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Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English
- NobodyNada 5y agoRelated discussion of this article’s sequel (556 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27220433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27220433
- dang 5y agoAlso this one: Native speakers are hard to understand in a lingua franca situation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27220789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27220789 - May 2021 (245 comments)
- samatman 5y agoThe title is editorial. It is not the title of the article, and is actively misleading as to its content. Please change it.
- lovelearning 5y agoIt's the <title> tag displayed in tab. It's the site's mistake that <title> and heading are different. But I don't feel this is a case of editorializing.
- dang 5y agoYou're right, and the HTML doc title is often a better choice. In this case it was more baity, though, so we swapped it out for the page heading.
- noisy_boy 5y agoMost of the time, the non-native speakers learn English from the books instead of absorbing the local dialects/nuances since they don't hear people around them speaking English. However, depending on the quality of books / teachers, this means they pick-up a weird/artificial view of English (speaking is still difficult because you don't get to do it everyday - this is changing though). Then when one lands a job requiring English communication, they pick-up the "do the needful" type of oddities by observation/convention. So when they communicate with a native speaker, what comes across is a unique edition. Interestingly, I can speak four languages (three fluently and one semi-fluently) and there is no equivalent of "do the needful" that is actually used in any of them - you just specify what is required - the closest non-specific equivalent I can think of is "take a look at it"/"take care of it"/"resolve it". God knows where that came from.
- airhead969 5y agoMy next door Danish neighbors learned English in the late 70's and early 80's by watching TV. The guy worked at Spectra-Physics and drove a Wankel Mazda RX-7 that he backed-in to their garage.
- WalterBright 5y agoAh, Gilligan's Island English :-) I've heard many people tell me they learned English from GI.
- airhead969 5y agoLol. Probably. And MASH.
- lovelearning 5y ago"do the needful" is found in British English books from the 19th century.[1] I suspect it's officialese that never went out of usage in bureaucratic and judicial circles in former colonies. [1] : https://www.google.com/search?q=%22do%20the%20needful%22&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1819&lr=lang_en https://www.google.com/search?q=%22do%20the%20needful%22&tbm...
- metters 5y agoSadly I also experienced a native (Canadian iirc) speaker mocking me for my pronunciation of 'power'. Indeed, I used heavy German accent on that specific situation, because I was excited at that moment. It shocked me quite a bit and I didn't know what to do back then. Now I can laugh it off - English was my first foreign language but only one of three in total back then. And it must have sound funny (like Arnold Schwarzenegger), which I felt unnecessarily bad for. Edit: I posted this story mostly because it really stuck in my head. It constantly reminds me to be aware of how I pronounce things. Before that incident I was quite confident about my English pronunciation, maybe even proud.
- Mike8435234 5y agoMany of us associate the accent exclusively with Arnold. LOL. Don't take it too personally. We like Arnolds accent and to us it sounds like all Germans are impersonating Arnold.
- metters 5y agoThe problem I saw and still see is that it disqualified me from the whole discussion, despite having something 'valuable' to say. But you are right, I don't take it personally (anymore) and actually can think back about this with a smile ony face.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- euroderf 5y agoSimilarly... at first it sounds like all Icelanders speaking English are impersonating Björk. But it's just the Icelandic accent.
- ryando 5y agoAs an American in Germany trying to speak German, I've made some effort to hide my accent. But then I think about Arnold and Werner Herzog. Would they be who they are without their accents in English? Then again, no one here has ever mocked the way I speak.
- airhead969 5y agoWell, growing up in SJC/SV/SF, nonnative speakers were many: roommates, girlfriends, coworkers, and more. Heck, one of my first girlfriends and I could barely communicate verbally: but it wasn't really a problem when gestures, simple words, and "thought synchronization" explained ideas more efficiently and succinctly than learning each others' complex languages. The other thing is immersion doesn't necessarily seem like a good predictor of language mastery: one roommate had trouble speaking English, despite living in the US for 10 years, while his older brother, who had never been to an English-speaking country before, sounded like he was completely American. This maybe anecdotal but there seems to be an incredible amount of variation in language and accent mastery that doesn't improve with experience (or above a fuzzy, certain age).
- carlmr 5y ago>there seems to be an incredible amount of variation in language and accent mastery that doesn't improve with experience (or above a fuzzy, certain age). A friend of mine is Dutch, he moved to England to study for his master's degree, then to Germany for work. His English sounds perfectly British (very neutral, though), his German sounds perfectly German. Granted Dutch has elements of German and English in pronunciation and vocabulary, but it's still impressive how some can learn a language without accent, even at a higher age.
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y agoThis is not a native/nonnative problem, but more a high vs low content languages, with native English being at the bottom of low content. Low content tend to stay in the abstract, and leave out the details. High content give detailed descriptions and let the abstractions to be deduced by the listener. This often leaves low content speakers wondering how things are being communicated, while they've had the issue described in great detail earlier, but incorrectly discarded the information as meaningless small talk. High content speakers, on the other hand may struggle to decipher something that isn't really meant to communicate anything, or they may feel being kept in the dark and made guess then punished for guessing incorrectly.
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y agoFurther problems are caused by figurative speech, as high content languages often use concrete analogies to convey something abstract, while low content speakers use abstract metaphors to convey something concrete. This also causes miscommunication, sometimes to the point of misinterpreting what is meant literally and what is meant to be figurative.
- Dave_Rosenthal 5y agoInteresting concept that I wasn’t familiar with. But for anyone else googling it, the concept is a spectrum of high vs low ‘context’ (not ‘content’) culture/language.
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y agoI changed it on purpose (such as low vs. high "bitrate" languages) because I feel the "context" explanation is a misinterpretation of what actually occurs. As in the commonly discused example of saying "no": High content language speakers say no by giving an explanation of why fulfilling the request would be difficult (a relatively large amount information is transmitted) which, to their surprise, is taken as a yes by the low content speaker. And adapting to this is difficult, because high content speakers prefer their information, while low content speakers feel inundated and prefer their simplicity.
- oytis 5y agoThe article assumes "best" = simplest. If you define best to mean most elegant and precise, the result would be opposite I guess. Although among technical literature I've most enjoyed the language of The C++ Programming Language by Stroustrup, and he's not a native speaker
- marmaduke 5y ago> A group of nonnative English speakers is in a room .. then an American walks into the room .. understanding goes down. I work in a research group with a lot of international people across Europe and elsewhere. As an American there for years, I got used to doing what they say here, speaking at the lowest common denominator, but when a new native English speaker (could be British or Australian too) enters, the same effect takes place. Similar can be said of French (since my group is in France), all these non native speakers (myself included) exchange freely in terrible French but it all dries up with the first French person because largely they are mostly intolerant of poorly spoken French. Still I think the skill of not judging and talking up and down the proficiency level according to the people you’re with can be learned fairly easily, if you get away from the idea that language proficiency reflects competence (in your domain of interest)
- oytis 5y agoAs a Russian I did a hitchhiking tour over Northern Europe when I was young, and while I gained some "fluency" in English as a result, the quality of my language use dropped noticeably. Not only because I was forced to use the first language construct I can pull from my head, but also I had to simplify it to be understood. Being personally interested in equality, acceptance etc. etc. I find it sad to see more sophisticated language use dying off being replaced by a version optimized for ease of understanding by everyone.
- timthorn 5y agoI agree, and it's not just the loss of that rich communication in other languages but in English as well.
- oytis 5y agoI mostly meant English. Other languages probably simplify as well, but English does it much faster because of the scope of use by nonnative speakers. Same thing happened to Greek and Latin once
- jraph 5y ago
- chmod775 5y ago> The test also requires making a clear choice between British and American spelling and vocabulary. That "can trip up people whose English comes from various sources" — say, a third from British textbooks and two-thirds from American movies, Repečkaitė said. As someone who had trouble learning English in class and ended up self-teaching using the Internet and reading English literature, I would have no hope of passing that test. Additionally I wouldn't be able to explain English grammar for the life of me. However being multi-lingual and learning from multiple sources appears to do wonders for one's vocabulary - in pure vocabulary tests I tend to outscore native speakers.
- IQunder130 5y agoI'd argue nobody anywhere has actually learned a language in class, ever. You pick it up by using it, and then may or may not remember all the arbitrary rules and restrictions that were taught in school.
- Y_Y 5y agoI think that's especially silly, since (almost) everyone uses some combination of these two. Particularly in the rest of the Anglosphere each country's norm will have elements of both British and American conventions. Even in the UK and US different publications will have standards specifying the use of one or another spelling for "ise/ize" or "practice/practise" and things like that. It would be weird to mix dialect like "garbage can" and "dustbin" but spelling is absolutely fine (as long as you're consistent with each choice).
- barry-cotter 5y agoYou made no mistakes in spelling or grammar in writing two short paragraphs and used quite complex vocabulary along with using one idiom and three complex sentence structures. Believe me you would not have any problems. The author of the article is uninformed or lying. I would guess they just don’t know what they’re talking about but never rule out malice. https://answers.scottsenglish.com/discussion/209/is-correct-spelling-important-in-my-ielts-toefl-or-toeic-test#:~:text=Yes%2C%20it%20is%20important.%20The%20good%20news%20is,nothing%20to%20write%2C%20so%20spelling%20does%20not%20matter https://answers.scottsenglish.com/discussion/209/is-correct-.... > In the TOEIC and TOEFL, the examiners are reading for content, and not specifically spelling mistakes. Your score will be lower if you misspell a word that is written in the question, or if you misspell the same word in different ways. As on the IELTS, your meaning must be clear. https://www.prepadviser.com/toefl/important-spelling-toefl-video https://www.prepadviser.com/toefl/important-spelling-toefl-v... > How Important is Spelling in TOEFL? > The answer to this question is actually really easy – it’s not very important. > This does not mean that spelling is completely unimportant for TOEFL essays, but it’s only one part, and it is not one of the most important aspects. Most of the time, spelling does not cause any problems. The most important areas to pay attention to are usually others: structure, grammar, vocabulary, details, etc.
- nindalf 5y agoI’m not in the same boat as the folks in these articles who’ve clearly suffered much worse treatment. I had a relatively easy time. But personally, I hated it when someone complimented my English. It felt infantilising, like how it would feel if someone appreciated you for tying your shoelaces all by yourself. The next time an American or British or Australian person tells me how good my English is, I’m telling them that “oh your English isn’t too bad either”.
- MattGaiser 5y agoYou have to remember that to many of us Americans and Brits and Canadians, speaking any amount of any other language is impressive. We are comparing it to the 10 words we can speak of something else.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- andrewshadura 5y agoWhat about ‘For how long exactly have you lived in Britain?’
- starky 5y ago>It felt infantilising, like how it would feel if someone appreciated you for tying your shoelaces all by yourself. I've been places (particularly Asia) where people were actually impressed that I learned a handful of words/phrases to be polite. Like do you think I'm too arrogant or stupid to take the time to learn a bit of a language that isn't English?
- Google234 5y ago> "Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to Rodríguez's way of pronouncing the word. > "Nowadays," Rodríguez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed." It must be fun to be a member of a humanities department today. I imagine everyone is surveilling everyone else for a slip up (microagression) in order to destroy them.
- dmurray 5y agoTangential, but I can't imagine how Rodriguez was pronouncing intervene that would sound odd to an American. The British pronunciation, with or without the r, seems extremely close to standard "good" US English. I can imagine US dialects where it's slurred into something more like "innavene" but the professor was hardly mocking him for not speaking like that.
- scantron4 5y agoI think he meant interview? And it was the word choice that was laughed at not the pronounciation.
- Digit-Al 5y agoI have to disagree with you. That was not a slip up or a micro-aggression. If you have a good friend who is foreign (or even just has a different regional accent) and you know they can take it as intended then it's okay to partake of a little light hearted mocking; but in an environment like that and with someone you don't know it's both highly unprofessional and tantamount to bullying. At the very least someone should have pulled that professor aside and told him that his behaviour was not acceptable. There's a time and a place and that was not it.
- mierz00 5y agoThat's an interesting take on the issue. As someone who struggled in university in another language, I am glad that this is not acceptable behavior anymore. For me, this is something deeply personal. It took me a long time to be comfortable speaking another language and I can only imagine how they felt in that moment. This is a step in the right direction and you should be fighting to keep your job if you find this kind of behavior acceptable.
- nmstoker 5y agoI failed to find where this old quote came from, but I recall being taught that for practical purposes it's best to "Understand the long words but use the short ones" - even though it was intended for headlines and written communication, it's applicable to speech. The article does seem to mix up "accent" with word use though (I was going to say "conflate" but then I'd fail the above rule!) Problems with word use seem much more legitimate to raise than accent - so long as an accent can be understood, it's rarely a problem and "correcting" it is rude and unnecessary, but in cases where word use is simply incorrect and confusing, it seems fair to try to get people on the right track (politely of course). In my experience a number of these usage problems come from incorrectly inferring the meaning of a word commonly done by an overconfident speaker and much as being inclusive is nice if you use the wrong word that actually means something else it's not helpful for anyone's understanding, native or nonnative. The main criticism I would have of the article is that it doesn't really support the case that nonnative understanding is undermined by the presence of native speakers - it feels like it's just taken as given because it's easily pointed to rather than having a basis in any serious evidence. It could quite easily be that without any native speakers the nonnative speakers merely think they all understand each other.
- rimliu 5y agoI've got a feeling that in the case of version/virgin it was more about the accent than the word choice. After all, in Russian it is almost the same: версия, but it has regular s. The way Russians tend to pronounce it may sound like a very hard "zh" making it close to "g" sound. Also, it would be very sad to see idioms go. If one is learning a language they should learn its idioms too. Every language has them and sometimes it is fun to see whether they are just a direct translations or something entirely different.
- FriedrichN 5y agoSomething I notice as a nonnative speaker is that my fellow nonnative speakers often try really hard to sound British. They put more effort into sounding the right way than actually trying to use the language correctly and increasing their vocabulary. Quite often people get praise for their "good" English because they've adopted a British accent even when their grammar isn't right or use words with the wrong meaning. Personally I don't care if someone speaks English with a Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Indian, Swedish, or any other accent. Americans don't sound like Brits, Brits don't sound like Kiwis, Kiwis don't sound like Canadians, but they're all native speakers. I prefer someone who can communicate effectively in the language over someone who can fake an accent the best.
- 1MachineElf 5y agoThe bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art. - Friedrich Nietzsche
- dTal 5y agoIn this quote, what is meant by "respect through imitation" - imitating, or being imitated?
- 1MachineElf 5y agoimitating
- golemiprague 5y agoI don't think people should adjust themselves in their own country. They don't need to simplify their language just because there are immigrants, it is their own culture and day by day communication, requesting it will be rude. However when abroad they should adjust themselves to the other non native English speakers. Also regarding English tests, it goes both ways, many Chinese students in Australia pass those tests but can't communicate in English to save their lives, let alone do an academic assignments.
- standardUser 5y agoI think people should adjust based on who they are talking to. If you are talking to someone with limited English skills, and you actually want to be understood, you'll adjust your manner of speaking. Where you are geographically seems irrelevant if the goal is communication.
- zajio1am 5y agoAs a non-native speaker, i rarely have an issue with advanced vocabulary or idioms from native speakers. The thing that is hard to me is understand heavy accents of other non-native speakers or local accents. Also some ungrammatical constructions are hard to understand, e.g. when i first saw sentence with "your" instead of "you're" it took about minute to decode it.
- code-anth 5y agoSometimes people can even feel embarrassed by their own/native language in a context where English is dominant, such as tech. I wrote about that feeling here: http://code-anth.xyz/posts http://code-anth.xyz/posts
- ED_Radish 5y agoI have a kinda weird perspective on this seeing as I'm natively bilingual. At least for me seeing code in English feels fine while seeing code in my other native language would likely be a bit odd (at least theoretically, I don't think I've ever actually seen any code in it). I feel like this phenomenon sorta extends past code in a way too, I would also find it a bit weird seeing information on my other hobbies that's not in English.
- code-anth 5y agoThat's interesting. Curious to know what you thought of the post.
- LorenPechtel 5y agoMy wife is a non-native speaker of English. I understand what they're talking about but they're mixing up two separate things--language usage and accent. She definitely has an accent but it rarely is an issue. (There are a few words that mess her up badly, though.) Much more of an issue is language usage. She has learned the words she needs to communicate (but will often be tripped up by uncommon words) but fares poorly with the little words that glue the language together. A recent example, "I eat myself" instead of "I'll eat it myself". The important concepts are in what she said, but with the glue missing the meaning changes greatly. Another weak speaker would probably understand it fine as the important concepts are there and they would arrange them to fit (but occasionally misarrange), but a native speaker not used to it very well might have trouble. There's also the issue of sentence complexity. Think of books for little kids, how everything is broken up into simple thoughts. If their language uses the same sentence structure as we do it wouldn't be a problem, but if it doesn't they won't be able to properly build a mental map of what the sentence is saying without bits hanging off until the end. I used to say that if you told my wife that if you can get to it in one minute there is a million dollars in a box on the back right of the second shelf of the refrigerator that she would have no hope of getting it, but if you told her there is a million dollars in the refrigerator, on the second shelf, in the back right in a box she would go right to it. Note how it's easier for us to process the first way of saying it, the second feels wrong. For her, however, the second is normal, the first leaves too many hanging bits and she wouldn't be able to follow it.
- dqv 5y ago> "The receptionist gave me a sheet and asked me to write down my complaint," she said. "I told her that I did not have any complaint, and she looked kind of irritated and then she insisted that I wrote down anything that I can think of." I’m always surprised that people can’t rephrase their sentences when someone doesn’t understand. How hard is it to say “oh no, not that kind of complaint! I mean symptoms like coughing or sneezing or a headache”. As to what is good English? Consistent pronunciation (that’s what Hansen teaches). Everything else is negotiable, but decoding an inconsistent accent is very difficult for anyone to understand. And it’s not specific to non-native speakers… plenty of native speakers don’t use consistent pronunciation and it’s sometimes difficult to decode what they’re saying.