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> 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

> 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 ago
As 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 ago
  I agree, and it's not just the loss of that rich communication in other languages but in English as well.
  - oytis 5y ago
    I 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
> it all dries up with the first French person because largely they are mostly intolerant of poorly spoken French As a French person surrounded by non native speakers, I am sad to hear this. Many French people should quit their elitism with respect to the language and start bothering about the content instead. Languages are tools, not an end in themselves (they are also a very interesting topic). It is still useful for non native speaker to be corrected and they usually appreciate it (foreigners has told me many times that French people don't correct them enough and they were happy I did). They usually want to improve! There are ways to do it without disrupting the conversation: - come back to a mistake at a later point after the conversation is over - a correction should not interrupt the conversation taking place, except maybe for critical mistakes or to fix an ambiguity (and then it's often better to ask than to blindly correct, because it feels better for everybody and sometimes you are just wrong). It's already hard to speak in another language, it should be clear to everyone that making mistakes is not important. It's better to let people express themselves intuitively, smoothly, with mistakes, than a conversation where they have to think hard about the grammar and the language and where it is difficult to express themeself. - pick frequent mistakes - mistakes are a great opportunity to have interesting discussions about both the native language(s) of the speaker and the language being spoken. I've been learning many things thanks to this kind of discussions and they probably make me better in English. - keep in mind that you are probably an absolute shit in the native language of the person compared to their level in yours, and they are actually doing very well. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with making language mistakes, don't be a dick about them.
- marmaduke 5y ago
  > Languages are tools, not an end in themselves I suspect most people agree with this, and I don’t personally encounter a lot who or elitist or dicks about it. What is most common, in my experience is a complete lack of effort to (a) interpret what a incorrect phrase might have meant and (b) avoid idiomatic yet superfluous choice of words. These are a lot obvious yet contribute significantly to the inclusivity of a conversation with non native speakers. This, surprising, given how welcoming France is of foreigners otherwise.
- amaccuish 5y ago

oytis 5y ago

As 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 ago
I agree, and it's not just the loss of that rich communication in other languages but in English as well.
- oytis 5y ago
  I 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

> it all dries up with the first French person because largely they are mostly intolerant of poorly spoken French As a French person surrounded by non native speakers, I am sad to hear this. Many French people should quit their elitism with respect to the language and start bothering about the content instead. Languages are tools, not an end in themselves (they are also a very interesting topic). It is still useful for non native speaker to be corrected and they usually appreciate it (foreigners has told me many times that French people don't correct them enough and they were happy I did). They usually want to improve! There are ways to do it without disrupting the conversation: - come back to a mistake at a later point after the conversation is over - a correction should not interrupt the conversation taking place, except maybe for critical mistakes or to fix an ambiguity (and then it's often better to ask than to blindly correct, because it feels better for everybody and sometimes you are just wrong). It's already hard to speak in another language, it should be clear to everyone that making mistakes is not important. It's better to let people express themselves intuitively, smoothly, with mistakes, than a conversation where they have to think hard about the grammar and the language and where it is difficult to express themeself. - pick frequent mistakes - mistakes are a great opportunity to have interesting discussions about both the native language(s) of the speaker and the language being spoken. I've been learning many things thanks to this kind of discussions and they probably make me better in English. - keep in mind that you are probably an absolute shit in the native language of the person compared to their level in yours, and they are actually doing very well. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with making language mistakes, don't be a dick about them.

marmaduke 5y ago
> Languages are tools, not an end in themselves I suspect most people agree with this, and I don’t personally encounter a lot who or elitist or dicks about it. What is most common, in my experience is a complete lack of effort to (a) interpret what a incorrect phrase might have meant and (b) avoid idiomatic yet superfluous choice of words. These are a lot obvious yet contribute significantly to the inclusivity of a conversation with non native speakers. This, surprising, given how welcoming France is of foreigners otherwise.
amaccuish 5y ago