…“doesn’t speak perfect English”
Yours sincerely, the English.
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Hi it's me, the English
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.
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Brits: "This meme is wrong. .5 at best."
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.
Americans when someone doesn't speak English good enough: "They're English is bad!!!"
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.
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Nobody cares SpongeBob meme.jpg
There is this youtube video with Jack Black and some others playing D&D. When they introduce their characters, they go on about how they are a polyglot like it is some amazing feat. This when every character in D&D knows at least common and some other language.
Anyway, that's just Tuesday in Europe.
well, I think enough people from Latin America have immigrated that they have now skewed that metric... I read somewhere that, basically any other country with such a large population of bilingual individuals, declared the second language official
That'll never happen in Murica of course
That is because the US does not have an official language at the federal level. Some states do though, and some only English is the official language but some do recognize Spanish and native American languages as official languages. Of course it would be nice to have a more formal approach but I was very surprised of how much stuff is written in more than one language and for Spanish in specific I think you have a very high chance of finding some employee that speaks it or they try to translate. At least in the couple of places that I have being which I admit is a small sample size
Good to know, thanks for the info
Homie I cant afford to get mad at bad english. I live in LA. I'm lucky if they speak English at all.
The US has an insane portion of foreign workforce with non-native speakers being at the head of many fortune top 100 companies. This is unheard of for Europe.
US is probably the most linguistically and culturally accommodating place on the planet. The heck are you talking about, OP?
Have you ever been to the US? Even Brits get "corrected" by Yankees there, and I find that as amusing as it is sad.
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This is just plain wrong. There are plenty such companies in Europe and surely in Asia as well (biontech popped into my mind immediately).
Also the most linguistically accomodating? The US can't hold or defend that title. It's probably Luxembourg or Singapore, let's be honest.
Educated Americans, like the ones working in those big companies, know how stupid it is to make fun of someone who is already working in a second or third language... they are not the ones this meme is trying to insult
Proudly uneducated Americans, like the ones who travel to other parts of the world and demand to be spoken to in English.... or the ones who have never left their county and are offended by a different sounding consonant, fit the bill perfectly
I also travel everywhere, speak English to random people in restaurants and services and expect them to understand it. Cuz they can't possibly expect every visitor to their country to speak their language somehow?
I always hear about obnoxious Americans traveling, speaking English to locals and being upset when they're not understood. I've never really seen much of it. Usually it's a polite "excuses me ". Yes, said in English to a someone in a country where English is not the main language. Yet, what else do you expect them to do?
I am still surprised by the "I have never seen this thing (I couldn't possibly have observed by happenstance) therefore it must not exist" argument been thrown around.
Unless you vacation 10 times a year and love to snoop into other tourist conversations, you are very unlikely to have witness much. Ask people in the service industry and they will tell you.
Also, no I am not saying people traveling to Greece should learn Greek... but they should definitely expect to repeat themselves a bit, maybe use simpler language and definitely not expect perfect American English spoken back to them. This is what I was referring to which is likely represented by a loud MINORITY of Americans that give everyone a bad name.
I work in a call center where we are all speaking English as a second language. At one point we had a pharmaceutical company as a client. They had employees in different countries but the American employees whined that we didn't speak English correctly or made bad comments about my coworkers. Eventually we lost the contract and they went with an all American call center for their American employees, because apparently they didn't like our English.
In a call center language is your main working tool. It has to be near-perfect. My experience communicating with a such "offshore call-center" was always less than subpar. And I'm not a native speaker either.
And yet you have a foreign web developer who'd be better at waving hands than speaking English, and somehow nobody bats an eye. The web page looks great, so here's a round of applause for our jorgi, who can't even phrase a "thank you" back.
Oh, and to bring the point back. Nowhere in Europe will you have non-native speakers working in a call center. Rare, very rare exceptions. And those all will speak their target language borderline perfect.