Why do non-native speakers overrate their English so much?

Steve   Thu May 21, 2009 12:47 pm GMT
I have been living in Germany for about 5 years and have noticed that most Germans tend to severely overrate their English language abilities. (I am assuming that people in other countries might do the same?) Not only do they overrate their proficiency but they will usually claim that a native speaker is speaking some "dialect" if they have any problems with understanding. I've come to the conclusion that there are two distinct forms of English. (and no, one of them is not "American") There is the English as spoken by native speakers around the world, then there is something else which on the surface closely resembles English, but upon further examination is missing something. To me what Germans consider "gutes Englisch" is like shell of the language with all of its guts cut out; many of the words might be there when they speak and write, but you can never really be sure exactly what they are really trying to say without switching over to German.
jimmy   Thu May 21, 2009 1:04 pm GMT
I've come to the conclusion that there are two distinct forms of English

__________________________________

yes, everybody know the "globish language", foreigners who speak english understand each other but don't understand native speaker. And vice versa.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20912132-29677,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globish

"Globish (Globe-ish) isn't another Esperanto. It's a form of simplified English that non-native English speakers from different countries use with each other to surmount linguistic barriers. "English-lite," as it's been called, has become the global dialect of the global village, spoken and emailed daily by multiple millions of people who can't otherwise communicate with each other.

"Anglophones no longer own English," says Jean-Paul Nerrière, the man who coined the term. "It's now owned by people in Singapore, Ulan Bator, Montevideo, Beijing and elsewhere."

Stating the obvious? Yes. But the situation isn't that simple.

When the English used by a person in one country, Venezuela, say, doesn't match up with the version used by his counterparts in Copenhagen or Kuala Lumpur, they risk costly confusion and mistakes. As Nerrière puts it: "If you lose a contract to a Moroccan rival because you're speaking an English that no one apart from another Anglophone understands, then you've got a problem."
Blanc   Thu May 21, 2009 1:24 pm GMT
"A word such as "siblings," for example, didn't make the dictionary cut. In Globish, you'd say (rather more cumbersomely) "the other children of my mother and father." Chat becomes "speak casually to each other;" kitchen, the "room where you cook food."

It's hardly efficient communication. Having to say something like "the room where you cook food" in place of kitchen will make you sound quite comical as well.
Blanc   Thu May 21, 2009 1:27 pm GMT
I don't think his standard will take off somehow.
feati   Thu May 21, 2009 1:42 pm GMT
I'm German and I think the reason for this is that most people think their teacher's English is perfect although it's, in fact, pretty poor in most cases. They just can't tell because they've never heard a native speaker speak English.

I remember a friend of mine telling me he met a guy on a flight to Canada. They spoke English for the whole flight only to find out they were both German. Neither of them thought they had a German accent. I don't know about that guy but my friend definitely has a German accent.

There's a girl in my English class who gets made fun of for pronouncing words with an RP-like accent (the one we're supposed to learn at German schools!) while everyone else pronounces them just plain wrong. A good example are "more" and "there" which almost everyone (including teachers) pronounces [mQ6] and [DE6] instead of [mO:] and [DE:]. The fact that [O:] and [E:] are regular phonemes in German makes it even more ironic...

It's not just an accent. We've developed our own ridiculous dialect without noticing:

DRESS, TRAP - [E]
LOT, CLOTH - [Q]
STRUT, commA - [ä]
FOOT - [U]
BATH, PALM, START - [ä:]
NURSE - [96]
FLEECE, happY - [i:]
FACE - [EI]
THOUGHT - [Q:]
GOAT - [QU]
GOOSE, intO - [u:]
PRICE - [äI]
CHOICE - [QI]
MOUTH - [äU]
NEAR - [i6]
SQUARE - [E6]
NORTH, FORCE [Q6]
CURE - [u6]
lettER - [6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-sampa
K. T.   Thu May 21, 2009 8:48 pm GMT
This is an interesting topic. I laughed out loud about the two Germans on the plane.

I've heard this argument before (and not just from Germans), that someone must be speaking with an accent. Yes, we all have "accents" and some people use regional words. It's an excuse, but it's more telling about the person who makes that excuse.

Part of being a good user of another language is the ability to deal with accents (at least some of the more common accents). It takes time to do this and it's uncomfortable at first (listening for comprehension and words in a language you "think" you already know.)
Travis   Thu May 21, 2009 9:33 pm GMT
I agree completely. For instance, the average natively English-speaking American will be, in practice, able to understand any other natively English-speaking North American, aside from maybe more extreme forms of AAVE and excluding English-based creoles. They may not necessarily completely understand some more nonstandard English English dialects and likely will have significant trouble with Scots, though. For someone to "speak English well", I would expect at least this sort of degree of ability to understand other English dialects; hence saying that the other person is speaking "a dialect", unless that dialect is something like a rural English English dialect, is not an excuse.
reno   Thu May 21, 2009 10:41 pm GMT
<<There's a girl in my English class who gets made fun of for pronouncing words with an RP-like accent (the one we're supposed to learn at German schools!) while everyone else pronounces them just plain wrong. A good example are "more" and "there" which almost everyone (including teachers) pronounces [mQ6] and [DE6] instead of [mO:] and [DE:]. The fact that [O:] and [E:] are regular phonemes in German makes it even more ironic... >>


Lol, yes! It seems to be universal that with children in a language class, trying to correctly pronounce the words is made fun of. These people are geeks and try-hards. I wonder how much this has to do with the acquisition of a good accent, as opposed to the actual difficulty of the accent? Do you think that if people had no inhibitions about trying their hardest to imitate sounds a significantly higher proportion would reach a near native accent?

Another thing is that non-natives are often highly proficient at a superficial level, but cannot read more literary language. I once loaned a book to a fluent English-lite speaker and he said he couldn't read it, and he commented on how pretentious the author was to use all those obscure nonsensical words he'd never heard before (and hence I must not know them either, because he thought he knew English like a native, when he really only SPOKE English like a native). He was quite surprised when I said that that was actually completely normal language and not complicated at all.
u   Fri May 22, 2009 12:42 am GMT
Sometimes it's easier to read more advanced texts in another language. I can read scientific or technical French better than I can read a Children's book in French.
WRP   Fri May 22, 2009 4:11 am GMT
I suspect that might have more to do with the specific relationship between English and French than technical language in general.
feati   Fri May 22, 2009 7:42 am GMT
<<Do you think that if people had no inhibitions about trying their hardest to imitate sounds a significantly higher proportion would reach a near native accent? >>

I don't think it's about inhibitions. Those people really think they have a near native British accent. After all, that's how they've always heard English been spoken, albeit just by their non-native teachers. Any other accent is either American or stupid.

I'm pretty sure most of them could reach a near native accent if they only knew better.
Kris   Fri May 22, 2009 2:23 pm GMT
I don't know about that. I could never even get close to a near native accent until I studied phonetics and phonology. I tried and tried immitating my teachers but I always ended up using my native sounds rather than the correct sounds. So in my opinion the listen and repeat method doesn't work all that much better than just learning what the written letters sound most like in my language and then using those sounds. I think the best way is to be taught exactly where the sounds are in the mouth, and how they differ from the sounds in my language, and try to avoid using the incorrect sounds.
Travis   Fri May 22, 2009 2:27 pm GMT
I would be inclined to agree; I myself at least am much more able to accurately say sounds in various languages from just seeing them written in IPA (or, say, X-SAMPA) rather than from hearing them (as, for instance, I practically never catch the voiced fricatives in Spanish from just listening to it).
Paul   Fri May 22, 2009 3:28 pm GMT
<<Sometimes it's easier to read more advanced texts in another language. I can read scientific or technical French better than I can read a Children's book in French. >>

I have the same experience, but I think this is true with respect to english and romance languages only.

Advanced/technical writing in romance languages is usually about 60% transparent vocabulary for an english speaker, making it much easier to read than a 'simple' childrens story book or a novel with lots of dialog.

English and German share only very common words normally used in the spoken language, and almost no 'advanced' or technical vocabulary.
feati   Fri May 22, 2009 3:43 pm GMT
I absolutely agree with you, Kris. That's what I actually meant by "if they only knew better". Phonology is obligatory for anyone who wants to seriously learn a language.