this has been bugging me for a long time. time and time again, i see a user with a signature that reads "sorry for my bad english"(or similar) or it is part of a post. if you want to hear bad english, walk the streets of britain and listen to certain groups of young people. they may be britain born and bred, but the words they use, the phrases, are not the english taught in schools. they sound like idiots. for the "sorry for my bad english(etc)" user, english will probably be a 2nd or 3rd language. and that is my point. the idiots who troll britains streets usually have only 1 language(english) and they cannot even get THAT correct. i can understand the "sorry for my bad english(etc)" user for whom english is a 2nd or 3rd language more than the idiot young of britain. whatever the reason you learned english, you still learnt another language and that always gets my admiration and respect. you may not have totally mastered it yet, but you know enough to get yourself understood and i know enough to understand what you mean(most of the time). your english is a damn sight better than my grasp of your mother tongue(zero). so do me a favour, please stop apologising "sorry for my bad english(etc)", you have nothing to apologise for.
Not only do you have nothing to apologize for, I applaud you for taking the time to learn our language. If I could, I'd learn -every- language, just to be able to make as many friends as I can. To me, that would be the -ultimate- respect shown to humanity.
I started to learn English when I was 10 years old @school....finally it is international language. Kids nowadays start much earlier. It wasn't fun at all to do and to me (being 10 years old) there was no sense to do it.....that changed drastically when I had got my first computer and later when I started to read international scientific papers... The 'problem' for non native English people (at least for me) had been....to be handicapped due to lack of vocabulary and hence restricted at expression.... A nice discussion frequently got annoying because I had to re-ask often....ermmm, what again? Even though the native English speaker had been very polite the chat/talk got stuck without intention. And I also apologized to be polite ...it is just an uncomfortable/unconfident situation/feeling which is always in the background. It is also frustrating for both to have to re-ask again. Writing English is no issue anymore although I miss the much greater variety of words..English is much limited in this regard the German language is more expressive per-se....and 'words' just can be in a row like Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung (incapacity certificate). TBH one has to live a while there where English is spoken natively to get rid of any 'handicap'...without doing that the handicap does not vanish completely. I still feel handicapped when it comes to 'deeper' discussions and sometimes I wished to argue in my native language.. I think some people 'apologize' to inform the others that there is a sort of handicap which restricts expression.
Some problems come into play when one person is used to using a lot of slang. Some people can't understand whats said. If you ask the person to explain what you don't understand you can usually come to some sort of middle ground at bare minimum. We've all heard that there is no stupid question. Personally I take no issue in asking someone to repeat themselves or explain what I don't understand. I also don't mind people asking me to repeat or re-explain something, not everyone is wired to explain things or understand them on same level as the person you are speaking with. I found out that schools are making you take a second language course if you are learning a programming language. That actually makes perfect sense to me. Wish I had got on board with that long ago.
@melted: I did. Where I grew up, Junior High Schools and high schools were making us take a second language. I took 3 years of Spanish in Junior High School. When I went to High School, I took German. I have since all but forgotten German (I still recognize certain things like the big B which is pronounced with a 'S' sound and the umlaut) But The majority of people where I live are Puerto Rican (I live on Avenue of Puerto Rico) so, I retained Spanish. You become strong in a language by practicing it. You learn because those who are fluent show you kindness and teach you. You show them and their culture the respect it deserves by attempting to learn their language and culture. If someone comes to me showing respect, I will do my utmost to reciprocate.
Actually, learning English is only half the trouble, as I found out. I had learned good English at home, yet when I got to England, I discovered that I still couldn’t understand what others were saying, which was reciprocal, as they couldn't understand me either. It took some time for this isolating glass bubble I was in to break. And I also discovered a small consolation in that sometimes the English don’t understand each other.
Yen, if a user has their location or national flag on their profile, that gives a clue so no apologies required.
@wazzok yep I agree I see in several boards that have national flag on profile so I think is one good idea for MDL also
I agree location will suffice. Either English is clearly not your first tongue or you have a brain impairment if it is your first, lol (j/k)
I wish they offered Spanish, too. It is useful when traveling to South America. But instead of the second foreign language had been French or Latin. I had considered to learn French as useless....so I dropped it. TBH I do not like to learn foreign languages and I am not good learning it. I must have a good reason/use for it only then I can @MJ The ß (Scharfes S) like "hot S"..looks rather like the Greek beta.. lol comes originally from the combination of S and Z (Kurrent / old German Script).. and yes the Umlaute are those with dots on top lol ÄÜÖ. All those create trouble being abroad (airport and the like). They can be officially 'translated'. ß = ss (not sz) ä = ae ü = ue ö = oe