Personally, and anecdotally, I’ve found English speakers to be quite forgiving of poor English — that is, they usually make an effort to try and understand someone with broken English, and they don’t usually point out poor grammar (though, that could be because the majority of English speakers don’t have the best grammar to begin with 😉). Especially when one compares them with some other cultures, eg the French.
You haven’t tried speaking bad English in a new York shop apparently.
Oh that’s just New Yorkers in general really
Well, ok. But they’re still technically American.
This isn’t true of anyone I’ve ever known, and i believe it isn’t true for the majority of Americans. I believe it’s a loudly vocal minority who get angry at people speaking other languages or barely speaking English
Yes, but this is the Fediverse, so Americabad
This is truer than you might expect. Just not as blatant as the meme. Especially in a work context, people will underestimate someone’s abilities, be inpatient with clarifications or simply favour others for tasks.
It’s unconcious with some people, they don’t even know they’re doing it.
I am a first language English speaker, but my partner isn’t and it’s really opened my eyes to how much we underestimate the language difficulties immigrants can have.
Not to say everyone is struggling, but just that I think English speakers do take language skills for granted. And unconsciously are biased towards people based on their preserved language skills.
Even once you’re fluent, like my partner well and truly is, it’s still hard.
Dear sir/madam, this is a meme.
Exaggeration for comedic effect is not a crime.
lmfao evidently a meme that makes people very angry. 15+ downvotes. fuckin americans man. you guys truly fucking hate each other. good job! great culture, just the best stuff… totally worth fighting for, and definitely worth inflicting on the rest of the world, buncha removed
I don’t understand your comment. What is the fighting happening here that you’re mocking?
“inflicting” Let’s not pretend your entire life isn’t wrapped up in American merchandise, food, and media. And no one forced it on you
“Merica bad”
Lol ok kiddo
I disagree with this and its my experience that there are assholes speaking every language and that the English speaking world tends to be the most understanding when it comes to second language speakers using improper words and/or grammar.
This feels like French propaganda to deflect from how rude they tend to be if you don’t speak French
I speak French until they have enough of me butchering their language with my Jersey (New) accent. Bon Joor, je voo le pan. They beg me to stop and I keep going. Jaim vo d-nay. Mare C bo coo. They thank me for leaving.
Ever heard japanese filtered through a southern accent? Oh HAI yo guh ZAI muss!
This was our favorite thing to do in my HS Japanese class. I still remember “skydiving”: skah-daaaah-ben-goo.
Even if you speak French or at least try to they go like: huh?!
Lean into it. Channel your inner Peggy Hill and repeat this phrase: Jay parlay fran-says tray bee-in. Jay-tude on lay-cole quart ons.
They will beg you to switch back to English
I will continue to maintain a laissez faire attitude towards French language.
This is nonsense. Only English teachers do this.
Reminds me of a joke that you hear a lot in Europe:
What do you call someone who can speak many languages? Polyglottal.
What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language? English.
Non-native English speakers are still often better at English than native English speakers that choose to write like they are illiterate.
You mean the french?
I’m an American who speaks decent German. I’ve gotten this flak traveling in non-German speaking Europe - Stupid American only speaking English attitude thrown my way. Mother fucker I’m in France, a German would also be using English here. To some people the only way to not be “that American” is to speak all the languages.
On the flip side, I’ve had a few Germans ask me why I bothered learning their language when I could just use English.
Moin Brudi, finde ich ziemlich nett von dir das du dir unsere Sprache antust.
Ah cool, danke! Immer nett zu hören, dass jemand meine Versuche schätzt.
I’ve had a few Germans ask me why I bothered learning their language when I could just use English.
So, why? You can’t leave us hanging like this!
Haha I’ve lived there for almost a year between two stints and had a lot of free time for one of them so seemed like a fun thing to learn.
It very occasionally has been helpful traveling in more rural Germany speaking areas
It’s pretty hard to learn another language as an American unless you’re able to travel to a place where that is used. I wasn’t even allowed to take a foreign language class when I was in high school because I scored too poorly on English in grade school (from not doing homework, not because of aptitude). I haven’t really had a need for it in my adult life either other than like 3 times where I had Spanish speaking customers when I worked at in retail and we still managed to overcome the language barrier.
I don’t get the downvotes here. Learning a language is not easy without immersion. Yes you can bang through literature and even multiple courses… but without frequent use our brains simply lose the connection. Neurons that fire together wire together. This goes doubly for speech.
Many Americans (most?) are taught a second language in school but the lack of places to use it sees this education go to waste. The US is a large country with pockets of ethnic groups throughout - but as far as immersion with another language goes… it is sorely lacking.
It’s unfortunate but a reality.
without frequent use our brains simply lose the connection
I just want to say that I’ve been learning an Asian language for over a decade and have retained almost all of it from infrequent immersion. I don’t know how or why, but it sticks!
What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t feel discouraged because you think it’s meaningless if you’re not jumping in with both feet every day. Rather, you’re still making some progress even when dipping your toes in occasionally. Trust the process!
I did it in school in rural Ohio before the internet and with very few resources available. Basically anyone can do it. You don’t need immersion. Is it helpful? Yes. Is it necessary? No. Look at how many people live 40+ years in a country and never learn the language; immersion alone does almost nothing.
How do you know you’re pronouncing things correctly without native speakers to converse with?
I think there’s a big myth which I prescribed to back when I was a monolingual English speaker that somehow being “immersed” in a culture is how you become fluent. But my experience has always been that if you can’t understand what anyone’s saying, and are unable to say anything yourself, you just become mute and introverted.
I have no experience with Japanese, but the (in?)famous youtuber MattVsJapan detailed a time when he went to Japan without a base of knowledge and just went back home after every day to watch anime at home, then only really learned how to speak Japanese back in America afterwards. I had a similar experience in Germany — the first few years the only people I really spoke with were other expats and Germans in English.
The only real thing I think being immersed gives you is motivation to learn. But after you’re able to order in a restaurant and read basic signs, that motivation disappears pretty fast as you’re sort of about to just fumble through everything.
On the other hand, people speaking English has seemingly increased massively worldwide, despite the fact that in some countries it would be rare to even encounter an English speaking native. Notably, imo, the countries that are better at it tend to subtitle movies and TV rather than dub. Compare the Nordic countries with Germans, the Greeks vs the French, Koreans vs the Japanese.
It seems pretty clear to me (and I am by no means alone with this assertion) that the main way people learn is through exposure to the language, which is completely different than actually living in a place where you’re “immersed”.
So if you really wanted to learn a language, the best thing you could do is as soon as you’re able to (before, even) watch TV/films and read books in that target language. I think this book is an excellent explanation https://www.tesl-ej.org/books/lomb-2nd-Ed.pdf for German, I started really learning it only after listening to Deutsche Welle learning German radio shows and TV. The modern equivalent is this online TV show for beginners https://learngerman.dw.com/en/hallo/l-37250531 which is great. I learned more in a few episodes like this than I did with two years of formal teaching at school.
Sorry for sort of hijacking your comment, it just caused me to fall down a rabbit hole somewhat :)
Nice question :) A good textbook should go over the sounds in the language comparing them to something in the target audience’s language. This isn’t foolproof (a language YouTuber (Language Jones, I think?) was talking about trying to learn an African language, but the author expected reader to speak South African English where vowels differ from, for instance, US English), but it generally works pretty well. These days, wikipedia is also typically a great resource for reading about sounds in the language. Further, nowadays, you can toss stuff in Google Translate and have it speak. Finally, consume media from that country. When I was learning German, DeutscheWelle had a German-learning mp3 series. Also streaming radio in those days (no Youtube or anything yet).
Edit: and for output, the time-tested technique of shadowing is great. Record yourself if you can because your ears might do better picking up any mistakes when not speaking at the same time.
I find it funny that we both answered the same question and independently mentioned how Deutsche Welle’s
Deutsch: Warum nicht?taught us both German :)I don’t remember exactly which resource it was anymore. I did also use a lot of Deutschlernen mit Nachtrichten
Do you people just invent these problems because you hate Americans? Like… How do you come up with this garbage propaganda? Are you just reposting from tankie run bots designed to sow discord?
I wonder if some English natives couldn’t believe as kids that the entire damn world just happens to speak their language
In my experience Americans find it cool when they hear another language, Anglo-Canadians though, they don’t realize how racist they are towards French-Canadians and hate their language with a passion.
The only language that would be useful to know where I live would be Spanish.
And I fucking hate the Spanish language.
Edit: I should say I don’t hate Spanish speaking people. Just the language. I honestly can’t even say why I hate it I just do.
Prolly racism lol
Everything is racism
The only perspective from which one might see everything as racism is that in which they themselves are racist.
That’s racist
I can see how you’d feel that way from your perspective.
Perspectives are racist
They certainly can be
…“doesn’t speak perfect English”
Yours sincerely, the English.
Hi it’s me, the English
