3 ms·
I kind of agree; it annoys me to meet people who emigrated and after years still speak with a thick accent and make strong grammar mistakes. I'm brazillian, and
by alextp 16y ago
I kind of agree; it annoys me to meet people who emigrated and after years still speak with a thick accent and make strong grammar mistakes. I'm brazillian, and I observe this phenomenon both with foreign people in brazil (who apparently refuse to learn some vowels and gendered nouns) and brazillians who emigrate to english-speaking countries and still have crappy english.
I wonder why this is, though. First time I went to london (I was young) I was shocked that I, just out of movies and internet and some classes, spoke a better english than most working people I met in the streets who seemed to have emigrated there years ago.
- stcredzero 16y agoSone people are just better at some things than others. I know some "musicians" who can't play a steady rhythm even after years. It's also connected with exposure as a child. (Works both for music and language.) It's less common for someone to achieve the high fluency level of a native speaker starting as an adult.
- nick_dm 16y agoIt doesn't surprise me that learning from movies and the internet would make you more proficient than someone who learnt by living in the UK. When people are forced to speak a language that they do not know well they often end up reinforcing bad habits. Once someone has developed bad pronunciation or inadvertently trained themselves to ignore certain grammatical features it takes a lot of effort to correct the habits. Of course a committed learner can offset this to some degree, but most immigrants aren't willing to put in the effort and are only partially aware of the mistakes they are making. After three years they then speak in much the same way as they did after six months, but with a larger vocabulary.