To non-native English speakers

[Autumn]

Do native speakers of your language screw up your language as often as native English speakers screw up their own language?

 

[shy ♡]

Yes.

 

[I liek Squirtles]

Yes. There's sapnglish, so yeah. :P

 

[opaltiger]

Kind of. Maybe not as badly as English.

 

[Tailsy]

No, they're flawless.

 

[Worst Username Ever]

When writing, yes, at times.

 

[Aletheia]

Not as far as I've seen. Then again, the last time I heard a native German speaker was 4 years ago :P
(that and Germans are emotionless awe-inspiring creatures of perfection)

 

[Shiny Grimer]

Depends on what you consider a mistake. We have to start by defining what it means to screw up one's own language. What is considered a "mistake" could just be a dialectal variation, or even the original version of the word (etymologically speaking, the word "ask" comes from ascian, which soon spawned the variation acsian. As such, pronouncing the work like "axe" is actually true to the word's origins!). What is the "correct" pronunciation of the word "chauffeur"? How big of a deal is the Oxford comma? Should we do away with the vestiges of the subjunctive, as many English have?

As a native speaker of Spanish, there are some very common spelling mistakes that are made. Most of the grammatical mistakes I hear are from speakers who haven't lived in a Spanish-speaking country for a very long time. There are also dialectal variations - according to me, people from Central America speak bizarrely and Cuban Spanish is the One True Spanish.

 

[opaltiger]

What is the "correct" pronunciation of the word "chauffeur"?

There's more than one? o.o

 

[Shiny Grimer]

In the US: /ʃoʊˈfɜ˞/, (show-FER) /ˈʃoʊfə˞/ (SHOW-fer)
In the UK: /ʃɒˈfɜː/ (show-FEH) /ˈʃəʊfə/ (SHOW-fuh)

I grew up hearing only "show-FER," but I heard "SHOW-fer" in a few movies from the 70s. According to Alpha Dictionary, most people in the US use the "SHOW-fer" pronunciation, though I think it has grown increasingly rare as I have never heard anyone my age or below pronounce it like that.

 

[Music Dragon]

Not sure about "as often", but it does happen a lot.

 

[M&F]

Eh, it would be difficult to generalize. On one hand we have people who constantly make horrible mistakes, but on the other we have flawless speakers, and there's everything in between.

 

[Tarvos]

Yes, they make tons of mistakes, particularly spelling mistakes - but Dutch is notorious for its awful spelling rules

 

[Butterfree]

Yes.

Native Icelandic speakers are particularly prone to splitting up words that are supposed to be compound (probably a recent influence from English), spelling words that are supposed to have an i with a y (or í/ý) or the other way around (they're always pronounced identically in Icelandic), and using one n where there should be two or the other way around. Then there are various common mistakes in particular words, phrases, etc.

 

[Lord of the Fireflies]

Yes.

But it's mostly due to grammatical idontgiveashit.

 

[Dannichu]

How big of a deal is the Oxford comma?

(I have been waiting for an excuse to use this picture for the longest time.)

 

[bulbasaur]

Umm, in the second case you would just write "we invited the strippers JFK and Stalin" to prevent ambiguity.

 

[Negrek]

Umm, in the second case you would just write "we invited the strippers JFK and Stalin" to prevent ambiguity.

Except that "we invited the strippers JFK and Stalin" is incorrect because "JFK and Stalin" is an appositive. Needz moar comma.

Just say it aloud; if you speak English like anybody I've met, you pause naturally between "strippers" and "JFK."

 

[bulbasaur]

Except that "we invited the strippers JFK and Stalin" is incorrect because "JFK and Stalin" is an appositive. Needz moar comma.

Just say it aloud; if you speak English like anybody I've met, you pause naturally between "strippers" and "JFK."

That depends on what message you're trying to convey; if you're referring to a group of strippers which consists entirely of JFK and Stalin, then, yeah, you'd need a comma. But if all you're trying to convey is that JFK and Stalin are strippers, and not the only strippers, then there should not be a comma, and this is by far the more common situation. I mean, life would suck if the only strippers were JFK and Stalin.

 

[ultraviolet]

but neither of those is what's trying to be said; they want to invite the strippers and JFK and stalin. The joke is that without an oxford comma, it implies that the strippers are JFK and stalin.