CringeFest: Foreigners trying to hard to talk like natives

Guest   Thu May 22, 2008 5:01 am GMT
Please, foreigners, unless you have completely MASTERED English, do not try and use all the hip slang and metaphors that a native would use. Please speak correctly and clearly. If we can't even understand your basic speech, we CANNOT understand your nifty slang words.

It is much better to speak good, standard English.
Quidsane   Thu May 22, 2008 5:16 am GMT
Better for who? Who is "we"?
And foreign to who? The U.S.A.?
Australia? U.K.? N.Z.? etc., etc....
In any case, most NATIVES can't speak English correctly and clearly.
Which English are you insisting should be mastered?
You sound like a fucking racist to me. Don't listen to this misguided asshole.
English is comprised of idioms, catch-phrases, slang, metaphors AND
"good, standard English". Learn it ALL + Try it ALL = master the language.
Quidsane   Thu May 22, 2008 5:35 am GMT
Also the title of this thread should be:
"Foreigners trying TOO hard to talk like natives"
Nice to see that you've mastered good, standard English.
Guest   Thu May 22, 2008 5:57 am GMT
You're misunderstanding me. Here's an example of what I mean. This guy in one of my classes who has a thick accent is a hard core rap fan. Every day he comes in to ask me about some obscure gangster slang from some rap lyrics. When I ask him a question, he replies like someone in the hood. His English is pretty bad in general, so I usually don't even know what he's trying to say, and when I find out, I see I wouldn't have known anyway.

That's an extreme example, but a lot of people do this to some extent, and it's annoying.
Quidsane   Thu May 22, 2008 6:35 am GMT
Sorry for being so harsh earlier but you still haven't given a frame of reference in terms of WHICH English you are talking about. I've heard British "hard core" rap, and it is just plain bizarre. Talk about hip slang and metaphors in an unintelligible mix of accents! Anyway, I'm in the U.S. and if I hear something like "soon of beach" instead of "son of a bitch", it doesn't annoy me. Mastering a language takes lots and lots of practice. Who better to practice on than those of us who HAVE mastered (HA!) the language?
Oh, well...
One man's cringe is another man's... I don't know... something.
Guest   Thu May 22, 2008 7:10 am GMT
Which dialect of English it is is irrelevant... The problem is people trying to get ahead of themselves when they haven;t got the basics down yet.
Quidsane   Thu May 22, 2008 8:10 am GMT
Ahead of themselves when they haven't got the basics down yet??
Are you implying that "hip slang" is advanced English?
The dialect of English IS relevant. It would disclose what you consider a "foreigner", and what you consider "standard" English.
For instance, a native Scottish accent is almost unintelligible to me (U.S. native) even though English is what's being spoken. I could not watch the film "My Name Is Joe" (1998) without subtitles!
I guess it's all irrelevant, really. What annoys you, annoys you.;)
Guest   Thu May 22, 2008 8:47 am GMT
Non-native speakers
Quidsane   Thu May 22, 2008 9:07 am GMT
Oh, yeah?
Bigots annoy me...
meez   Thu May 22, 2008 9:48 am GMT
Guest: I know exactly what you mean...and dialect does indeed not really matter. Wherever people learn English and think they should use the respective slang words, it sound mostly ridiculous.
Skippy   Thu May 22, 2008 4:02 pm GMT
The problem is foreigners need to learn Standard American (or Standard English English or whatever). In high school we had a French exchange student who tried learning AAVE and ended up learning rap lyrics and using them in normal conversation during rehearsals for a church play... Did not go over well...
theo   Thu May 22, 2008 6:27 pm GMT
I have also noticed a lot of foreign speakers picking up english slang, idioms and clichés (presumably from television, etc) and then using them in awkward ways. Sometimes it can be cute, other times I am frankly embarrassed on their behalf. Also, when I'm chatting online I always see things like "How r u?", "I wanna make new friends", and "I gotta go". This happens across every age group and nationality. Are these short-forms now part of english grammar texts or something? I wish it would stop, it can make foreign speakers sound like they are 8 years old.

Also, Quidsane:

"...most NATIVES can't speak English correctly and clearly"

I have two problems with this kind of statement (which is stated too often). Firstly, this can be said about any language. For example, I spent two years working in France, and believe me, a lot of native french speakers suck at french. Secondly, native speakers shouldn't be expected to always speak correctly and clearly. We are not robots who can churn out perfect grammar on demand. We are humans, who speak human languages, and we necessarily make mistakes.
Travis   Thu May 22, 2008 7:10 pm GMT
>>I have also noticed a lot of foreign speakers picking up english slang, idioms and clichés (presumably from television, etc) and then using them in awkward ways. Sometimes it can be cute, other times I am frankly embarrassed on their behalf. Also, when I'm chatting online I always see things like "How r u?", "I wanna make new friends", and "I gotta go". This happens across every age group and nationality. Are these short-forms now part of english grammar texts or something? I wish it would stop, it can make foreign speakers sound like they are 8 years old.<<

Some of that is people not really following standard orthographic conventions (such as "How r u?" rather than "How are you?" or even "How're you?"), but a lot of such is just because that is how the general English-speaking population (at least here in North America) speaks in the first place in Real Life. Of course, saying "I wanna make new friends" sounds childish, but it's not the use of "wanna" rather than "want to" which makes it sound so.

As for making it stop, the matter is that honestly a lot of foreigners come off the opposite way to me, often sounding painfully formal all of the time, often using forms that are practically literary in nature rather than speaking like how most English-speakers actually speak. At least in North America, it is the norm for native speakers of English to actually use forms like "wanna", "gotta", "gonna", "hafta", and so on, and it sounds overly formal to consistently not use ushc.
Quidsane   Thu May 22, 2008 9:36 pm GMT
"native speakers shouldn't be expected to always speak correctly and clearly."
...but foreigners should be?? That doesn't make sense.
Curioso   Fri May 23, 2008 5:59 am GMT
Younger people in the U.S. speak the ugliest and cheapest English. A British todler speaks it with more clarity than a U.S. brat who can't live without the word "like".