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Many countries have their first and national language the english (india,nigeria,Ghana,Kenya,Liberia,Sierra Leone)
And when you go there you will notice that people speak their own Indian and African languages most of the time, while English is spoken more like Pidgin English, hard to understand by outsiders as that English also contains lots of indigenous words. It's only a small elite that is really fluent in English.
That is why even Spanish has more native speakers than English globally...
I don't need to have a clear idea about what you talking about,simply because i'm talking about something totally different.
Not talking about surviving on the streets,can you understand this :
The 1st foreign language studied in China is english.
You simply are not able to understand what people respond to you. You said English is widely spoken in China, well this is not true because of a simple fact: widely spoken=/=most studied foreign language. Fact is, Chinese are crap at English, I know they are studying hard and so on but the reality is different.
You simply are not able to understand what people respond to you. You said English is widely spoken in China, well this is not true because of a simple fact: widely spoken=/=most studied foreign language. Fact is, Chinese are crap at English, I know they are studying hard and so on but the reality is different.
I am not sure, but maybe learning European languages is very difficult for East Asians because their languages are so very different from ours. I read some time ago that the Chinese language is so different that it even shows on brain scans.
I also notice that although there are lots of Chinese immigrants here in Portugal, most of them never manage to learn Portuguese. Maybe the next generation already born here will be different as their brains are still empty drawers so to speak
I wasn't implying that you were implying you do. I was merely agreeing with your statement that sometimes, non-native English speakers have better grammar than native-English speakers. Sometimes. Do you understand?
Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII
Indeed it has, I find quite offensive to see people who willingly learn an other language (thus sparing Anglophones from learning foreign languages out of necessity) labelled as "butchers".
English vocabulary has been spreading on a large scale ever since the 16th century, when England truly became a dominant economic power, and especially since the 17th and 18th centuries, when England/the UK became the most widespread colonizing power in the world and a military/economic/cultural superpower. The fact that the UK's global influence has been supplanted by another English-speaking power - the United States - has only continued the trend of English working its way into languages all over the world, not just Germanic or Indo-European languages.
Of course, the converse is true as well. As one James Nicoll said: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse wh*re. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
As it should be. Languages are dynamic, and every new word means myriad new combinations of words, each of which represents new ways of expressing thoughts previously not possible.
The common knowledge is that English is filled with words of Norman French origin, but do not understimate the number of words of Scandinavian and Low German origin. We just may be giving back something we borrowed in the first place.
Um English is INVADING (although not in a bad way) nearly every language across the globe. Go to Europe or just logon to German, Italian, French, o Spanish newspapers and see how many english words you find. Due to economics and technology other languages find it easier to borrow from english than adapt their own language. Example: Italian. The italian word for email is "posta elettronica" which means electronic post/mail NOBODY uses it they say "mail" inviami una mail = send me an email! Also the italian word for a unmarried man is "celibe", for a woman it is "nubile" everybody and their brother says "SINGLE" now in Italy except for when filling in an official form! The government here had to take severe austerity measures calling these measures "LA SPENDING REVIEW" do you all see the trend?
Um English is INVADING (although not in a bad way) nearly every language across the globe. Go to Europe or just logon to German, Italian, French, o Spanish newspapers and see how many english words you find. Due to economics and technology other languages find it easier to borrow from english than adapt their own language. Example: Italian. The italian word for email is "posta elettronica" which means electronic post/mail NOBODY uses it they say "mail" inviami una mail = send me an email! Also the italian word for a unmarried man is "celibe", for a woman it is "nubile" everybody and their brother says "SINGLE" now in Italy except for when filling in an official form! The government here had to take severe austerity measures calling these measures "LA SPENDING REVIEW" do you all see the trend?
Seems to be an Italian thing because it is not like that in other countries in Europe. Here they say solteiro/a for single and polÃtica de austeridade etc. all the time...
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