese.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#514

Post by scrubs »

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…

See my post elsewhere ... I was pointing out there are three things I dislike in native English Speakers (I am one) that I have not yet detected with my Portuguese friends. Now, I can't understand it but I've asked about this and nothing was confirmed or denied:

- Stalling mid-talking with "ummm" or "ahh" while one thinks of more words to say

- Rising intonation to make a statement; usually rising intonation is for questions"

- Over reliance on works such as "like" ... which even now can be used to start a sentence as with: "like, I was going to the store the other day, and ..."

Portuguese is a beautiful language, and like French definitely unlike English, pronunciation of all the syllables is required. In that way it's a more athletic language. In English it's quite important enunciate the first and last syllables, while we compress or cram the middle ones.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#515

Post by ncpa-cpl »

shayanbahal wrote: post #250
3pt14159 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It totally blows my mind that there are languages without gendered pronouns. It's like someone saying "mother" and "father" were the same word (just "parent", no specialized words by gender) in a language. Translating from English to Persian must be tough, no? For example I did this test in Google Translate and it appeared to strip the second sentence of it's meaning, making the person that put the chicken in the ove…

Yes the second part of the sentence is mainly saying "that person", and doesn't indicate the gender. You may be surprised on how this ambiguity can be beneficial, specially in teenage years when talking about your "friend" will not reveal their gender :)

As a teenager I missed in English having a clear difference between girl friend and girlfriend or betweens boy friend and boyfriend.

Spanish has very different words for amigo/novio, or amiga/novia.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#516

Post by ncpa-cpl »

twic wrote: post #265
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...

There's a different, perhaps even worse, pitfall for people coming from gendered languages where the gender of a possessive pronoun agrees with the thing possessed rather than the person possessing. I have heard Spanish people say things like "I saw Joe Biden and her wife on television".

This happens because his/her/their are all "su" in Spanish.

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#517

Post by ncpa-cpl »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #95
_asummers wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yesterday morning" and "tomorrow morning" is my favorite example. Several previous Indian coworkers of mine would say "today morning", which always made me smile a bit. It's not an unreasonable phrase to exist, given the others do as well.

In German the word for morning and tomorrow is the same, "Morgen". But "tomorrow morning" becomes "Morgen früh" which is "tomorrow early" (or "early tomorrow" in English). "Morgen vormittags" ("tomorrow before noon") is also a variation.

That would be "Mañana en la mañana" in Spanish!

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#518

Post by robocat »

carlosf wrote: post #244
jrochkind1 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm assuming there is some cognate to "periphery" in portugese -- a portugese word that sounds very similar to that, becuase of shared Latin etymology. so it's not that that word isn't fancy in portugese too. It's that that word might come easier to a portugese (or other romance language) speaker, since it's a cognate, so they use it, and end up sounding fancy in English. An English speaker could do the same thing…

Exactly, periferia.

I notice I use some obscure words when speaking Spanish because there is a similar obscure word in English.

I even guess at words by taking what I think is an English word with a latin root, and converting it to Spanish, which sometimes works really well and at other times it doesn’t work quite so well at all!

Re: Nonnative English speakers share their gripes about speaking English

#519

Post by Teluser2 »

flemhans wrote: post #441
brk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is such a thing as Indian English If there is one phrase that, to me, defines Indian English, I think it would be "do the needful". For American English speakers, I think the first time you hear/see that, it is totally confusing and jarring in an odd way.

And sirs. So many sirs.

Another common usage Indian English speakers make is using singular with one of for example saying "one of my friend" instead of saying "one of my friends". Also using only in a way completely different from how a native speaker would use. For example, to a question: Is the answer wrong? They will reply: No, the answer is correct only to mean that the answer was correct. I am a first generation Indian myself.
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