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I don't think "cleaning up" a language talked by so many people in the world is reasonable because some people have trouble learning it. > Either they suck it
by Zababa 5y ago
I don't think "cleaning up" a language talked by so many people in the world is reasonable because some people have trouble learning it.
> Either they suck it up, face often humiliation from native speakers from their mistakes (its quite something to see senior banking colleagues laughing like little kids and pointing finger at you on a project meeting because you mixed gender of a noun).
I'm not sure if it's a language problem or a people problem. I often encounter people that mix the gender of nouns, and I don't really care about it. It's a lot to learn and not very important. Just like some people don't have a great accent, that's how it is, it doesn't stop people from communicating. Same for the people that I know, unless we're asked we wouldn't bother correcting someone that "le table" is actually "la table" because tables are female.
On my side, I find the pronunciation of English to be very hard to learn and to master, and am scared of sounding stupid whenever I talk English, so I avoid it, and end up not being good at it, so I can understand the sentiment.
- ldrndll 5y agoIf it’s any consolation, I find English pronunciation very difficult, and I’m a native speaker. It surprises me that in my thirties I still regularly encounter situations where I want to use a word and realise I’ve never heard it spoken before, so have no idea if the pronunciation I use in my head when reading it is correct. I also often hear others mispronounce words; friends, colleagues, even on TV. I guess my point is that if you’re mispronouncing English words you’re speaking it like a native!