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One of my favourite things to do in online forums such as Stack Overflow, where there are many non-native English speakers, is to determine where a person is fr

One of my favourite things to do in online forums such as Stack Overflow, where there are many non-native English speakers, is to determine where a person is from based on which grammatical errors they make. It’s more subtle than accent or other cues, but it is remarkably consistent.

yen223 12y ago
I followed Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course on Coursera. The course itself was great, but halfway through I realized he had to be from Malaysia or Singapore, because he started talking about "alphabets" instead of "letters".
- evincarofautumn 12y ago
  Yeah, besides word choice (“I have a doubt” = “I have a question” in Indian English) you also have more interesting things like discourse deixis—“consider that code: …” instead of “consider this code: …”—or how uncertainty is expressed—“some” instead of “a” for example shows up in Daft Punk’s “Something About Us”.
  - the_af 12y ago
    Interesting! "I have a doubt" is also a common mistake for us Spanish speakers. This is because for us "tengo una duda" is an acceptable way of saying "I have a question".
    - hibbelig 12y ago
      German here. It felt _really_ weird when my American boss asked me whether I have a doubt. Yes, most people in his team are from India.
- jpatokal 12y ago
  As a former (non-native) resident of Singapore, that's one of those features of the local lingo that makes me shudder every time I see it, but it's probably already crossed the line from "mistake" to "accepted local evolution". It certainly is well entrenched, as I've seen it in bank letters about choosing good passwords, and it's in this university policy as well: Have both upper and lower case alphabets http://iits.smu.edu.sg/cyber-security/password-management http://iits.smu.edu.sg/cyber-security/password-management Quite a few other telltale Singlish features in there as well, eg. the use of "staff" to refer to a single employee and using "credential" instead of "credentials". Both of these are rooted in how Chinese and Malay lack a grammatical plural.
onethree 12y ago
I find it really easy to tell people who are native german speakers, based on learning german for years, and having had grammar drilled into me. I dont think there's been a time when I've picked up on it, and been wrong
- claudius 12y ago
  Hm, curious. What would be tell-tale signs of a native German speaker? :)
  - gtremper 12y ago
    I've noticed some Germans tend to mix up the present perfect and the infinitive, since they are the same in German. For example, "I eat" vs "I'm eating" vs "I'm going to eat".
  - StuffMaster 12y ago
    Online they often combine two-word compound nouns into one word.
vacri 12y ago
My old boss was once setting up a patient when he asked where she was from, "as I have a good ear for accents, but I can't tell if you're from Rhodesia or South Africa". Her response was "It is good - halfway through my childhood, we moved from Rhodesia to South Africa"...

yen223 12y ago

I followed Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course on Coursera. The course itself was great, but halfway through I realized he had to be from Malaysia or Singapore, because he started talking about "alphabets" instead of "letters".

evincarofautumn 12y ago
Yeah, besides word choice (“I have a doubt” = “I have a question” in Indian English) you also have more interesting things like discourse deixis—“consider that code: …” instead of “consider this code: …”—or how uncertainty is expressed—“some” instead of “a” for example shows up in Daft Punk’s “Something About Us”.
- the_af 12y ago
  Interesting! "I have a doubt" is also a common mistake for us Spanish speakers. This is because for us "tengo una duda" is an acceptable way of saying "I have a question".
  - hibbelig 12y ago
    German here. It felt _really_ weird when my American boss asked me whether I have a doubt. Yes, most people in his team are from India.
jpatokal 12y ago
As a former (non-native) resident of Singapore, that's one of those features of the local lingo that makes me shudder every time I see it, but it's probably already crossed the line from "mistake" to "accepted local evolution". It certainly is well entrenched, as I've seen it in bank letters about choosing good passwords, and it's in this university policy as well: Have both upper and lower case alphabets http://iits.smu.edu.sg/cyber-security/password-management http://iits.smu.edu.sg/cyber-security/password-management Quite a few other telltale Singlish features in there as well, eg. the use of "staff" to refer to a single employee and using "credential" instead of "credentials". Both of these are rooted in how Chinese and Malay lack a grammatical plural.

onethree 12y ago

I find it really easy to tell people who are native german speakers, based on learning german for years, and having had grammar drilled into me. I dont think there's been a time when I've picked up on it, and been wrong

claudius 12y ago
Hm, curious. What would be tell-tale signs of a native German speaker? :)
- gtremper 12y ago
  I've noticed some Germans tend to mix up the present perfect and the infinitive, since they are the same in German. For example, "I eat" vs "I'm eating" vs "I'm going to eat".
- StuffMaster 12y ago
  Online they often combine two-word compound nouns into one word.

vacri 12y ago

My old boss was once setting up a patient when he asked where she was from, "as I have a good ear for accents, but I can't tell if you're from Rhodesia or South Africa". Her response was "It is good - halfway through my childhood, we moved from Rhodesia to South Africa"...