Better English. Americans or Swedes? (Australians, rain, selling)
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While some Swedes do have better English or better written English than Americans I would say that moderately and highly literate Americans have better English. Its frightening how good Scandinavians are at English though. The younger generations know all the slang and figures of speech.
ME ME ME AND I AM THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS, EVERYONE NEEDS TO LOVE ME AND FOCUS ON ME, LOVE MY WAY OF LIFE, MY HISTORY AND CULTURE, AND MY CITIES AND EUROPEAN GIRLS AND..... BECAUSE I AM EUROPE AND I KNOW EVERYTHING!!!
You're quite right!
Have you watched the TV series "Game of Thrones"? Daenerys goes to Qarth and is told it's the "greatest city that ever was and ever will be".
That's how we feel. Europe is the greatest continent and we will continue to be so for all eternity. Or else...
The cool thing about being a French person living in Italy is that nobody ever expects me to speak and write flawless english (which I don't think I do, but somehow I manage to converse on this forum).
The cool thing about being American is that Europeans assume that I'm just some dumb hick and disarming them is very easy just by me playing into that preconceived notion. A couple "y'alls" and "by-gollies" and I'm dumb as a stump in their eyes. Selling to them is like feeding grain to pigeons. But hey, some of them speak great English!
I am going to go with Sweden. Americans may be native English speakers but there are some US accents/dialects that even for me as a US citizen, I have a hard time comprehending (especially areas in the South or Northeast), whereas I don't have those same issues in other countries that have high English proficiency despite the fact that it is not an official language.
I am going to go with Sweden. Americans may be native English speakers but there are some US accents/dialects that even for me as a US citizen, I have a hard time comprehending (especially areas in the South or Northeast), whereas I don't have those same issues in other countries that have high English proficiency despite the fact that it is not an official language.
Right.... Great logic you got going on.... So according to you, a bunch of ESL people whose language is not even English, speak better English than actual Native English speakers.
I am going to go with Sweden. Americans may be native English speakers but there are some US accents/dialects that even for me as a US citizen, I have a hard time comprehending (especially areas in the South or Northeast), whereas I don't have those same issues in other countries that have high English proficiency despite the fact that it is not an official language.
Just out of curiosity, what part of the US are you from? There are places in the Deep South that can be tough to understand if you don't pay close attention, but what part of the Northeast is difficult to understand? They have some funny accents and strange slang in New England, but I would not say that it's tough to decipher what is being said.
My daughter married VERY well. Her husband is Scandinavian, and many of his relatives are upper class Swedes. Their English is absolutely FLAWLESS - better than that of the Windsors, if you ask me. I suppose that's because Scandinavians are the wellspring of England's upper classes (and what sets England apart, in terms of rationality, goodness, fairness, and decency), while the Windsors are a branch of a barely-white group of conniving Germans, of distant Roman origins. In other words, Swedes have the INSTINCT and the innate 'spirit' for English.
When we were reinventing ourselves, my husband and I listened to the taped speech of the Windsors, and also that of William F. Buckley (who wasn't even a WASP). So, we learned the English of devious impostors. It worked, and was a critical element in our upward mobility. However, I wish we'd studied, instead, the English of Upper Class Swedish people.
Scandinavia has absolutely nothing to do with England.
Right.... Great logic you got going on.... So according to you, a bunch of ESL people whose language is not even English, speak better English than actual Native English speakers.
GREAT LOGIC
I take it you never been to areas in the deep south, the United Kingdom, or Jamaica where some people can have really thick accents (so thick in fact that it can be hard to understand them despite both areas having English as an official language)? The main thing with Sweden (along with other countries like Denmark or The Netherlands) is that even though English is a second language for them, practically everyone there is fluent (both verbally and in written form) in it so I can converse with them without an problem and most importantly I can actually understand what they are saying since they are speaking in a standard accent unlike say someone with a Jamaican accent or a very thick cockney accent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Return2FL
Just out of curiosity, what part of the US are you from? There are places in the Deep South that can be tough to understand if you don't pay close attention, but what part of the Northeast is difficult to understand? They have some funny accents and strange slang in New England, but I would not say that it's tough to decipher what is being said.
I am from Maryland but I have been to most states and have lived in Utah and Texas before and there are some regions of the country where either the accents are too hard to comprehend or certain areas where people have a tendency to talk too fast (ie New York, Massachusetts) which makes it hard for me to understand what they are saying (disclaimer: I have an auditory processing disorder which makes hearing in certain situations difficult).
Last edited by beasley106; 02-15-2017 at 07:01 PM..
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