3 ms·

People’s writing ability is really variable as well though. Here in Iceland you get some comically translated written stuff in English purely because everyone t

People’s writing ability is really variable as well though. Here in Iceland you get some comically translated written stuff in English purely because everyone thinks they know it well because they on the whole have a very high level of spoken English. That naturally holds true for native English speakers as well but probably with smaller variance.

mwcampbell 5y ago
Fair point. But, and I might be wrong here, I figure people can much more easily control their writing than their speech, especially if they're not expected to send an immediate written response (e.g. in chat). Perhaps my mental model of foreign accents is wrong, and forgive me if I'm being an ugly American here, but I've often thought of a foreign accent as a disability, as if the person had a stutter or other speech impediment.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  do you feel the same about a regional accent - I mean southerners in the US often feel discriminated against as their accent is used as a shorthand for many negative stereotypes. What regional accent do you have?
  - mwcampbell 5y ago
    My regional accent is midwestern (I'm from Kansas). I don't think I feel quite the same about regional accents, but of course, unconscious bias is a thing.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      I have some sort of accent (I moved to the U.S at 10 after living in Germany for 4 years, Denmark in 6), but when I am in America, most Americans (maybe 99.9999% of them) think I'm from the U.S - although generally from some other part of the U.S than the one they're from. I did have the experience of one guy thinking I was from Germany after 20 years in the U.S (hence the 99.+ percentile) but he was quite the outlier. However when Americans meet me in Europe they immediately identify me as having a non-American accent, which really messes with all my European friends since they think of me as being essentially American. So this disability thing seems quite context dependent.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  There’s plenty of accents amongst native speakers. The way you feel about other people’s speaking voices is very much on you and belies a lack of worldliness. It’s a big place and I’d recommend checking it out. You do seem conscious of that though but it’s not something I’d accept personally.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I think that is common, when someone needs to translate something into English you know they just hand it to an intern with Word. I see the evidence of it on every public sign and document here in Denmark, but also traveling around in the rest of Europe.

mwcampbell 5y ago

Fair point. But, and I might be wrong here, I figure people can much more easily control their writing than their speech, especially if they're not expected to send an immediate written response (e.g. in chat). Perhaps my mental model of foreign accents is wrong, and forgive me if I'm being an ugly American here, but I've often thought of a foreign accent as a disability, as if the person had a stutter or other speech impediment.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
do you feel the same about a regional accent - I mean southerners in the US often feel discriminated against as their accent is used as a shorthand for many negative stereotypes. What regional accent do you have?
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  My regional accent is midwestern (I'm from Kansas). I don't think I feel quite the same about regional accents, but of course, unconscious bias is a thing.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    I have some sort of accent (I moved to the U.S at 10 after living in Germany for 4 years, Denmark in 6), but when I am in America, most Americans (maybe 99.9999% of them) think I'm from the U.S - although generally from some other part of the U.S than the one they're from. I did have the experience of one guy thinking I was from Germany after 20 years in the U.S (hence the 99.+ percentile) but he was quite the outlier. However when Americans meet me in Europe they immediately identify me as having a non-American accent, which really messes with all my European friends since they think of me as being essentially American. So this disability thing seems quite context dependent.
meheleventyone 5y ago
There’s plenty of accents amongst native speakers. The way you feel about other people’s speaking voices is very much on you and belies a lack of worldliness. It’s a big place and I’d recommend checking it out. You do seem conscious of that though but it’s not something I’d accept personally.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I think that is common, when someone needs to translate something into English you know they just hand it to an intern with Word. I see the evidence of it on every public sign and document here in Denmark, but also traveling around in the rest of Europe.