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I’m a British native that works almost entirely with people with English as their second language, mostly remotely. To be effective you need to adapt your langu
by albertgoeswoof 8y ago
I’m a British native that works almost entirely with people with English as their second language, mostly remotely. To be effective you need to adapt your language and accent to fit the global English style, and adapt to individual dialects on a country by country basis. It seems a little counter intuitive, but English is genuinely a global language and not owned by the English anymore, so it’s important to adapt to fit that if you want to be understood.
- Koshkin 8y ago> global English style I am afraid there's no such thing.
- ralusek 8y agoHollywood, baby.
- type0 8y agoThere is such a thing called transatlantic pronunciation.
- tomjakubowski 8y agoIt is a good thing, then, that there is only one ocean, the Atlantic, across which English is spoken.
- bunderbunder 8y ago> the global English style What distinguishes the global English style? US native here, so perhaps I'm just failing to see past the absence of leftovers from Noah Webster's efforts to violently excise any evidence of French influence from the language, but, to me, Southern English English seems about right for that description.
- Pissompons 8y ago> What distinguishes the global English style? I'd say that it's basically just the lowest common denominator of English. Imagine an English where any accent is acceptable as long as you're consistent and any regional vocabulary is okay so long as it's well known (e.g. either "torch" or "flashlight" is okay, "soda" is okay but "pop" is not). You then have "global" English.
- umanwizard 8y agoI’m American and I certainly don’t think “torch” to mean flashlight is well-known. The overwhelming majority of people in the US would not understand it.
- oh-kumudo 8y agoTolerance towards misuse of tense/plural, would be my guess. For example, oral Chinese doesn't distinguish between He/She/It, so we often mis{gender} people during conversation, though under the right context, it is clear what actual meaning is thus isn't really blocking effective conversation, but is not correct either.
- geomark 8y agoIn my mind, global English style = how they speak English on the nightly news.