A lot of it is just level of attention and effort…
A native speaker isn’t going to give a fuck, or even read their comment/post for sending it. Lots of their mistakes involve autocorrect
Someone who is nervous about how good their English is, will review and catch stuff and fix it.
They’re putting time and effort, and still feeling self-conscious.
Which is why we’ll see an absolutely perfect English comment followed by: Sorry for my terrible English, I hope that made sense! When it’s written at a higher grade level than our newspapers are.
Like think of speaking English as golf. Someone whose been playing their whole lives, but never actually took lessons versus someone who started last year, but has been working hard and taking lessons.
They may get the same score, but it’s hard to say they’re equal. One is actively trying to improve, and will soon and eventually surpass the “natural”.
If we are going to use the golf analogy, you also have a difference in the players.
The “natural” may not need to get better. They’ve probably got a family spot in the country club and they are golfing more for a social aspect. It may help to know how to golf for business, but they are good enough.
Meanwhile, the people studying golf are more motivated since they’ve likely hit some career ceilings that require them to learn. They may not know the culture around golf that the natural knows, but they know they need to get good and will practice so they don’t embarrass themselves on the links.
But when golfing for business, it’s about the social aspect, not the best technical play.
Which still fits with the example.
Someone that speaking over formally and paying real close attention to grammar/phrasing is going to seem “off”.
Like, recognizing “other” is something baked into humans. We’re still wired to be suspicious of people who don’t look like what we grew up around, or don’t act like we’re used to.
And just on a basic level, we don’t like people who “try to hard” because it makes us suspicious they have ulterior motives. Which, in business golf everyone does. That’s the entire point of it.
The best way for an ESL to fit in with Americans, is to just stop caring so much. Which pretty much brings us full circle.
It’s why rich Japanese families will pay random Americans who don’t speak Japanese to hang out with their kids. They don’t want the kid to just know “textbook English” they want their kid to know slang and idioms so that when the kid grows up, you won’t be able to tell them apart from a native speaker. They intentionally practice throwing in an “um” or “like” so even the cadence and speed sounds American. Like, intentionally teaching the kids to start talking before they know what they’re gonna say… Because that’s how you fit in with Americans. I had no idea where this was going when I started typing for example.
If you learn English from a textbook and a class, an American will instantly notice. Because while it might not be perfect, weird shit we usually do wrong is what sounds normal.
Its all subconscious shit, it’s not like the native speakers do it intentionally, they might not be able to say why something feels off, it just is.
Which is a huge culture change for an immigrant who had to bust ass just to get on the course. They got there from trying as hard as they can, but at some point they need to start acting like an American and just not really caring.
A lot of it is just level of attention and effort…
A native speaker isn’t going to give a fuck, or even read their comment/post for sending it. Lots of their mistakes involve autocorrect
Someone who is nervous about how good their English is, will review and catch stuff and fix it.
They’re putting time and effort, and still feeling self-conscious.
Which is why we’ll see an absolutely perfect English comment followed by: Sorry for my terrible English, I hope that made sense! When it’s written at a higher grade level than our newspapers are.
Like think of speaking English as golf. Someone whose been playing their whole lives, but never actually took lessons versus someone who started last year, but has been working hard and taking lessons.
They may get the same score, but it’s hard to say they’re equal. One is actively trying to improve, and will soon and eventually surpass the “natural”.
If we are going to use the golf analogy, you also have a difference in the players.
The “natural” may not need to get better. They’ve probably got a family spot in the country club and they are golfing more for a social aspect. It may help to know how to golf for business, but they are good enough.
Meanwhile, the people studying golf are more motivated since they’ve likely hit some career ceilings that require them to learn. They may not know the culture around golf that the natural knows, but they know they need to get good and will practice so they don’t embarrass themselves on the links.
Sure…
But when golfing for business, it’s about the social aspect, not the best technical play.
Which still fits with the example.
Someone that speaking over formally and paying real close attention to grammar/phrasing is going to seem “off”.
Like, recognizing “other” is something baked into humans. We’re still wired to be suspicious of people who don’t look like what we grew up around, or don’t act like we’re used to.
And just on a basic level, we don’t like people who “try to hard” because it makes us suspicious they have ulterior motives. Which, in business golf everyone does. That’s the entire point of it.
The best way for an ESL to fit in with Americans, is to just stop caring so much. Which pretty much brings us full circle.
It’s why rich Japanese families will pay random Americans who don’t speak Japanese to hang out with their kids. They don’t want the kid to just know “textbook English” they want their kid to know slang and idioms so that when the kid grows up, you won’t be able to tell them apart from a native speaker. They intentionally practice throwing in an “um” or “like” so even the cadence and speed sounds American. Like, intentionally teaching the kids to start talking before they know what they’re gonna say… Because that’s how you fit in with Americans. I had no idea where this was going when I started typing for example.
If you learn English from a textbook and a class, an American will instantly notice. Because while it might not be perfect, weird shit we usually do wrong is what sounds normal.
Its all subconscious shit, it’s not like the native speakers do it intentionally, they might not be able to say why something feels off, it just is.
Which is a huge culture change for an immigrant who had to bust ass just to get on the course. They got there from trying as hard as they can, but at some point they need to start acting like an American and just not really caring.