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As a native English speaker who has never learned another language beyond high school Spanish, I often feel sympathy for the plight of those who are forced to l
by danjayh 11y ago
As a native English speaker who has never learned another language beyond high school Spanish, I often feel sympathy for the plight of those who are forced to learn English later in life. I see many native English speakers with a tenuous grasp on the language, and from that and anecdotal evidence I know that it's a hard language. I remember how difficult Spanish, ostensibly an 'easy' language, was for me to learn. I'm glad I'm not in a position where I need to learn English late in life, and I'm sorry for what we've done to you, world :).
- beat 11y agoThe one that baffles me is how Chinese speakers (and other tone-language speakers) ever learn to speak and understand spoken English effectively. In English, tones (changes in pitch) are used to imply emotional shadings like sarcasm and surprise. In Chinese, tones are actually different words. It's hard for an English speaker to learn to pronounce tonal langauges (I did one year of Chinese, and my wife has a master's degree in it), but I'm amazed that Chinese people ever wrap their heads around all the unspoken, untaught meaning hidden in spoken English.
- lstamour 11y agoIf the anime I've been watching for almost a decade has taught me anything, it's that for Japanese at least, the clues behind sarcasm there and in English aren't quite that dissimilar. Tone of voice can still be used, you just have to be a bit more careful about it. Sometimes it just comes down to accent or word choice. After Googling, the consensus seems to be that sarcasm really comes down to the shared context in the conversation. If it's obvious and you both get the joke, the sarcasm worked. It's just as easy to miss sarcastic comments in English -- as not everyone says it with the same verbal emphasis. And of course, we can always understand sarcasm online. </sarcasm> (Okay, that was a poor joke... moving on...)