:text-offtopic:
HarmlessSquirrel said:
Leon_Omega said:
I cringe when I read this as well. English is my second language, I should not have a better grasp on it than a native speaker.
I've found that a lot of people (I would guess reasonably educated) who do not speak English as a first language really do have a much better grasp on English than a shocking number of native English-speakers. This seems especially true for speakers of certain non-romance languages such as German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. It seems to be a more difficult transition for native romance language speakers.
I'm not sure if I agree that 'a lot' of ESL-speakers have a much better grasp on English than a lot of native speakers... but what I can say for sure is that after 14 years of learning English among other Germans (in school, then university), and reading a lot of my school friends' homework and essays that fellow students have written, I have
not once come across one of them making any of the internet age's most common mistakes made by native speakers:
- their/they're/there
- your/you're
- should-could-would have/of
We make other mistakes, definitely. Many of them, and worse ones, that can actually reflect negatively on the speaker. Tenses? Ugh. Syntax? My worst enemy. :? Irregular verbs? Ew. Pronunciation? Don't even get me started.
The stereotypical German accent is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
But the 'your/you're' etc. mistakes mentioned above are never made by anyone here it seems, and at the same time they're being made by many very intelligent and well-spoken English speakers.
Just an interesting little thing I've noticed, and I don't know what the reason might be at all.