Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad' English

Re:Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad... by nickkell on Sunday May 23, 2021 @04:24AM (#27253299)

Our "Anglo" nations are mostly monolingual, but take it for granted that everyone else should speak English. As a result we sometimes forget how much effort was put into learning it, probably partly because we ourselves never achieved the equivalent.

It could be that your English is so good, that individual mistakes (here I'm going to be guilty of using an idiom) stick out like a sore thumb! You were probably right to be proud

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Re:Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad... by Y_Y on Sunday May 23, 2021 @07:00AM (#27254101)

This is absolutely right. It would be cruel and unusual to pick on some particular word when someone is clearly a beginner in English, but when they are otherwise very good and they make an incongruous mistake it grates. I think people feel better about correcting or good-naturedly making fun of errors like this because it's implied that "your English is so good it's funny that you got that one small thing toally wrong". Of course this is often not so well appreciated by the recipient for various reasons.

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Re:Non-native speakers navigate the world of 'good' and 'bad... by metters on Sunday May 23, 2021 @05:49AM (#27253724)

> stick out like a sore thumb

I am going to memorize this one.

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