4 ms·

To be honest, if you don't get the agreement right I simply won't bother listening to you, unless in a good mood. This is a two way street. A couple word order

To be honest, if you don't get the agreement right I simply won't bother listening to you, unless in a good mood. This is a two way street. A couple word order mistakes are much worse than occasional spelling mistakes in English. The phonology is similar enough that /k/ for /x/ (Loch "hole") shouldn't be a problem, for example. This differs of course with languages that have a completely different speech riddim and phonemes which are unknown to the recipient.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
twixfel 4y ago
Well, this is one of the problems Germany has. Lots of moaning about immigrants failing to integrate, no real effort on the part of the bulk of the existing population to help them integrate, including such luxuries as "talking" and "listening". Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in Germany. I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany, and I don't believe the blame lies with the Turks, let's put it that way.
- posterboy 4y ago
  > Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in German No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. > I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
  - twixfel 4y ago
    >No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. No it's not the same. My German girlfriend is consistently asked in Germany where she's "really from" despite being born there and living there her whole life (and her parents too!). That would be scandalous in my country, and the US too. The intolerance of imperfect grammar that can realistically only be attained by natives is adjacent to this issue. It's naive and simplistic to just state all Western countries are the same in terms of social progress. The English-speaking and German-speaking worlds are not the same. >Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen. For sure. German culture will either change of I am sure that these waves of immigrants will not integrate properly and there will be strife. One of the benefits of immigration I hope is that Germany will change and become a friendlier and less inward looking society.
- JackFr 4y ago
  There was an article in the Economist 10-15 years ago about the prevalence of English throughout the world and the typical explanations for it were listed: the British Empire followed by post WWII American economic and entertainment hegemony. But they also pointed to an unsung advantage - no one really cares if you speak it poorly.
  - foldr 4y ago
    >But they also pointed to an unsung advantage - no one really cares if you speak it poorly. Surely this is just a consequence of that fact that the majority of the world's English speakers speak English as a second language. As a native English speaker you're constantly hearing people speak bad English, so you're naturally somewhat desensitized.
    - posterboy 4y ago
      Not only bad English, but regional varieties that I as ESL have trouble understanding, which might formally count as own languages if held against linguistic standards. I just broswed Green's dictionary of slang so I feel I know what I'm talking about. > As a native English speaker you're constantly hearing people speak bad English, so you're naturally somewhat desensitized Reading middle and old English, I feel the onus is on you because it changed so much :')
    - twixfel 4y ago
- watwut 4y ago
  No. Both Americans and Brits do care about your English mistakes. And both penalize you for accent. Especially when you do grave grammatical mistakes that just pop up equivalent to the mistake OP mentioned here.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    I think there's much more of a pattern of seeing such mistakes + an accent as evidence that English isn't their native language rather than evidence of stupidity. We see so many more non-native speakers.
  - twixfel 4y ago
    Getting the wrong case for an article or picking the wrong conjugated form for the verb is about as far from being a "grave grammatical mistake" as can be. Yes it matters, no it's not remotely reasonable or acceptable to just stop listening to someone because they said "dem" instead or "der", or the fucked up adjective declension (which is nice to get right but objectively sometimes carries information) for example. And no we really don't care, or at least I don't. I am a native English speaker who goes months at a time without speaking to another native English speaker. I would never judge someone for it. I would be ashamed of myself to just stop listening to someone for mixing up word order slightly or dropping a preposition or picking the wrong conjugated form of a verb. If I understand them, then it's fine. If I can help them improve their English, by pointing something out, I will. It's because I'm not an arsehole. Ignoring someone as soon as they mess up a verb conjugation is honestly detestable.
    - watwut 4y ago
      We are talking here about using wrong grammatical gender throughout your speech. That is a bunch of very noticeable mistakes that affect multiple words in the sentence. Just because English does not have grammatical gender does not mean it does not matter in German. The difference between "der and dem" is NOT gender mistake. And it is also less noticeable as treating the masculine word famine, due to the way it affects other words.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

twixfel 4y ago

Well, this is one of the problems Germany has. Lots of moaning about immigrants failing to integrate, no real effort on the part of the bulk of the existing population to help them integrate, including such luxuries as "talking" and "listening". Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in Germany. I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany, and I don't believe the blame lies with the Turks, let's put it that way.

posterboy 4y ago
> Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in German No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. > I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
- twixfel 4y ago
  >No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. No it's not the same. My German girlfriend is consistently asked in Germany where she's "really from" despite being born there and living there her whole life (and her parents too!). That would be scandalous in my country, and the US too. The intolerance of imperfect grammar that can realistically only be attained by natives is adjacent to this issue. It's naive and simplistic to just state all Western countries are the same in terms of social progress. The English-speaking and German-speaking worlds are not the same. >Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen. For sure. German culture will either change of I am sure that these waves of immigrants will not integrate properly and there will be strife. One of the benefits of immigration I hope is that Germany will change and become a friendlier and less inward looking society.
JackFr 4y ago
There was an article in the Economist 10-15 years ago about the prevalence of English throughout the world and the typical explanations for it were listed: the British Empire followed by post WWII American economic and entertainment hegemony. But they also pointed to an unsung advantage - no one really cares if you speak it poorly.
- foldr 4y ago
  >But they also pointed to an unsung advantage - no one really cares if you speak it poorly. Surely this is just a consequence of that fact that the majority of the world's English speakers speak English as a second language. As a native English speaker you're constantly hearing people speak bad English, so you're naturally somewhat desensitized.
  - posterboy 4y ago
    Not only bad English, but regional varieties that I as ESL have trouble understanding, which might formally count as own languages if held against linguistic standards. I just broswed Green's dictionary of slang so I feel I know what I'm talking about. > As a native English speaker you're constantly hearing people speak bad English, so you're naturally somewhat desensitized Reading middle and old English, I feel the onus is on you because it changed so much :')
  - twixfel 4y ago
watwut 4y ago
No. Both Americans and Brits do care about your English mistakes. And both penalize you for accent. Especially when you do grave grammatical mistakes that just pop up equivalent to the mistake OP mentioned here.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  I think there's much more of a pattern of seeing such mistakes + an accent as evidence that English isn't their native language rather than evidence of stupidity. We see so many more non-native speakers.
- twixfel 4y ago
  Getting the wrong case for an article or picking the wrong conjugated form for the verb is about as far from being a "grave grammatical mistake" as can be. Yes it matters, no it's not remotely reasonable or acceptable to just stop listening to someone because they said "dem" instead or "der", or the fucked up adjective declension (which is nice to get right but objectively sometimes carries information) for example. And no we really don't care, or at least I don't. I am a native English speaker who goes months at a time without speaking to another native English speaker. I would never judge someone for it. I would be ashamed of myself to just stop listening to someone for mixing up word order slightly or dropping a preposition or picking the wrong conjugated form of a verb. If I understand them, then it's fine. If I can help them improve their English, by pointing something out, I will. It's because I'm not an arsehole. Ignoring someone as soon as they mess up a verb conjugation is honestly detestable.
  - watwut 4y ago
    We are talking here about using wrong grammatical gender throughout your speech. That is a bunch of very noticeable mistakes that affect multiple words in the sentence. Just because English does not have grammatical gender does not mean it does not matter in German. The difference between "der and dem" is NOT gender mistake. And it is also less noticeable as treating the masculine word famine, due to the way it affects other words.