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I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong enjoyer of the English language: nativ

I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong enjoyer of the English language: native speakers butcher it the most.

deleted 1y ago
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cj 1y ago
This is true of many skills you grow up learning. E.g. someone who grew up playing piano might be able to play at an incredibly advanced level, while also being terrible at reading or writing sheet music. The science around skills acquired during childhood/adolescence vs. learned skills is interesting. For example, I would not be surprised if non-native speakers, on average, have a better handle of the difference between effect/affect, there/their, etc.
- pixelpoet 1y ago
  English is my 4th language, after German, Afrikaans and Indonesian. People get very angry about it when it's pointed out, and yes, "you just say Bingo" (non-native speakers tend to get idioms and certain turns of phrase wrong), but at least we get singular vs plural, past vs present vs future tense etc right. I'm not sure why but "most" (therein lies the thesis) native speakers struggle so much with that basic stuff, to say nothing of its vs it's, were vs we're vs where, maybe caring about much vs many, past perfect "had had 'had had', had had"... Shoot the messenger if you want, but the evidence is literally ubiquitous.
  - maleldil 1y ago
    Native speakers also seem to have given up on "less" vs "fewer" entirely.
- torben-friis 1y ago
  >I would not be surprised if non-native speakers, on average, have a better handle of the difference between effect/affect, there/their, etc. That’s from training system rather than age. You’ll rarely catch me mixing up there and their because I’ve learned those words reading them, and in written form they’re very distinguishable. I couldn’t write a poem to save my life though, because I can’t tell which words in English rhyme - the written form of an English word isn’t trustable. An interesting example is natives with different accents making different mistakes - Latino Spanish speakers for example commonly confuse c and s while writing, as it’s a similar sound. Spain's dialect however pronounces those letters very distinctly (their famous “lisp”) so to Spaniards it’s obvious which one to use.
hamdingers 1y ago
In much the same way chess grand masters make moves that don't make sense to the novice.
- pixelpoet 1y ago
  At a guess: polyglots try to raise the error floor of their languages / not make basic common mistakes, whereas monoglots have no concern with / perception of this all.
pseudalopex 1y ago
Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong enjoyer of the English language: native speakers butcher it the most.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

cj 1y ago

This is true of many skills you grow up learning. E.g. someone who grew up playing piano might be able to play at an incredibly advanced level, while also being terrible at reading or writing sheet music. The science around skills acquired during childhood/adolescence vs. learned skills is interesting. For example, I would not be surprised if non-native speakers, on average, have a better handle of the difference between effect/affect, there/their, etc.

pixelpoet 1y ago
English is my 4th language, after German, Afrikaans and Indonesian. People get very angry about it when it's pointed out, and yes, "you just say Bingo" (non-native speakers tend to get idioms and certain turns of phrase wrong), but at least we get singular vs plural, past vs present vs future tense etc right. I'm not sure why but "most" (therein lies the thesis) native speakers struggle so much with that basic stuff, to say nothing of its vs it's, were vs we're vs where, maybe caring about much vs many, past perfect "had had 'had had', had had"... Shoot the messenger if you want, but the evidence is literally ubiquitous.
- maleldil 1y ago
  Native speakers also seem to have given up on "less" vs "fewer" entirely.
torben-friis 1y ago
>I would not be surprised if non-native speakers, on average, have a better handle of the difference between effect/affect, there/their, etc. That’s from training system rather than age. You’ll rarely catch me mixing up there and their because I’ve learned those words reading them, and in written form they’re very distinguishable. I couldn’t write a poem to save my life though, because I can’t tell which words in English rhyme - the written form of an English word isn’t trustable. An interesting example is natives with different accents making different mistakes - Latino Spanish speakers for example commonly confuse c and s while writing, as it’s a similar sound. Spain's dialect however pronounces those letters very distinctly (their famous “lisp”) so to Spaniards it’s obvious which one to use.

hamdingers 1y ago

In much the same way chess grand masters make moves that don't make sense to the novice.

pixelpoet 1y ago
At a guess: polyglots try to raise the error floor of their languages / not make basic common mistakes, whereas monoglots have no concern with / perception of this all.

pseudalopex 1y ago

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 1y ago
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