How do you feel about english written by foreigners?

[aurich_]

我想这是美妙的英语和别人知道我总是试图了解他们的错误负起最好自不难理解的东西误入歧途.

Ich denke, es wundervoll ist, daß andere wissen, daß Englisch und ich versuchen, das beste immer anzunehmen, wenn sie ihre Fehler verstehen, da es einfach ist, Sachen zu deuten die falsche Weise.

Je pense il est merveilleux que d'autres savent que les anglais et moi essayons d'assumer toujours le meilleur dans l'arrangement leurs erreurs puisqu'il est facile d'interpréter des choses la manière fausse.

I think it is wonderful that others know English and I try to always assume the best in understanding their mistakes since it is easy to interpret things the wrong way.

:grouphug:

maybe you shouldnt use google translation. just as my fellow french board member mentionend the translation is not incorrect concerning not only the french but also the german version. completely different meaning the way it was translated.

and regarding the 'easiest language': having studied english, french, latin (all in grade school) and some very little japanese and spanish i can say imho that english is by far the easiest one to get a basic knowledge of. compared to german or french there is just no english grammar....

 

[Raptor#]

I agree, i can imagine german being way harder to learn for a foreigner than english.
f.e. instead of "the" we have "der" (male name) "die" (female name) and "das" (name for a object). Now, a auto would be "das auto". But if you don't say car but use the car's name instead, a mustang would be "der mustang". If i think about it, this must be confusing. It sure as hell would confuse me if german wouldn't be my native language. So, respect to any native english speakers who have taken it upon themselves to learn way more complex languages such as french, german or spanish..

I think english is a fun language to learn. Especially when you start to find out about the difference between US-American english, british and australian english. Crikey! Personally i didn't learn more than some very rudimentary basics of english at school, learned most of it from message boards and online translators. Now i just wish my spoken english would be up to the level of my written english... i just can't help saying "Ze" instead of "The".

Regarding the language thats the easiest to learn, shouldn't one of the constructed languages such as Esperanto be the easiest to learn?

 

[JimNoble]

I guess that I'm bilingual then; I know English and 6510 assembly language. :laughing:

There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't...



Jim

 

[roadie]

sorry as i am always writting singlish here ...... as i did not study ar .....

: )

 

[LEDMaster2003_V2]

I really thing "Engrish" (bad translation) is pretty amusing:

(example - flashlight manual (faked))

BATTERIES.
To change battery, counter-rotate the cap on end of light opposing bulb. Remove old cells and place in new cells with the positive terminal facing to the end of the bulb.

OPERATION.
To operate light, slide button on outer-side of unit to the end facing the bulb. The light should be lighting now. To change mode, press key inlaid on switch.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

I think many "foreigners" type English far better than I would type their native languages. Beyond that I believe that many such foreigners type English better than many Americans. Perhaps they have troubles with articles, and subject-verb agreement, but its generally very understandable.

 

[Nereus]

There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't...



Jim

This is sooooooo good, LOL!!!! Luckily they taught me binary system in high school 1011 years ago! Actually they taught me to calculate using ANY base number system, also across different base number systems (is "base number" the correct term here?). So I can tell you that I am 1001 years old... this time using 3 as base number!

Just wondering why they taught me such an extremely practical and necessary skill in high school... :thinking: It is not something with which you can make an impression on a first date.

-N

 

[Goran]

Well, I can understand English almost like my first (Croatian) while Italian is a common language in this region an everyone uses it (and so do I) comfortably. But my spoken English (and written of course) must be extra filled with mistakes.
Can understand some German too.

But than I never met an English or Italian speaking native that has learned another language properly. Well the Italian has a problem being.. I don't know how to say this in English.. "marked".. That is - the Italian speaking people even when learning other languages will probably have much heavier influence of their first language on the second in pronunciation than some other nations. Don't know the details, the girlfriend (she is a linguist, teaching at the university) explained me this once, but I can't remember more than this.
As for English speaking nations I'm not sure if that same thing is the case or is it the simple fact that having the world's lingua franca for the first language there is no need to learn anything else. Living in a small country (there are cities with two times and more inhabitants than my country) you are sometimes forced to learn other languages, and the last 5-10 years English imposed itself (before that German and Russian were learned a lot more, Italian, French and some others to a lesser degree as well as classical languages like Latin or old Greek). So if one starts learning English in the third elementary, and has it in the high school and possibly (depends) in the university that person will sometimes learn it for 14 years and maybe know it better in some areas than some native speakers. But that's not my case
And I must say that it's easier to understand someone who has learned English than some native speakers as it can differ a lot from country to country. Not to mention places like India (not native but official and sort of lingua franca in a multi-lingual country) where it is heavily mixed with other things. And the US kids slang as someone mentioned is almost as difficult

Well at any rate people are usually happy to see others speaking their language even if just a few words (like learning a few common word and phrases when traveling somewhere). I live in a region that in summer has much more tourists than inhabitants and I never heard bad comments when someone learns a few words even if poorly, how could anyone be annoyed by that?

 

[fineday]

Yeah... Foreigners writing post here while the mother language is not Enghish, I think I am one of that kind of people, haha.

As we born and live in the country that don't speak English, all the Enghish abilities are about writting English, no matter on the classes or examinations. So maybe it is easier for me to write English posts rather than to speak to native English speakers.

Some time I feel that I am thinking in Chinese and translating my thought into English to let everybody know. There are so many differents between these two languages, sometimes it would end up with so called "Chinglish" just like "because ... so ..." or "welcome you to come to my house". Those are very serious problems that I am facing.

For example, now I am listening to Chinese music and viewing a English forum, thinking in Chinese but typing in English... Is it funny?

不知道这儿有多少人能看的懂中文，呵呵。看国外的论坛的确感觉很不一样，很多东西都需要仔细的去看，努力去理解才能知道到底大家在说什么。但是语言毕竟不是最重要的东西，只要有共同的兴趣，我相信还是能"心有灵犀一点通"的。

 

[Stereodude]

Not a single one of the non native English speakers who posted in this thread has "bad" English or grammar. If you didn't have locations listed I wouldn't have suspected you weren't native writers. I will admit to being a typical American who can't speak or read a foreign language other than some computer languages (if those count), but I do pride myself on using the English language correctly. My coworkers think of me as the resident "English/grammar snob", but that's alright.

The fact is probably 98% of the those of you posting on this forum who have English as a second language have better written English than most Americans. This is probably because most Americans are too busy using slang and breaking the rules of grammar (yes there really are some) to write correctly. I find that people who learn English as a second language tend to stick to the formal rules of grammar much more closely. However, English is still rather understandable even when the rules of grammar are not closely followed, which isn't true of a lot of other languages (or so I've been told).

 

[nerdgineer]

On the sci-fi TV series "Firefly", everyone in the future is supposedly able to speak both English and Chinese because those are the dominant cultures of its' fictional future (i.e., the "Alliance"), and they sprinkle a few Chinese (sort of) phrases into their dialog to create their sense of this future.

English is a lingua franca now because of the political history of the last few centuries, and future political history will determine if it stays that way or some other language takes its place. In either case, those who speak it natively will probably not be as good at languages as everyone else who had to start learning it at an early age.

I think (can't find a reference) studies have shown that people who learn a second language before age about 12 can become natively fluent in it (i.e. be able to think directly in it, hear accents, all that) and those who learn it later tend to have to translate it in their heads.

Using the computer analogy, I think a native language is hardwired into a person's brain and second languages are software applique translators operating over that hardware. Truly bilingual people have 2 sets of hard wiring because your brain can make new wiring up through your mid teen years.

I think the study also said that people who have learned 2 languages young have an easier time learning additional languages, so the additional wiring may help that too.

I imagine that the specially talented people who can speak like 20 languages or so must have such high clock speeds on their hard wiring that their SW translators can match the processing speeds of native speakers running dirrectly on hardware ..or something like that...

 

[Xygen]

@Goran: Nice to meet a croatian here! My girlfriend is croatian but born and raised in Germany. Her family comes from the area of Čakovec. Where are you from?

 

[javafool]

I enjoy hearing from and reading posts from people of any nation provided they are posted in in a thought of friendship and respect for one another. I speak, read and write only English, but that is due to my own ignorance.

The people on CPF may be from many entirely different countries, but we all live and must survive on this one planet earth. Welcome!

 

[James S]

conversationally and around here I have no problem with it, I do my best to understand and it's no trouble to overlook any mistakes. As long as you dont mind me laughing out loud if you make a really good dinger And I expect to be laughed at and slapped on the back when I'm trying to speak or write your language

But I agree that for commercial things, like manuals or advertising copy or what have you, if you want to capture market share in a country you should invest in a little proof reading to look professional.

 

[nekomane]

I've noticed a certain member from my country who does not write English very well.
But it is easy to realize that he is trying hard, and to me, the 'broken' English kind of
emphasizes his sincerety and honesty.

I have never been in direct contact with him. Just happy that this weird hobby motivates people
from around the globe to try to overcome the language barrier

 

[chesterqw]

came here to relax and talk like normal human beings.

if i needed to check my spelling and grammar for everything i type, i might as well be in school rather then stay in the comfort of my (not exactly)own house!

 

[Fluffster]

Funny that you should bring this up, I was going to ask all y'all to communicate in Icelandic from here on. It's easy, even babies can do it with little apparent effort!

 

[Nereus]

Funny that you should bring this up, I was going to ask all y'all to communicate in Icelandic from here on. It's easy, even babies can do it with little apparent effort!

Jag kan inte tala isländska men jag kan tala svenska... Jag tror att dom är ganska nära varandra så du borde förstå mig. Så, är det åkej med dig att skriva svenska?

-N

 

[Goran]

@Goran: Nice to meet a croatian here! My girlfriend is croatian but born and raised in Germany. Her family comes from the area of Čakovec. Where are you from?

:wave:

Porec, Istra (at the north of the Adriatic sea)

 

[Goran]

English is a lingua franca now because of the political history of the last few centuries, and future political history will determine if it stays that way or some other language takes its place.

And "computerization" and internet probably …

I think the study also said that people who have learned 2 languages young have an easier time learning additional languages, so the additional wiring may help that too.

Well groups of languages (like Roman languages, Slavic languages and so on) are often similar, I think that a lot of western languages were "borrowing" to some extent from Latin … so there are some similarities. For example knowing Italian I can understand some Spanish and knowing Croatian some other Slavic languages (but it's easier to understand them when reading than listening) and even English has a lot of "roman" words so I suppose that Latin had its influence there too? ..I'm not sure about this though …