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How to determine non native English speaker's nationality
6

How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
This is a fun game if you frequently receive English emails from non-native speakers. Try not to look at the name and guess their nationality from their grammar.

I'll kick off with a few tips and tricks:

the French:
- frequently mix up "do" and "make"
- usually forget the perfect tense "-ed"
- always forget the plural "-s"

Who else?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Generally I find that non-english speaking people will tend to write using very complicated english rather than using simple english to say the same thing. Sadly, I also find that english speaking people tend to use simple english and make a complete hash of it, in the main.

For an example of bad english, a non-english friend of mine will refer to 'organic units' when referring to people in the company. I doubt that it's a 'foreign' thing though but more likely to be an example of an advanced 'management-speak' term that mere mortals are unfamiliar with.

corus

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

The Indian:

The use of the word "the" in the sentence, everywhere with out the real need of the using the word.

Btw, I am an Indian.

Dinesh

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
"organic units" - ouch, sounds like the crematorium business jargon!

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Hard to tell as I know english people speeking and writing english worse than me smile

Oh..and I am French winky smile

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

make it "speaking" .. my bad

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I have noticed that Arabic- and Farsi-speaking people seem to use "is" instead of "it is..." or "is it ...?"

is a nice day  =  it is a nice day

is correct? = is it correct?

M

--
Dr Michael F Platten

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I have noticed that Americans cannot spell colour winky smile

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I've noticed non-Americans can't spell organization. peace

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I don't think it's possible to be sure, especially with FrenchCAD's comment being so true.  

However, I 've noticed some interesting French idioms such as "the good functioning" i.e. 'This inspection ensures the good functioning of all parts.'

Also, many other languages, Chinese and Japanese to name a few, simply don't have a plural tense like we do in English.  The Japanese have a collective noun for things and use that with a number.  So if you had a poor translation you'd have, "seven pencil-shaped object pencil" to mean '7 pencils'

I've always thought it interesting how many ways people have come up with to say the same things.  And English (especially?) has tons of short-cuts that let you be (mostly) understood while breaking almost every rule there is.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

What!!! ... the English language has rules?  shocked

cheers
Helpful SW websites  FAQ559-520
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RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
The Dutch and the Germans:

- Often write composed words (or what do you call them) as one single word: "operatingpressure", "wastestream", etc.

The interesting thing is that, since a few years, there is an opposite tendency in written Dutch, i.e. of breaking words apart inappropriately, under the influence of English.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Then there are people (from where?) who say since a few years to indicate "recently," "for the last few years," or similar...


RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Arabic:  mixing up "b" and "p"

French:  use of "since" instead of "for" in time references.  ("Depuis" covers both in French.)

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

We often see the word "lubber" (rubber) from some of our far east clients.  Strange when you hear it, even stranger when you read it.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Ivymike:  I've heard "since two days" (usually meaning "two days ago" rather than "for the last two days")- usually from people who were brought up to speak Arabic.

I can't recall ever hearing it from a native German speaker, although I think that language uses a similar construct.

A.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I have heard Afrikaans speakers saying "Will you borrow me a scissor"

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I've heard English speakers say that as well.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

The Indians are apparently using all of the "the"'s that the Russians don't use.

Japonese use "on the other hand" when they should use "furthermore".

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

My wife is from Minnesota. She and her entire family and circle of friends say "borrow me" instead of "lend me". I poke fun of them as much as I can get away with, but they eventually ignore me and go right ahead anyway.

I deal with people from all over the world every day. It takes quite a bit of language flexibility to make sense of it all sometimes, but I just let go of a lot of rules and I can understand them quite well. Having taken French in school and Italian at home helps a lot with latin languages for sure, but I also believe it helped me to understand and accept context transpositions and some extra flourish that are common in non-native English speakers. Not so with others in my company, so most of them immediately transfer calls from overseas to me, I "translate" their pseudo English, and we move on from there.

Here's an email I just received from a Spanish speaker that sums it up for me. Nothing wrong with it and not at all difficult to understand, just subtly overdone in the beginning and contextually transposed towards the end.

Quote:

In accordance with our phone conversation, herewith you will find attached our e-mail address to get out as soon as possible the starting analysis for this 1350 HP drive project
I would have just said "Per our telecon of today, here is my email. Please send the analysis ASAP."
My problem is that I often forget that non-native speakers may not know what "telecon" is, let alone ASAP. I also get caught using # instead of lbs. for weight, and have found that very few people know our shortcuts outside of English speaking countries.

Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Indonesians (and some other Asian languages) have a problem with "him and her" or "she and he" as they do not have the gender broken down in their language (use of 'ia' for both he and she).  My wife of 18 years from Indonesia still can't get it right a lot of the time.  It is quite funny hearing her refer to her brother as "she".  Also, they don't have past tense - they modify the verb with the when part.  And, there is a distinct lack of 'articles' in their written language. Indians like to use big words such as "paucity" (which I don't think I ever saw in the States or Canada for so many years)and using 'cum' instead of 'and' as in Resident cum Materials Engineer.
cheers

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Konnen Sie denken wie viel ein auslander lacht wenn ein Amerkaner versucht zu schreiben mit ein anderes lange?

If anyone out there can read German I'm sure they're laughing (at me, not with me).

=====================================
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RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Please let me test the little wisdom I acquired of late.

epoisses - French
freefallingbody - Indian (though he omitted thefrom his handle
FrenchCAD - French (I pretend that I didn't see his name)
electricpete - American (no, my Dutch colleague didn't explain me the meaning of that German sentence)

After retrospection (of my own english)

quark - Indian

I have to do some homework for analysing others, tonight.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Electicpete : it is "wieviel" in one word, not two winky smile

quark : good analysis  lol.  hint for you : Epoisses is a french town.

For non german speakers, the sentence means :

"Can you imagine how much a foreigner laughs when an American try to write in an other language?"

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Except that language is called "Sprache" in German, not "lange" (don't even know what that is......).

Benta.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

good point. I was trying to remember the right word for that since "lange" was surprising to me as well. Thanks benta.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Lange means long time.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Second languages are always dangerous. Thirty years ago working in Grenoble once I asked a secretary, in my best French, to post a document to our Office in Telford Shropshire.
But instead of saying shropshire I used an old version of the name Salop.

This young french lady turned on her heal and stormed off.

Explaing to one of the French engineers what had happened her told me that there is a French word Salope, which I think translates as bitch or something similar.

This was when I learn't to take great care when someone who had learnt English as a second language gets it wrong.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

BigH - you can specifically add Chinese to your list.  Those same explanations have been given to me by co-workers with names like Yeen-jing and Yu-shing who were born in China in the late 30's.  They still make the occasional gender or tense error in their speech after 30+ years here in the US.  If anything, that experience has helped me follow what an English-as-a-second-language speaker is saying.

Norm

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

When traveling Europe with my family at age 12, we came to the town of St. Bernard in Switzerland to spend the night, but our hotel had shut down for some unknown reason. We had to run around town looking for lodging which, to say the least, was scarce. We were directed to a local pub that rented rooms. There was a cute teen girl on the front porch cutting vegetables, and my father asked if she spoke English; "No", my mother asked if she spoke Italian; "No", and I asked if she spoke French; "Qui!"

I asked her what I thought was "My family would like to rent a bedroom of yours for the night". What I (think) I said was "Ma famille voudrait partager votre chambre à coucher à vous pour la nuit."  She started laughing. She begged me to come in the pub and repeat the question, which I did. The entire audience of 1/2 drunk Swiss patrons started laughing hysterically. They called the proprietor down from upstairs and asked me to repeat it to him. I did once more, even knowing that I must be saying something wrong. Everyone laughed again, and the proprietor wiped the tears from his eyes and calmly asked me, in perfect English "What exactly are you trying to ask?" I told him, they had a room and everything else transpired normally from there. Later he told my father that I had essentially asked her if my entire family could share her bed, which to them had an entirely different meaning!

Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

quark - you are correct I'm American.   If English is not your native language, I'm suprised.  I never would have known it from your posts.

Ussuri, Benta, Frenchcad - thx for the corrections.  I knew the word sprache but somehow lange just came out instead.

jraef - vous or vouz? Funny story.

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RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

American by birth - Canadian by choice (after 16 years there).  Overseas for 12 years now - China, Laos, India and Indnosia

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Quote:

How to determine non native English speaker's nationality
Ask them!

cheers
Helpful SW websites  FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions  FAQ559-1091

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Yes, ask us. Or don't ask us.

Why do you need to know? I seldom ask people I meet in bars and on air-planes what nationality they are - simply because I don't have a need to know.

Linguistic mistakes are common, native Americans and British make them. Even native Swedes make them - in Swedish. We all make mistakes. Always.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Also, you are right, "salope" in French stands for "bitch"...language mistakes make always fun stories imo.

It happened to my father, who can't sepak english very well, to make same kind of funny mistake with an english woman. He told her she had beautiful hairs, when he meant beautiful hair. She was kinda shocked at first but when he tried to explain by gestures, she couldn't stop laughing.

Also, a friend of him made wording mistake that the girl didn't appreciate much : he told her she had a beatiful corpse when he meant body (body is "corps" in French)

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I have noticed that every year, the more people that move to the USA from other countries, the more the English language changes. So, it is more difficult for me to tell who is from where. I can only guess in general an area of the globe.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

even english / american language mistakes can be funny... like the woman who asks high school age boys for help finding her "pussy."

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Our cat's food packages are marked "Pussy". There!

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

ctopher - get a new Oxford's Dictionary.  From what I understand there are quite a lot of new words added - basically Hindi words that, given the numbers now in England, are becoming common in usage - although I am not sure it is so outside the sub-continent residents - but "The Times, They are A'Changing."

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Thanks. I will check into it.
I found a dictionary once, don't remember which, that had the word "f**k" listed! Not sure about the news once, have not looked. I don't understand why so bad to hear it if it's listed in the book!
I was playing Scrabble with my 12 year old daughter a few days ago. Part of one word was "pus". I almost finished it, but decided not to. These days the context is taken wrong. She would not have understood because the way I raised her, but I didn't want to start another way.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
@quark, frenchCAD,

I'm not french (besides, writing french instead of French is another French thing) but Dutch. Working in France though. And epoisses is a town but for me most of all a cheese!

Another interesting French mistake (I guess a Latin mistake in general) is to say "his brother" referring to a woman's brother, or "her sister" referring to a man's sister, not because they are not gender conscious (!!) but because the possessive pronoun changes with the owner and not with the noun as in Germanic/Anglosaxon languages.

Apart from that I think French are probably the lousiest spellers in the whole world, at least when writing French, what do you think FrenchCAD?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
(with the noun and not with the owner I mean)

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Oh you're right, epoisses is also a -damn- good cheese...stupid me to have forgotten this :-p

You're right about the possessive's mistake. It often occurs.

And sadly, you are right also about French being bad spellers. As apology, I could say our language is kind of difficult, but on the other hand, I think we face a real problem in terms of scholar education in France. I do not remember right figures but I do believe that around 20% of students passing the "baccalauréat" can't read or write correctly (in French that is, don't even speak about foreign languages) which is very impressive.

The capital letter tip also works good to discover French peeps smile

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Epoisses:

Not only a cheese but a very very smelly one! It takes a brave man to label himself with that one.

I'm thinking of renaming myself 'Vacherin' to compete.

Chacun a son gout.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
FrenchCAD, I participate in another forum, in French. I have to add that these people are not engineers, but being an engineer is not a vaccination against bad spelling. There are teenagers who write a kind of SMS-French which is absolutely impossible to read. Or maybe I'm just getting old...

But the language sure is complicated. And you never know how to pronounce anything, especially names of towns. In my area there are several towns and villages that end with "as": Privas, Cornas, Aubenas, Cruas... in some cases you pronounce the s, in other cases you don't. You wouldn't know unless you live there and hear what the others say. I guess it's all a way of quickly identifying strangers, just what this thread is all about.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

That exists everywhere. I spent a lot of time in Seattle, and Washington State has a lot of towns with names of Native American origin (Seattle itself being one, a butcher job on the chief's name, Seal'th). Two of my favorites were Sequim, which locals pronounce "skwim", and Puyallup, which locals pronounce "pewal'p". If you pronounce either one phonetically, your prices go up!

Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

One of the saddest things about moving to Australia for me was the absence of proper cheese. All we get is bland, mostly pasteurised, stuff.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

epoisses, I know of a french forum for engineers if you want.

You are not getting old, I'm only 26 and I swear I can't understand anything to SMS styled messages. I have a sister aged 16 who only writes this way and man I swear I can't have a chat with her.

harrisj, the most a chees smells, the better it tastes winky smile

btw, question for english speakers : in the above sentence, why "better" and not "best"? smile

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

epoisses,

I should have analyzed your third post, insteadwink

FrenchCAD,

Is it amazing or irony? Indians think French is easier than our local languages and national language. Most of my friends (in college) took French as a second langauge and scored over me by 20% (they can't, definitely, beat me in my language)

One issue may be that both language papers are being evaluated by Indianssad

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

quark,

You can not compare French (national language) to your local "dialects", better compare our local ones (berrichon, cht'i, basque, provençal, savoyard - If you know a little bit abour French geography, there is a dialect for each region) and I am almost sure any of them is as difficult as any of yours.

French is mostly difficult due to it's particular grammar which offers a lot of rules along with a lot of exceptions to these rules and sometimes expections within those exceptions. This surely is huge to learn for non French people since it is already difficult enough for French ones big smile

I do believe French is one of the most difficult languages in the world.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Quote:

the most a chees smells, the better it tastes

btw, question for english speakers : in the above sentence, why "better" and not "best"?
"better" is correct; it's the use of the superlative "most" that's wrong in that case.

Norm

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Your smelly cheese tastes better than the Aussies' pasteurized cheese.  There can be only one best cheese, but many cheeses are better than others.

'better' only works in direct comparison to something else.

'best' is the singular item.

'best of the best' is marketing speak, but it does have uses, like an Olympic gold medalist.  All of the best athletes (from their country) are there, but only the best of the best win gold.  

     

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

thanks guys

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I've got one. Why do Indian students always (well, sometimes) say "fundamental doubt" when they mean "I don't understand this"? Is it a phrase that translates an Indian idea very well?

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Sorry Greg - in the nearly 5 years I was there (and met a lot of students), I never heard one say "fundamental doubt".  Perhaps, they thought they knew it all??!

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

better is the comparative and best is the superlative.

This cheese is better than that cheese. (Comparing one to the other.)
This is the best cheese. (Superlative - the superior one of a pair or number of units)

Just remember the sequence - good- better - best

Naresuan University
Phitsanulok
Thailand

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Greg,

I have "fundamental doubts" when I lack cartesian clarity of thought.

Dinesh

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

random stuff:
"lange" just means "long", not necessarily "long time" (though correct in this case)
I don't think the gender posessive confusion is really a Germanic language issue - some of the German dialects do that, but it's grating to a High German speaker and not really prevalent in my experience.  
i see "since" instead of "for" all the time - that's just a false friend :) at least in German, you don't really differentiate between "since" and "for" when you're talking time - so while it's "I've lived in the States since 1991" or "...for 15 years", in German it's just "Ich lebe seit '91/15 Jahren in den Staaten." English is soooo confusing :D

cheers,
rad
"According to my calculations the problem doesn't exist."

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

same thing in French, both "for" and "since" translate in "depuis" for time measurement.

Though, it is not easier for a French or a German to learn each other's language than English...

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

well, French is the language where you can string together a bunch of different letters (-eaux) and get a single sound (o) that has nothing to do with any of those letters. Bordeaux sounds like bor-do. silly frenchies :)

though i freely admit that German's convuluted grammar and inflections and cases and whatnot makes up for its fairly straighforward phonetics.

cheers,
rad
"According to my calculations the problem doesn't exist."

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Yeah rad.

That's much worse than English. Although rough cough through bough thought. That's far more sensible.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

hehehe

+1 Greg

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality


One probable answer to the heading query. Ask them what comes between fear and sex. If they say fünf they are german.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

lol

yeah, guess that could work.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Though I know that jokes should never be explained, there are some morons like mesad

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality


Quark: if you refer to my posting, phonetically, fear and sex mean 4 and 6 in German. Fünf (five) is the correct arithmetic (unveiling) answer.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Wow,Quark don't feel bad, I would say that is a good joke, but you'd have to think in German to get that straight away. I certainly didn't.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

lol I like that one.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

When I was a kid we had an Egyptian Exchange student who would say "Open the light" to have it turned on and "Close the light" to have it turned off. Funny sounding for a kid, even funnier for the Electrical guys (backward from the circuitry standpoint).

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I say "Open/Close the light." Is that wrong?

How else will the light come out of the lantern if the cover is not open?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

A friend from Egypt tends to drop the "s" in plural words where the fall after the letter "th."  For example:  I have been working here for two month.

Jordan

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I agree with your friend. I too think that the "s" for plural is redundant and confusing.

Two month. I know it is plural because there is a two in front of it.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Seite (zyter): Since.
"I have since four years been living here."

There are certain contexts where the tradditional approach influences the usage i.e. it isn't simply a transliteration problem but also a common usage change.

Take a look at company websites and the "About us" page.
"Established in 1967" would be the way an english company might describe itself since this is a tradditional approach.
"In business since 1967"" might be a US equivalent.

In Germany "Siete" or "since" is a more common usage and in the English language web pages this influence is sometimes to be found: e.g. this is from one German website where "seite zwansige jahr" becomes:
"Since over 20 years we have been internationally ranked amongst the market leaders in the field of completed modularized solutions." (I forgive the American spelling, Bill Gates can take the blame for that, and excuse my German please).
This is perfectly good in German but in English we might say "For" instead of "Since" and the "over" becomes optional, or opt for a more traddittional expression like "established in".

The obession with the gender of tables and chairs causes some laxity in English. Maybe it's the relief of not having to learn the gender of everything (and who decided the Gender of Brtish things? Le Thames ... who says this should be "le" and not "la"?)
My wife is always saying "he" when she should say "She" and so on.
This is curious as it is the only language she knows with the table/chair gender syndrome and since she learned English after German, it is her German that influences her English.

The point is that guessing a persons nationality might be difficult since you might only really guess which language they learned before English.

German switchboard operators... I ring up and speak in German asking for Dieter or whoever.
Mostly they immediately answer in English (English switchboard operators always answer in English, by the way unless they've been outsourced to some other country).
Very occassionally I win the first round but lose it on the second.
I'm going to try a variant in which I Speak German with a French accent and see where that gets me, I want to know if they speak English to any Auslander or if they really know I'm a native English speaker ... anyone got some answers? (actually, my wife always teases a German friend Dieter that he speaks German with an American accent because he learned English in America... which I find curious... I can understand an English English speaker becoming Americanised or speaking "transatlantic" English, but other languages?)

Two other features of German which can be a give-away in spoken language: the "ie Vs ei" sound order, some times rarely represented "phonetically" in writing due to spell checker and the English "i before e" rule) and the VFW phonetic switching problem.
V in German sounds like F in English; vier (four) sounds like "fear" (or pfear).
W in German sounds like V in vase; warte (wait) sounds like "varter".
There isn't a "w" sound and F sounds like soft F (no "p" emphasis before it).
Thus when speaking English she (and others) have to shift these sounds around.
The new "w" sound causes some inverse errors.
"Vind" instead of "wind". But then she says "Wictor" instead of "Victor".

In spoken english it is the silent aitch that is a bugbear.
"Anthony".
Who would call mob boss Tony Soprano "Anthony" with the "th" sound from thong? (apart from his wife).
In "real" English, phonetically, that should be Antony. Of course, we could compenate by calling him Thony Soprano (if you're German, don't try this, unles you're sure you won't say "Phony Soprano" by mistake, and what a mistake that would be. "Phony" is only allowed an alliterative use as in "Phony-Tony" when referring to Tony Blair. This would loose some of the bite and sarcasm if we used "American": say "Phony Thony" and you'll be given speech therapy or prison, it's getting that way now).

"A Hotel" in real Engish is "An 'otel" but pleeeease use the  H in Herb. (Americans: this means you.)
If you said "erb." instead of "herb" I could just about live with that, but "errrrb" is too much. Having dumped so many "quaint" bits of English, this obsessive retention is unsettling, especially as it sounds so contrived.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Hotel does not have a silent H in vernacular British English, and has not had one in 43 years that I know of. It may have been U to say "an Hotel" (which is frankly ridiculous, but I can see why it happened), but 90%+ of people would have said 'a Hotel'. A cockney would have said 'a notel', which is probably why it was U to put the H back in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

So far as I am aware Hotel never had a silent H in Australia. Incidentally Anthony is also fully pronounced by many Australians, although the nickname is still Tony.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Herb is pronounced Herb.
herb is pronounced erb.
What could be simpler.

Hotel; There is another variation;
I am going to a hotel, where the a is hard (pronounced ay as in hay).
yours

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Greg, you've not mentioned the evolution of language in Australia whereby words can be joined so that many sentences can be just one or two words. One of the well known ones of course is "Didja avagoodweegend." but I may have spelt it wrong (and I think it might only be a single word).

John

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
jmv, the Thames is la Tamise... of course! smile
And the Rhône is le Rhône... of course! big smile
la Loire, la Meuse, le Rhin, le Danube (Donau)...
No clue what the gender of a river depends on, but it's an endless source of joy and surprise!

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Pursuant to the original thought on this thread, anyone care to hazzard a guess on this poster?

thread238-155966

Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I noticed most Slavic people will more or less frequently will use pronouns that reffer to nouns with the genre that's used in their mothertongue. English doesn't have genres like Slavic and some other languages do, so it'll sound a bit like this like this:
"fan" is a "he",
"clutch" is a "she"
"cog" is a "he",
etc.
so you get something like this:
"The fan's blades were damaged. He is unusable."
"The clutch was entirely produced by a co-operative firm, so she is not our product", etc.

I noticed it's difficult for them to adopt the English line of thinking: if it's not alive, it's an "it".
Curiously, I rarely noticed Germans do this, even though their nouns also have genre.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

TurbulentFluid

"if it's not alive, it's an "it"

I am a non English native. I was always taught at school that if it isn't human you put an it. It always puzzled me why English natives refer to an animal as a he or a she. Plants and insects are also alive, I don't think that one can refer to these as a he or she.

Joe Borg

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Ah... a thousand appologies, I forgot this part of the forum had Option Explicit on and no loose language was allowed in any case... Let me rephrase and define my variables:

If the noun does not imply a living being which is characterised by a single sexual property ("male" OR "female"), then it's an it - no exceptions.
The nouns that DO imply a living being with a single sexual property can also be reffered to as an "it" IF we do not posses any information about the sexual property, or IF this fact at the moment isn't relevant.
To further explain, by an "it" in English we reffer to everything that isn't alive and doesn't have a single sex. This includes single-cell animals and plants and other living beings that do not reproduce sexually, and  hemaphrodytes. Eg. we will reffer to a snail as an "it", while we can reffer to a cat with either "he", "she" or "it". We will use "he" or "she" if we are in possesion of the information of the cat's sex:
"She just had kittens."
"He's a real tomcat."
However, if we are unsure or do not know the sex of the cat, or it isn't relevant, we are allowed to say:
"It ate the whole can of Whiskas!"
while remaining grammatically acceptable. This convenient ability to apply an "it" to an animal (or even a human being, eg. a child) saves us from executing certain less appropriate actions upon the reffered entity which would prevent us from being grammatically incorrect if  "it" was forbidden and we were forced to establish sexual properties of the subject.

As for plants, which you mentioned as a worthy exception, we have simmilar yet modified rules. Certain species of plants are hemaphrodytes while others have defined "sex". Arguably we could reffer to nut trees as "he" or "she" as they produce either female or male blossoms only on a single tree, however these facts are not well known to the public and are often irrelevant in common conversation. So it is customary to reffer to all plants with the "it" pronoun, regardless of the construction of their reproductive system.

Also, very often English natives will reffer to cars, boats etc. as a "she". However this is not a grammatical fact, yet is a result of the fact, I am inclined to believe, that these machines were in history mostly used by men who tended to get lonely and seek in this way solace, and a consort maybe, by affectinately giving the machine female properties. To further back this thesis, we can explore why Hurricanes are also reffered to as a "she". It was a common question about Hurricanes to why they all had female names, which resulted in a discrimination subpoena by feminist actions. The study of this resulted in the finding that first hurricanes were named by American soldiers in Africa during WW2 who were very lonely and craving female co mpany. The tradition stuck on. Grammatically, however, these objects are "it".

There.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

TurbulentFluid,

Please excuse me if you consider this picky, but did you mean gender in your last but one post?  A genre is something completely different.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Sompting,
yes. I did mean gender.I am aware they're completely different, so to add one more thing to finding out who's a non-native English speaker: we misspell not just by making typical spelling errors, but by using a whole different (wrong) word while we have the right word in mind. Tho I think it's general and doesn't have much to do with one's mothertongue. Did anyone notice this to be more frequent with people of certain nationality?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Don't forget the Canadians, eh!

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

My wife and I flew to Turkey on a Turkish plane and my wife spent half the flight in conversation with a stewardess.
Such was her command of Turkish that she was very flattered when the stewardess asked her what part of Turkey she came from.... Turkish is not one of her native languages and she is not Turkish.

On the return we queued at the check in desk and I asked the girl:
"Have you got a seat with some leg room please?".
She looked at me blankly and said something in Turkish back to me.
I tried again in the accepted British manner (which assumes foreigners are just deaf):
"HAVE YOU GOT A SEAT WITH LEGROOM, PLEASE?" only to get the same response.
I turned to my wife, expecting some benfit from her polyglotic skills, saying "Ask her if they have a seat with leg-room can you?".
She turned to the girl and said:
"HAVE YOU GOT A SEAT WITH LEGROOM, PLEASE?"
She has evidently been too long in the UK. No doubt about it anyone would instantly determine that she is British, wrongly, of course. Or maybe not.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

2thumbsup

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
jmw, that is because most stewardesses don't speak English at all, they just have good memories.

My favourite is Alitalia, they have great memories but randomly leave entire syllables out and stretch other ones to insane length (just like you are supposed to do when you speak Italian), so you get something like:

"Gdeeeening lays and gentm we weeeeelcome yto Milano Malpeeensa aiiirpt. Pleeeaase rm seeaat withy seeeatb fastil the fast seeeatblight is switchoff. Pleeease bcaaiiirfwhen yopen the ovelocks as luggage may flout. We thaaaaanky flyyying Alitaaaalia and wishy a vnice eeeevening."

If I hadn't heard it a hundred times before I would have never understood it.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Quote:

jmv, the Thames is la Tamise... of course! smile
And the Rhône is le Rhône... of course! big smile
la Loire, la Meuse, le Rhin, le Danube (Donau)...
No clue what the gender of a river depends on, but it's an endless source of joy and surprise!

gender here depends if it a "small" river (female word in French : la rivière) or a "biggest" river (male word in French : le fleuve). I do believe it is based on the water flow to categorize both of them.

So, "La Meuse" is a small river whereas "Le Rhône" is a big one.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

So it's a size thing then?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

(OP)
Cyril, "le Gard" is nothing compared to "la Tamise".
Don't make me believe there is a logic! smile

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Your comment made me think about it epoisses and I have to thank you here. I made a few research to find how come some river names are either male or female.

And the answer is that there is no rule...

Here is a translation of some page I found in my search :

Quote:

It is difficult to state a general rule for the kind of the names of river, except thatnone is neutral.

      Water running, the sources, the rivers were often considered as Gods by the ancients.
      Among pre-Germanic people, they were in general personified in a male form.
      In Germanic space, the divinities became female, water itself being female kind (cf aqua in Latin, ach into Germanic - roots who find themselves, in a more or less deteriorated form, in the names of rivers, but also of localities, as well besides in French as in German).
      Nevertheless, some German names of river remained male, in particular the Rhine - it is true that Vater Rhein is a powerful river, sometimes even impetuous, which does not prevent it from giving lodging to ondines such Lorelei...

All that is business of culture and of specialist and cannot be used as effective bench mark in the everyday life. For the practice, one will be satisfied with the following observations:

The majority of the Germanic or germanized names of river are female.
Some among those which are male must be learned.

The foreign names of river are in the masculines majority.
But those which have a "female" consonnance (termination has A or E) are female.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Besides this, "rivière" is used when the river end into another one and "fleuve" when the river ends into the ocean/sea.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

I tend to judge nationality by accent, I've spoken to obviously Indian people who have perfect Canadian accents, to me they're Canadian. Just as someone with an Aussie accent is Australian, not a New Zealander.

I find that most Indians complicate English too much, as do most French (and Quebecors), I used to work with alot of Quebecors and I've actually heard the statement "I've double parked two times twice"..... :) You gotta love those crazy crazy Quebecors.

The Chinese switch their l's and r's around, so 'lion' sounds like 'ryan', and East Europeans sound very rude, but being of Polish descent I know that their language doesn't include the same niceties that English does, ie. "If I could please have...", said in English by a Pole "Give me..", no rudeness implied. That said, while East Europeans share similar languages, they still misunderstand each other, my Czech aunt was lost at the train station and she told me she was "Waiting on the main p*n*s" (at least that's how it sounded in Polish).

I do love to read a foreigner's English though, it's worth a few laughs, I assume my foreign writing must be hilarious to a foreigner, sometimes it's even hilarious to me when I read it later. I once wrote an email to my Spanish teacher to tell her I cannot attend a class function b/c I was sick, in actual fact I told her I could not attend b/c I was sick in the head ie. psychologically sick.

Finally I've heard many English speakers I could not understand at all, residents of Liverpool, UK are some, as are Scots and the occasional Aussie, sprinkle in a few Americans from the Deep South as well.

Life's just boring without foreigners to laugh at and who laugh at you :)

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

In the "stereotypes come to life" department, the other day I saw a sign in an Asian-run flower shop for "gladiorus".

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Malaysian chinese often add "is it" as a punctuation statement.
I had a nice pizza last night

. .... Ohhh is it

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for official communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (  E for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c".  Sertainly, sivil servants will resive this news with joy.  Also the hard "c" will be replaced with "k".  Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan  have one less letter.  

There will be growing publik awarenes of the program in the sekond year, when the troubleome "ph" will be replased by "f".  This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.  Nex on the list is the hard "g" which kan obviosli be chanjed to "j".  

In the third year, al will agre that the silent "e" shud go.  Publik akseptanz of the new spelling kan be xpekted to reach the staj where mor komplikated chanjes are posibl.  Governments will enkoraj the removal of doubl leters which have always ben a deterent to akurat speling.  The silent k and g wil no longer b of ani uz tu us.

By the fourth year, peopl wil b veri nolejabl end vil b replasing "th" by "d" and "w" by "v", al bi demselvs vidot ani hlp frum uz at al.  But tu b shur dat progrez kepz advanzing rapidli da "tion" iz stil skejuled  tu bkum "shun" and de xtremli difikult "ie" vil bkum a singl "e", reduzing it to onli a bad nitmer of de previous jenerashuns.

During da fifz yer, ze unesisary "o" kan be dropd frum de vords kontaning "ou" and similur chanjiz vud of korz be aplid to uder kombinashuns of leters.   After dis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten languj dat ve al vil b veri hapi to uz not onli on ur ofishal komunikashuns but ech n evri da in ur tipikal konversashuns az vel.  

Ven dis program iz finilizd.  Zer vil b no mor trubils or difikultis of ani kind end suh konfuchun az iz aparent al ovr da hol vurd toda vil vanis.   It vil b ezur tu unerstan echuder end da drem vil finali bkum tru.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

A hotel somewhere in  Asia.

 Room Service:  "Morny. Ruin sorbees."
 Guest:  "I'm Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service."

 RS:  "Rye..Ruin sorbees..morny! Djoowish to oder sunteen??"
 Guest:  "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs."

 RS: "Ow July den?"
 G:  "What??"

 RS: "Ow July den?...pry,boy,pooch?"
 G:  "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them?  Sorry, scrambled please."

 RS: "Ow July dee bayhcem...crease?"
 G:  "Crisp will be fine."

 RS: "Hokay. An San tos?"
 G:  "What?"

 RS: "San tos. July San tos?"
 G:  "I don't think so."

 RS: "No? Judo one toes??"
 G:  "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo one
    toes means."

 RS: "Toes! toes!...why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow singlish
     mopping we bother?"
 G:  "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine.
      Yes, an English muffin will be fine."

 RS: "We bother?"
 G:  "No..just put the bother on the side."

 RS:  "Wad?"
 G:  "I mean butter...just put it on the side."

 RS: "Copy?"
 G:  "Sorry?"

 RS: "Copy...tea...mill?"
 G:  "Yes. Coffee please, and that's all."

 RS:  "One Minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease
    baychem, tossy singlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and
     copy....rye??"
 G:  "Whatever you say."

 RS:  "Tendjewberrymud."
 G:  "You're welcome."

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Hmm, I think the original Two Ronnies sketch was funnier

F U NE T?

S, V F T.

M N X?

etc

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066721/quotes

Don't worry, all those are safe for work.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

You must have picked up the "British sense of humor" smile

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Dalesutcliffe, Are you a Malaysian Chinese? I guess so.  

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

"You can't do that, innit?"
Where's that from?

RE: How to determine non native English speaker's nationality

Dave,

That would be a chav, wouldn't it?

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