# Some More Language Questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 26, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917 "2015-08-26T03:55:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/21 "2015-08-26T20:48:13Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > Exactly. In the USofA it is not uncommon for someone to ask, “How do you spell your name”? Here in Mexico, I have never heard that question asked. The vowels here don’t change sounds. There is no long and short vowels. To be fair, that’s often because the name is originally in Swedish or Polish or who knows what language. But “regular” English names are usually not a problem. Smith, Jones, Howard, Dean, White, Brown, Clinton, Bush. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/22 "2015-08-26T21:12:17Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > 1. I understand there are languages in which the tone or pitch of the word affects its meaning. How do languages like this accommodate speakers who have laryngitis or other problems that may make it impossible for them to apply pitch or tone to a word? For those both suffering vocal disorders and raised speaking tonal languages, the vast majority can still use tone well enough to aid in pronunciation. Consider that in human languages, the individual speech sounds in a given language’s phonetic inventory will feature some redundancy so that even if a sound is produced imperfectly, the meaning of an overall utterance can be discerned. As psychologist/linguist Stephen Pinker wrote in _The Language Instinct_ : In the comprehension of speech, the redundancy conferred by phonological rules can compensate for some of the ambiguity of the sound wave. For example, a speaker may know that _thisrip_ must be \*this rip \*and not \*the srip \*because in English the initial consonant cluster \*sr \*is illegal. Now then, if the speech is disordered enough – for example, nerve damage causing a lack of muscle control – so that tones cannot be reliably produced … then yes, comprehension will be limited. This, of course, can happen to speakers of any language given severe enough impairment. A side question you didn’t ask outright, but you might have been kind of getting at when mentioning laryngitis: Yes, tones can be whispered or rasped. And even if the rasping is so bad that a speaker’s tones, etc., are unstable, conversational context and phonetic redundancy fill in a lot of mental blanks for a listener. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/23 "2015-08-26T23:50:59Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Sometimes, a linguist or phonetician may use “pure vowel” to simply mean a [monophthong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophthong). Thank you. I’d forgotten that. > [@bordelond](#): > > … in American English, and I believe in most dialects of Great Britain and Ireland, the so-called “long o” is a diphthong starting about where Spanish /o/ is pronounced and ending a little lower than where Spanish /u/ is pronounced. The Spanish “o”, meanwhile, starts and finishes in about the same spot … the tongue doesn’t move much during the vowel’s production. I understand, but for the purposes of a choir, is that difference even present? Again, I don’t know much about vocal training, but it seems to me it wouldn’t matter. Or at least, that singing is so dependent on stylization that wouldn’t be consistent anyway. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/24 "2015-08-27T00:14:08Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > 1. I have noticed that Spanish family members of mine tend to exaggerate in their speaking. I have noticed this as well in friends of mine who speak Italian and French. What I mean by exaggeration in speaking is that they really vocally get into whatever they’re saying…it’s hard to explain. If they feel something is unbelievable they will say “Increible!” with an almost comical exaggeration. If they are very excited, it will come through in their voice. Something like this would be seen in America as an overdramatic way of speaking. I don’t have a problem with it, I just find it unusual. If English speakers were that dramatic it would be remarked upon. Is this a peculiarity of romance languages? I just don’t see American emotions being expressed with such passion and conviction, except on Broadway. This is more cultural and not so much having to do with language. The Romance languages do happen to be spoken in places where this kind of extra-vocal expressiveness is ingrained in the local culture of interpersonal communication. Take Mediterranean Europe, and lets throw in the Balkan peninsula, too. Romance languages are indeed spoken in Spain, France, Italy, and Romania among others. And yes, the communication cultures in most parts of southern Europe permit and sometimes encourage flamboyant speech & gestures. But it’s not just the Romance language countries – it’s also Greece and Bulgaria, for example. And then, Northern Europe is the flip side – a generally staid and conservative communication culture. Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, and the Baltic countries collectively represent a few different language families but still share similarities in their approaches to interpersonal speech. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/25 "2015-08-27T00:56:55Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > … which other languages have a reputation of being more mellifluous or sweet-sounding, and which ones sound legitimately harsh? By virtue of their phonetics consonants, clusters, grammar, etc. which languages sound beautiful and pleasing and which do not? Incidentally, is English viewed as a harsh sounding language by those who don’t speak it? To me, German sounds harsher than most other languages I’m familiar with due to the consonant heaviness and uncommon nature of umlaut vowels. The Danes have a saying that Danish is not so much a language as a throat disease 🙂 > [@Senegoid](#): > > Hawaiian is commonly described as a “beautiful” (or similar) language, largely because of the preponderance of vowels and limited number of consonants. The entire language (as written using a subset of the English alphabet) has only 12 letters: the usual 5 vowels and 7 consonants. While no linguistic expert, I thought Hawaiian had only 4 vowels, no e ? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/26 "2015-08-27T01:05:57Z")
My high school French teacher, on hearing our impure vowels, would say with exaggerated diphthongs “Vous parlez comme des vaches américaines.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/27 "2015-08-27T01:24:21Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > While no linguistic expert, I thought Hawaiian had only 4 vowels, no e ? a, e, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, u, w. State motto: “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono”, commonly translated as “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness”. [Hawaiian phrasebook](http://www.alohafriends.com/words.html) and pronunciation guide for the malinihis. (Note, there are 5 vowels in the alphabet, but some of them additionally have “short” and “long” sounds depending on whether they are in a stressed or unstressed syllable.) ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/28 "2015-08-27T01:31:17Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > Hi SD. > > 1. Finally, American English is known as a lazy language, due to diphthongs and the lazy way we say our “r” sound, etc. Are there other languages that demand such a small amount of effort? I mean, English takes the cake when it comes to saying things…you don’t have to try at all! Julie Andrews English, you know, PROPER English, puts some effort into making it similar to a romance language–a round dark sound—the “r” is now closer to “ah”, more emphasis on vowels, etc. But American English is full of diphthongs and “shortcuts”. More than any other language I’ve ever heard. > > Thanks for any insights! > > Dave I can, perhaps, help you a bit with (5). The south west of England has an rrrrr sound similar to the American one. Plymouth… Plymouth Fathers… Mayflower…rrrrr … [West Country English - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Country_English#Characteristics) ??? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/29 "2015-08-27T01:39:29Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > … > That said, I’d say that **pianodave** is in error about the diphthongized English “long o” being easier to pronounce than Latin/Spanish/Italian/etc. monophthong “o”. He thinks his singers are being “lazy” as they introduce the English “long o” into their singing. But it’s not a matter of one sound being easy and the other difficult. It’s a matter of familiarity, and of a person’s native language influencing the production of sounds in general … either sounds in another language or specialized sounds produced when singing (e.g., chorus). > > I guess **pianodave** could say that his singers are being lazy if they aren’t practicing their choral parts enough, or in the right way, to nail the required vowel sounds. But the fact that the singers may revert to English vowels says nothing about the intrinsic ease or difficulty of producing the vowels themselves. How are singers of English supposed to sing without English dipthongs? Like shitty Spanish choirs, if they’re lucky. Perhaps you could say I’m a lazy speaker as well (native NY), because when studying French diction (for speech, not for song–they are two different subjects) my lip muscles hurt at the end of the day. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/30 "2015-08-27T01:40:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > To be fair, that’s often because the name is originally in Swedish or Polish or who knows what language. But “regular” English names are usually not a problem. Smith, Jones, Howard, Dean, White, Brown, Clinton, Bush. To be even fairer, They are all American names, regardless of ancestry. But you are correct. When I state my given name here in Mexico (which I don’t do, unless it is something official) they are confused. Thanks for your reply **JM**. Sometimes I think my posts are written in invisible ink. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/31 "2015-08-27T13:22:57Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > … but for the purposes of a choir, is that difference [_diphthongs vs “pure” vowels - b_] even present? > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > How are singers of English supposed to sing without English dipthongs? No expert on choral training, folks :o … these are good questions for **pianodave** , though. I was thinking maybe his singers were working with liturgical music and Latin lyrics, but he would have to come in and clarify. I could also see a choral director teaching singers to still sing English lyrics with “pure vowels” for one reason or another. **Pianodave**? > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Perhaps you could say I’m a lazy speaker as well (native NY), because when studying French diction (for speech, not for song–they are two different subjects) my lip muscles hurt at the end of the day. 😕 Doesn’t sound “lazy” at all. Everyone working seriously to master a foreign language has to work on beating back the phonetic habits of their native language. Sounds like you are giving it an earnest go. That said, a person falling back on their native phonetics is not “lazy” or somehow morally wrong or something. It is totally natural, and is something that has to be worked on assiduously to merely lessen one’s foreign accent. That’s why I’ve taken care to put “lazy” in quotes – to indicate the imprecise, but common, use of the word in this context by laymen. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/32 "2015-08-27T13:51:11Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > 1. Finally, American English is known as a lazy language, due to diphthongs and the lazy way we say our “r” sound, etc. Are there other languages that demand such a small amount of effort? I mean, English takes the cake when it comes to saying things…you don’t have to try at all! Julie Andrews English, you know, PROPER English, puts some effort into making it similar to a romance language–a round dark sound—the “r” is now closer to “ah”, more emphasis on vowels, etc. But American English is full of diphthongs and “shortcuts”. More than any other language I’ve ever heard. I don’t have time to expound at length, but the natural state of all human language it to simplify and take shortcuts over time. Counterintuitively, since natural human language is not pre-planned, these simplifications can lead right back to further phonetic complexities. There are good comparisons to be made between the way individual human languages churn and change and, say, plate tectonics (where plates collide, raise sharp jagged mountains, which are eroded down to smooth hills, rinse, repeat). All languages have phonetically simplified in some ways over time. Since you pointed out the Romance languages, I’d like to note that [French has famously undergone wholesale phonetic simplification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_French) since the days of Vulgar Latin. French was also, before modern media, trending away from polysyllabic words and towards monosyllables (Martin Harris outlines this on pp 234-35 of The _[World’s Major Languages](http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Major-Languages-Bernard-Comrie/dp/0195065115)_). Over time, with the concurrent trend of shedding of the Latinate [synthetic grammar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_language), a more-monosyllabic French language could have been gradually turning into an [isolating language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolating_language) with many similarities to languages like Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/33 "2015-08-27T14:00:59Z")
**bordelonde** , I was actually addressing OP directly, those passages cited in your post, which I cited for truth, forgetting to say so. FTR, I am B.Mused from conservatory in choral conducting and have worked with choirs from little old ladies in synagogues to annual performances of a mob at Carnegie. For which I bought a tuxedo, still hanging in my closet to smirk at me. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/34 "2015-08-27T15:06:02Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > **bordelonde** , I was actually addressing OP directly, those passages cited in your post, which I cited for truth, forgetting to say so. No worries … thanks for clarifying. ---
**Author:** ![pianodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e79b87/32.png) [@pianodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pianodave)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/35 "2015-08-27T17:46:10Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > How are singers of English supposed to sing without English dipthongs? > > Like shitty Spanish choirs, if they’re lucky. > > Perhaps you could say I’m a lazy speaker as well (native NY), because when studying French diction (for speech, not for song–they are two different subjects) my lip muscles hurt at the end of the day. Thanks Leo, we apparently share some similar background. When you mention old ladies in synagogue, I’d be curious to know which one…we might know some of the same people. I do mostly liturgical music (hebrew, Latin, some Spanish, French, and Yiddish) so we are very careful to pronounce the words accurately. To make sure Halleluyah comes out Hah-leh-loo-yah as opposed to Hal (think the movie Shallow Hal) LAY-lew-yuh. In singing, pronunciation and proper diction is key. You don’t want to sound like a choir full of fifth graders. Also, audiences pick up on proper diction and it makes them think in the back of their minds, “Wow, these people really rehearsed!”. It’s important that it doesn’t sound like a bunch of people reading the notes. I understand that maybe lazy isn’t the appropriate term, but I would posit that English does not cherish the pure vowel sound (think art song or bel canto). Whether this is “ugly” or not is up for debate. But nobody wants to hear a diphthong as an audience member. It’s grating, especially in choral music. Unless you are singing Oklahoma or Annie Get Your Gun, where the dialect is very relaxed, it’s generally frowned upon to include diphthongs in most choral singing. It’s not at all uncommon to demand more Romance Language diction for songs in English. But I still think English is a lazy language because your mouth does not work as hard as other languages, to hold the correct positions. Compare it to German, which I feel is a difficult language because those umlauts are not found in many other languages! I wonder how native Germans feel about it, having umlauted all their lives. I must be speaking only from my provincial northeast experience. Thank you for all your responses! ---
**Author:** ![dunkleosteus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkleosteus/32/9331_2.png) [@dunkleosteus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dunkleosteus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/36 "2015-08-27T18:01:00Z")
For 1, English has plenty of homophones too. If a speaker was somehow unable to replicate the correct pitches, it would probably sound like a severe lisp, but it’s probably incredibly rare to have complex sentences with multiple sensible meanings from pitch variation alone. English pseudo-homophonic sentences might be “I ate a squid” “Aye, eight as quid” (which are both a stretch, but I didn’t spend much time) Depending on the context the listener would probably be able to tell which you meant. If someone asked “What happened when you fell overboard?” the first sentence (though odd) might be applicable. If someone asked “Is that eight pounds?” the second sentence might be applicable (way more of a stretch) but you get the point. Even if there are multiple complete interpretations of what is being said, there are rarely multiple interpretations including context. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/37 "2015-08-27T18:36:59Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > But I still think English is a lazy language because your mouth does not work as hard as other languages, to hold the correct positions. Compare it to German, which I feel is a difficult language because those umlauts are not found in many other languages! I wonder how native Germans feel about it, having umlauted all their lives. I must be speaking only from my provincial northeast experience. > > Thank you for all your responses! Perspective, dude, perspective. I still have problems pronouncing the difference between ship, sheep, and cheap. And yes, sheet, cheat, and shit. Not to mention a few others too. It seems easy to you and “lazy” to you because you’ve pronounced it all your life and it is your native language! English IS hard for people who did not grow up with it. And heck, I’ve been taking English lessons since I was six. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/38 "2015-08-27T18:48:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > To be fair, that’s often because the name is originally in Swedish or Polish or who knows what language. But “regular” English names are usually not a problem. Smith, Jones, Howard, Dean, White, Brown, Clinton, Bush. Latin American countries (well, maybe not Mexico so much, but certainly South American countries) have had a lot of immigration as well, and immigrant names (which might be of Italian, Eastern European, Arab, etc. origin) don’t follow the rules of Spanish pronunciation either, so I can definitely see confusion about how to spell someome’s name coming up. ---
**Author:** ![pianodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e79b87/32.png) [@pianodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pianodave)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/39 "2015-08-27T18:53:45Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > Perspective, dude, perspective. I still have problems pronouncing the difference between ship, sheep, and cheap. And yes, sheet, cheat, and shit. > > Not to mention a few others too. > > It seems easy to you and “lazy” to you because you’ve pronounced it all your life and it is your native language! English IS hard for people who did not grow up with it. And heck, I’ve been taking English lessons since I was six. I know, I know! I’m trying. SD is where I can broaden my horizons. So then, if English is not your native language, did you ever think your own language was comparatively harder or easier than others you heard as you grew older? I’m thinking about small Japanese children being taught to raise tone or drop tone to signify different words, German children being taught an umlaut, etc. Umlauts are not easy to handle, at least in my opinion. I am having trouble with understanding why diphthongs are hard for people? I would have thought it’s only hard because it’s something new, not because mechanically it’s harder. I would also mention that I hate when people speak Spanish with an American twang…you know, “Comowe estahs” and “dawnday estah ehl banyo?” I wonder if Spanish speakers hearing this “butchery” are put off like I am? I feel the language should be respected and spoken with as much authenticity as possible. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917/40 "2015-08-27T21:23:13Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > So then, if English is not your native language, did you ever think your own language was comparatively harder or easier than others you heard as you grew older? **I’m thinking about small Japanese children being taught to raise tone or drop tone to signify different words, German children being taught an umlaut, etc.** Consider that Japanese and German children actually DON’T have to be taught those aspects of their language – they acquire them naturally by virtue of growing up in their respective speech communities. > [@pianodave](#): > > Umlauts are not easy to handle, at least in my opinion. I am having trouble with understanding why diphthongs are hard for people? I would have thought it’s only hard because it’s something new, not because mechanically it’s harder. Two of the German vowels spelled with an umlaut ( **ö** , **ü** ) represent a type of sound called [front rounded vowels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_rounded_vowel) (long values **/ø/** and **/y/** , respectively). You are perceiving these as hard to produce because you didn’t learn them in your speech community as a toddler. No more, no less. Diphthongs are hard for speakers of some languages for the same reason – those people grew up in speech communities without diphthongs. And so on for pretty much all varieties of speech sounds. > [@pianodave](#): > > I would also mention that I hate when people speak Spanish with an American twang…you know, “Comowe estahs” and “dawnday estah ehl banyo?” > > I wonder if Spanish speakers hearing this “butchery” are put off like I am? I feel the language should be respected and spoken with as much authenticity as possible. This is a personal impression to you, though. The vast majority of people are appreciative and understanding of people who attempt to speak a non-native language. What you’re describing is nothing more than an “accent”. Perhaps a strong one, but still an accent. Assuming an earnest attempt to communicate in the non-native language (no jest or contempt), why would one consider that off-putting butchery? Consider your reaction when non-native English speakers speak to you. Many people have learned English well and do just fine, but surely you’ve run across someone who spoke halting English despite their best efforts. Did you feel put off then? I am not trying to personally attack you. I am just asking you, as **KarlGrenze** did upthread, to consider it a matter of perspective … a perspective shaped by the speech communities in which we grew up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-more-language-questions/728917.md?page=3)