Everyone seems so good at English so I wondered how many people learned it to such proficiency and how many are just natives
I’m German. Back in my day, we had 9 years of English classes in school and from what I’ve heard it’s even more now. I was lucky to have a teacher who had spent a couple of years in the UK so he had much less of a German accent than most other teachers at our school and was also able to give us a lot of insight into how people actually speak, compared to the rather formal and stilted examples in our textbooks.
Between social media, movies, shows and a job in software engineering, I would say that on most days I read and listen to more English than German.
I always cringe when I see native speakers confuse “it’s” and “its”, “their”, “they’re” and “there” and all the other subtleties of their language. But then again, I’m a pedantic German and maybe Americans are so anti-education already that they’re cool with that.
although its incorrect, i’d say their are better things to worry about
Second, or rather third. Games and media taught me English.
Hungarian here, learned in school and through games/videos
I’m German. Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit oder so…
Mostly taught myself English, since our educational system sucks so much.
I’m not a native speaker but in Sweden we do learn it from a very young age. We don’t dub anything, we watch shows and movies in English with Swedish subtitles. English is also mandatory from 3rd grade up until you finish college. Now, combine that with social media.
I don’t consider myself a native speaker but I am extremely proficient.
Italian here…
I’m Indian, specifically Sourh Indian.
We learn English in our schools and it is he main medium for school and college education.Second language here
I had to learn English from a young age because it was the primary language used from kindergarten to high school, and even in college.
I improved my comprehension by reading articles and online discussion forums, as well as by watching movies, series, broadcasts, and YouTube videos.
English is technically my fourth language and I started learning it at age 12. However I really got good around age 16 when I started watching a lot of Hollywood movies with subtitles. Even now when I speak fluent English, with dare I say some “elegance”, i prefer my movies with subtitles, because it’s just a happy place in my mind.
I learned the basics from Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage. Ready… Start! Time up! Game over! Marble zone! All useful phrases when abroad.
I feel like non native users are often better at both formulating themselves and spelling, compared to many native speakers
Especially the part where people replace ‘have’ with ‘of’. (Would of instead of would have / would’ve)
Non native speaker here too btw
Oh boy, I got so confused when I was a beginner and some American kid told me “would of” is an alternative to “would have”
I think the “proper” way to simplify it is would’ve, which is pronounced the same as ‘would of’
A lot of mistakes have just become incorporated into the language in the past. Maybe ‘would of’ is just too blatantly wrong for that to ever happen though
Maybe not really a ‘mistake’, more of a normal shortening but my personal favorite english-ism is “bye” being descended directly from “god be with you”. People just kept collapsing it more and more over time.
Edit: also “a pease” -> “peas” -> “a pea”
Also literally… If can both mean exactly something or be used for emphasis
There are a lot of regional things as well as slang that aren’t universal between native english speakers. Your confusion is kinda like how some new drivers can be better than veteran drivers because the information is still fresh and they haven’t developed bad habits yet. Even as a native speaker, you’ll sometimes be confused with terminology from other areas.
Examples would be stuff like “fanny” meaning something different in north America compared to Britain. “Cunt” is a lot less offensive in Australia than America. “Bless your heart” is slightly more insulting in the south than the rest of the states. Calling someone “buddy” is friendlier in Canada than the states etc.
“i did it on accident” blows my mind. It’s by accident, not on accident.
Not a native speaker. I learned mostly from American TV and reading Internet discussions. I have also absorbed a lot of more technical language through the native speakers at work. I made sure my coworkers know that I want them to correct my English, and working with a bunch of pedantic nerds, I sure get a lot of helpful corrections!
I’m Russian, I started learning (school doesn’t count) chatting playing pool at Yahoo.games in the beginning of 2000s.
Then I stopped getting translated versions of games (when I got Morrowind, my head literally hurt due to the amount of “foreign” texts I had to read). So, Internet and games taught me in the beginning.
Then, I was asked to translate at business meetings in my (quite small) company, I did some contract translations as well.
Then I got into IT (like 2012 or so), where you use English in many situations. In 2019, I got into an international company, where I spoke English as a main language for three years. Along the way I moved to Denmark, so now, in addition to my kinda broken English, I have a really shitty Danish.in addition to my kinda broken English, I have a really shitty Danish
Thankfully, not much difference between those, eh.
