humans experience their native lang differently, a native speaker typically can't even comprehend your problems/questions. it took me years to unlearn my native language in order to understand its structure and master it.

To some extent that's a new thing, that schools don't teach the grammar of the students' native language. In the UK that was in full swing by the 1980's. The aim was to let them "warble their native woodnotes wild." By now many don't know what a verb is, or a noun, let alone a gerund or subjunctive. That went along with not explaining that the written language is not the same as what you hear in the playground or on the street. Another consequence is that you have to learn the grammatical terminology for the first time when you learn a foreign language. Having surmounted that barrier makes learning your second foreign language easier.

@@faithlesshound5621 , I was born '85, and I know all those things along with verb and noun agreements: "They eat, S/he eats." Other than that I wouldn't know how to guide a non-native

"Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac."

I'm from Spain, I bet you'd know more grammar rules than I do. I just know what sounds good or bad, same with English, because I learnt it as a little kid. The language I know more rules in and stuff like that is probably French.

As a German, I know our language can be daunting. For a teacher not being aware of this fact, that's a bad teacher.

I currently learning German as well i come from Indonesia. One thing so hard for me is memorizing all Artikel for Nomen and then there's the dativ akkusativ, präteritum perfekt and etc.

@@bladerunner3314 My german teacher once told us that how to say something along the lines of having a headache, and then later on in life another german speaker told me that what I said basically meant I'm saying that "I give sick(disgusting) head." and honestly I've had trust issues ever since. Idk which one was messing with me but I don't have a need to speak duestch anyway so I just avoid it altogether lol XD

@@danielleclark-zack864 Ich habe Kopfschmerzen - I have a headache. The other one I can't even parce what that would sound like.

@@bladerunner3314 lol, so this was YEARS ago just for context. But yeah, I see what went wrong now. To be noted, the native speaker said it's not a direct translation but would be treated as "slang". "Mein kopf ist weh.", would be the offending statement.

In Australia we throw the rubbish out, too.

The words “fall” (i.e. autumn) and “gotten” are archaic, yet they still use them in the US. 😂

Depends where you use it. No one here in America uses that word but if you go to England tons of people use that word.

I mean rarely anyone will use it. It’s unique to mainly British English. Which is the lesser English in terms of population that uses it, and also isn’t the standard of what English is taught worldwide. That’s usually American English. You guys may have made the language, but much like how Brazil has become the main representative of Portuguese, same thing for America.

@@kaijuslayer3334 Yet British English is the version that's taught in Europe and the rest of the world.

I grew up calling them "soft drinks" but know the word "pop" and immediately think the speaker is from the Midwestern U.S. That's rather like Serbs' knowing the word "glazba" (so I have read, so if I'm wrong please correct me) as being the Croatian word for what Serbs call "muzika" ("music").

We still call it 'pop' here in my neck of the woods. In high school, i moved 2 counties up, and my new friends looked me like I grew a second head when I asked where the pop machine was. They spent the rest of our high school career trying to teach me to speak properly because I sounded like a hillbilly. It did not work 🤣🤣. You can take the girl out of the hollar, but you can't take the hollar out of the girl.

Pop! Middle of WI. My cousins in Milwaukee say soda.

I grew up in Indiana, where people (still) say pop, and I had heard "soda pop" too. But I went to college in Massachusetts, and the first time someone asked if I'd like to go to the basement for a "soda," I asked if there was a snack bar. She said no, just a machine, and I realized she didn't mean "ice cream soda"!

Many years ago I was talking with a coworker whose native language was Portuguese or maybe Italian. She said that she often struggled to find the expressions she needed in English. Often she would ask Americans whether a particular expression was correct and be told that it was not. She gave some examples. They were all grammatical correct, perfectly understandable, and many of them would be familiar to any well-read English speaker.

​@@ConontheBinarian Genuine answer: no - it would make no sense. Italians speak standard Italian, sometimes in addition to the dialect/language of their region (unfortunately less and less, for new generations). Italian is the same everywhere, with only slight variations in accent (how we open some vowels, aspirate some consonants...). The only people who I ever see correct the pronunciation of Italian natives ("it's not bruschetta, it's bwusheeaeda!") are foreigners who never actually learned any Italian, have never been to Italy, but and are under the delusion that language can be somehow acquired by sheer lineage.

@@robertoallegra I'm from Sweden. I'm fluent in English and German and know a little Latin, but not very much. However, one idiot in my school, who didn't even know German, ridiculed my German pronunciation. Another idiot in a forum criticized my interpretation of a Latin book by Vegetus, though he doesn't know any Latin at all himself. I'd say that most people with that level of ignorance are - of course - from the US. I have heard people mock my Swedish, but those were other Swedes thinking that my accent sounded a bit hillbilly. I have never heard a foreigner say anything about my Swedish. That would be absurd.

The classic ignorant americans who think they know thing better than actual natives. Those ones are always hilarious.

​@@francisdec1615 woah I had no idea Swedish was still spoken to this day. Insane.

Ah, those "know it all" Americans. Always them.

In all fairness "could of" and "could've" are very easily confused as they sound almost identical (at least in my dialect of American English) so the teacher could be teaching the contraction but the student is just getting them confused.

Nah, they've just been taught by a stupid American. They probably say "could care less" as well.

People who pronounce etcetera as "ex etera"

@@00RoxPink perfect example :D think there's more people saying "ect" than saying "etc"

@@Dracoscythe1exactly this, I think most cases of spoken “could of” is actually “could’ve”. And if a native speaker writes “could have” I’ll bet you they just incorrectly interpreted people saying “could’ve” and just guessed how it was spelt.

The materials used for learning English are often aimed at Spanish speakers so you get chapters on distinguishing B and V which is completely useless for Slavic speakers who never confuse these consonants. But we could really use more time spent on translating slavic aspect into the English system of tenses...

Are you with SIL? I'm in Mali.

@@markohakkola5180Yes, Papua New Guinea.

She sounds like the type of person you should hate as a person lolololol. But I never knew her personally so idk.

Crazy part is, American English, especially Midwestern English, the accent is closer to traditional old school English. Its immigration that changed British English to what it is today, as well as the east coast of the United States. Our clean easily understandable Midwestern English, is the standard for English, and I will fight anyone about it.

@@steelirony1622 I'm afraid American Midwestern English is not closer to "traditional old school English" (whatever that may be). Linguistically, there is no one single "Midwestern" accent anyway and there hasn't been for at least 100 years. There has been a massive amount of immigration to the Midwest region and the different kinds of immigrants formed the accents there over the past 150 years. Specifically, the North Central accents of the Great Lakes region and the Dakotas have been strongly affected by German, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish immigrants. There is also a phenomenon known as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, which you might like to investigate. The original accents of the 13 colonies were never "traditional old school English" as they were formed by merging of the multitude of different accents that existed among the colonists who came from different parts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and whose accents had been coloured by their local dialects or the languages of their countries (Welsh in Wales and Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland, or Scots in Scotland and the province of Ulster in northern Ireland). The non-rhotic accents of some eastern and southern States in the USA were a reflection of some of the accents that came from south eastern England, over the centuries. These accents were not due to immigration in Britain at all (where the majority of the immigration has been to England since WW2), but developed organically in the southeast of England, e.g. in the original Boston in Lincolnshire and in London and the county of Essex and had been evolving for several hundred years. This article, written by an American linguist, explains the differences: www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-united-states-of-accents-midwestern-american-english And here is a dialect coach explaining the Minnesotan accent (search for the clip on YT): "You Betcha! The 'Midwest accent' explained by a dialect coach" As for the UK, there is no single "British accent". There are more than 40 different dialects across the whole of the UK and there are hundreds of different accents. There is an app that was designed by the Linguistics Department of the University of Cambridge (in England) that can pinpoint your accent in England to within a radius of 20 miles based on your pronunciation and the kind of regional dialect words you use. They're not so accurate in Scotland (where I come from) because they haven't done enough research there yet, but even so, they managed to pinpoint me within a radius of 40 miles.

@@WGGplant apart from being such a weirdo she had her moments. I personality disliked her for making to much unasked for comments about how she thinks that people from my nation are notorious drunks. Some people from my group thought of it as a funny joke but idk. Tbh amongst some teachers I had throughout going to such camps she was one of the few who actually treated us like adults who understand English, but want to learn more (I was always in c1 groups) and not like kindergartens who just learnt how to say a cat. I had far better teachers, but they weren't a majority and I understand how for some people there she was the only teacher they had that seemed normal, bur yeah I disliked her

Well she's right, American English is trash English because in USA we are bombarded with so many people from somewhere else blurring the language. This also is why USA English is popular, it forgives so much, especially tonal, accent, grammar and mispronunciation. In fact in the United States there are so many languages spoken that most people pick up the localized slang depending upon the area they're from or move into. English in the US is so persistent that the Mexican people have terms for people who live along the border and blend both languages.😅

Damn! I've done a couple of cvo dutch courses, and they were bare bones, open the book, and do stuff from the book! By the end of the second course (A2) and 2 different teachers, the whole class was ok at reading, writing, and doing exercises. But speaking was a whole other matter! Not a single one could really apply the stuff taught to speaking. Maybe that's a case of getting what you pay for as these are quite cheap courses, but provided so the language is accessible. I find better resources online and with self-study materials.

"No thanks to you."

That's just because Dutch people are unpleasant by nature.

Learning Dutch should be really easy for any germanic speaker including the English speakers, its so connected in grammar and words and idioms history that is just fun to experience. but also the more roman languange speakers could learn it quickly if the damned Dutch didn't automatically switcht to English or another second language you' d both share. I live on the border Nl and DE and sometime it's just more natural to speak your own native tongue and synchronise with words and expressions from your conversation partner. The bulk of communication is non verbal anyway. But as the video mentioned it is so much effecient to learn multiple languages with play at a young age and also dont punish yourself your doing it not 100 correctly, when locals find you took the effort to learn some of the language you get instant respect and more openness

@blueredbrick Too many Swiss do the same thing of automatically switching to English. You have to really become fluent before they stop. It's a long process.

I learned more about English grammar in my first semester of German than in the 9 years of school before. German also made Shakespeare easier to understand.

hehe, German here too, but never took Latin and really struggle with Grammar of other languages. That's why I basically only speak German and English because English is easy enough grammar wise and German I just know how it works, but I could never tell you why it works. Or what the rules are. That's why I really struggled with French and only speak a smattering now, even though I had 6 years of it in school.

Same here. I’m an English speaker and I learnt English grammar in Latin class. That was very helpful when I later learnt German.

Mit Russisch habe ich später im Latein die 6 Fälle kapiert.

My father always told the story of how he earned an "A" in English, for his English teacher found out he was taking Latin. He had a few other stories like that, but it was the Great Depression and his family broke up so he had to quit school after eighth grade and go to work to earn a living.

I'm going to guess who you're talking about. American: (No idea. Could be anyone, online or in person.) Korean: Tae Kim, known for "Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar" Kenyan: Khatzumoto, the man behind "All Japanese All The Time" (AJATT) Did I get any right?

@@arrunzo Correct on Tae Kim and Khatzumoto, I see you know the way

It's common for native speakers of a language to confuse homophones--or at least, what to them are homophones. You already named some examples that trip up some English speakers, but I'll also throw in the example of "should of" instead of "should've, and of course, the classic example of "they're", "their" and "there". In a similar manner, Spanish speakers mix up the letters "B" and "V" because they are pronounced identically in spoken Spanish, whereas non-Spanish speakers would never confuse "B" and "V" because the sounds are very distinct. The distinction is so non-existent that I've heard the word "básicamente" pronounced as "vásicamente" (like the "V" in English). Likewise, in Brazilian Portuguese, native speakers may miswrite "mal" as "mau" because they pronounce the letter "L" like the letter "U". The words "mal" and "mau" are pronounced exactly the same in Brazilian Portuguese. But again, if one has the advantage of being a non-native speaker where certain sounds are more distinct, then learners won't make the kinds of mistakes that native speakers do.

"Weather" and "whether" is another example. I see many native English speakers use "weather" interchangeably.

@@SvendleBerriesAlso, native speakers have great trouble distinguishing between "have" and "of" for some reason.

@@HenryLoenwind Yeah, that too.

So the librarian at Unseen University just repeats the Dutch word for "to"? Yet the other wizards understand him perfectly.

That's also true of Irish-Americans, who appear to be 90% of the Anglo population. Cultural appropriation! It used to be clear in the UK that those who emigrated to the colonies, and their descendants, remained in a time warp of sorts. Like "dressing for dinner" in the tropics.

Linguistically, however, one should not trust what they say in Italian. They often use dialect expressions that often mistake it for standard Italian and many know things from when they first came to America or their ancestors. In Italy certain things over the years have changed a little bit, even linguistically.

@@aris1956 Believe me, I know. Venetian was the language of my great-grandparents. Venetian is the official language in some Brazilian cities, I hold Italian citizenship, and yet, I don't go around teaching real Italians about their language and culture.

Same goes for a lot of Latinos too lol

​@ConontheBinarian I work with an Italian who told another Italian worker he wasn't Italian because even though he had an accent he couldn't speak the language and wasn't born in the country 😂😂 my partner was given the pass though (I disagree though) because even though he wasn't born in the country he has heard of his dad before (who was born in Italy and is part of a well known family there)... go figure 😂😂

My linguistics professor was Bosnian, and she admitted that she couldn't explain why some things just sound right even when they go against the formal rules of the grammar in any language. The example she gave was when you answer the phone and someone asks to speak to a particular person, who happens to be you. The correct grammar according to the rule is to say, "It is I." But that doesn't sound right to the ears of a native speaker, so most will respond, "It's me." Even as an ESL speaker of English she picked up on what sounds right.

​@@kimfleury Interesting example it's me is the most usual and colloquial but the most correct linguistically and uncommon is "It's I", the focus of the phrase is talking about about the subject the personal pronoun I, not about the oblique pronoun that is object or "me". Nice example.👍👍👍👍

​@@SinarNilaI know what you're talking about, but grammatically, the subject is "it" and the object is "me", so it's strange why some prescriptive rule books would argue saying "it is I" was more "correct", right? Like you wouldn't say "it is she/he" in a similar context either

Non-natives learned a new language conciously and teaching others requires that

As a colleague with a similar background to yours, including being a grammar and language "nerd", I fully agree.

Yup I used to teach ESL back in the day. Almost all of them spoke. Spanish or Hmong. I speak Spanish so I had a much easier time then some of the other teachers. Not because I used my Spanish, the entire class was in English. It's was because I understand Spanish grammar. So I could explain certain things more easily than some of the other teachers. Or because I understand why the Spanish students were making a certain mistake.

" I just kind of fell into doing it." Lousy English.

@@t_ylr Yeah, that makes sense. When I first started teaching I didn't know the grammar rules, or at least how to explain the rules. I knew how the language functioned for my personal use, but imparting that to someone else is much different and very hard.

@@jan_phd Not at all. It's a very common phrasal verb. You may not like the repression but that doesn't make it lousy.

"My wife grew up in Spain and told me about students actually being mocked for having a correct English pronunciation." Oh yeah, that happen too!

I know an native English teacher in Japan that has had non-native teachers that have never left the country try to correct his pronunciations using Japanese phonetics. Or have students do the same.

Yup! When I was learning Hindi, I worked really hard on pronunciation and I had multiple Americans correct my pronunciation of Namaste to the American version of the word. (Americans say it nah-mah-stay and Hindi-speakers say it nuh-must-ee.) When I got to India, the Indians asked me if I really spoke Hindi because none of the other Americans pronounce it right, but I do. Except, apparently I never pronounced the word for “one” right.

Reminds me of when I was stationed in Germany and wanted to practice German phrases - as soon as they heard my US accent they would break out into English to practice with me.

That's very common.@@Lafly84

That's certainly true. In our university, we needed to have (amongst other languages) a German class, I'd never learned German, but our teacher said she requested that students accepted to this particular study program (it was specialized history) had to have a German exam from high school, but it was not applied, so she wouldn't care and just continued on that level - that meant I had 3 months to get to the same level as people who had German at least 3 hours per week for the last 4 years. Nevertheless, I was studying with my friend who happened to have the exam (probably the lowest possible score to pass, though) and it turned out that he didn't even understand the basic rules and was just memorizing correct answers to tests etc. So while I was self-teaching daily for hours, I was able to improve his German just by the way :D (During the same time, I had also English, French, Latin and shortly also Old Church Slavonic + old scripts, so that was fun :D )

True, faithfulness to the lang. Natives are independent and unfaithful to native lang, by the reason of intense growth and intimacy with it.

​@@SinarNilawhen you know all the rules back to front, you can break them

If better were the question we would be in the trees and the none human primates would be landing on moons That a person is willing to communicate makes him or her able to me. I tell Americans who are well off and well educated with perfect diction that the last words they speak in their life will be to an unwashed migrant bastard like me after their proud family has tossed their ass in the old folks home. Take languages as the come to you. Do not force you self on to them!

That’s also true, and even if it is grammatically wrong,if the non-native speaker speaks like a textbook, while they may be technically correct, they are absolutely going to stand out. Our native languages are full of common errors that we routinely disregard.

You use the word bellelettrist but misspell Metatron? 😅 Other than that, I completely agree with everything you're saying. In fact, you said it quite well!

​​​@@danij5055 ,🍟😉☺️😂🏁👍🫂🔵🔵🍻🟦🏞️👌🍾🌄🌅🤝🙏🏳️🌍🌎🌳💙. I chose this belletrist (this word have one t no two tt😉) to honor and praise the work of our angel Metraton. It's one thing for him to explain English, anyone can do that today. Now explaining Chinese and Japanese at the basic, informal and colloquial levels is already a skill, he does it. And another thing that Metraton does very well is demystify and dispel the myth of tonal Italian music. I love Metraton's work, I don't have his patience or his satire, and I'm not a native speaker of Italian but I agree with him that they transformed Italian into a kind of Vietnamese and Western Chinese into a sung and toned language. This never existed but as they distorted Italian, someone has to pull the group's ear. That someone is our Metaton. Hugs 🫂🫂🫂🫂

oh fuck I didn't mean to write a fucking essay xD

Hmm. Yes. And if you explain adjective order to them, they will tell you that in English it is always adjective-noun. Because they were not aware of the concept until that moment and have not had time to think of counter examples. Ask them whether that means that "We need someone strong to lift a box that heavy." should be corrected to "We need a strong someone to lift that heavy a box." I wonder how many noun-adjective phrases I can fit into one short paragraph: "The surgeon general and the representative of Amnesty International came at last, weary from traveling, to the river wide and deep. Said the surgeon general, '100 pounds sterling would I give not to ford a river so treacherous.' To this the representative of Amnesty International rejoined, 'So would I, but it is the best option available.'"

@@david672orford Doesn't the adjective order refer to the order of multiple adjectives applied to the same noun? Ex: "big round white italian soccer ball" vs any other incorrect order like "italian white round soccer big ball".

@@adisca2k At the least, that was my meaning of it, aye. Though I don't mind him bringing up that other topic.

@@Cavouku Makes sense why a native speaker wouldn't even know about it. I learnt it through exposure to the english language way before I was taught it in school. The correct order just sounds good, while an incorrect one sounds odd.

I think not only native speakers but those who are exposed to the language for a long time would, by instinct, pick up on the adjective order or rather disorder. You sort of got used to a form your mind has accepted as the norm that when something anomalous comes along, you just notice.

A teacher doesn´t teach "a dialect" but "Standard German" and "Standard German" is different than the regional dialects...different vocabulary, different pronunciation and different grammar and those diffrences are also valid within all those different regional dialects as well and that´s why in Germany (and everywhere else) is taught - in school - one "Standard German" for all Germans (and for all those who want to learn German as a second language).

​​@@michaelgrabner8977achtually meme insert here

And what would the Hanoverian think of someone who had taught the words "Sessel," "Erdapfel," "Ertag," "Ziestag," "Samstag" and "Krapfen" as well as "Stuhl," "Kartoffel," "Dienstag," "Sonnabend" and "Berliner," one wonders.

​@@davidbraun6209Isn't Erdäpfel and Kartoffel the same word?

@@abyssstrider2547 Erdapfel is what south Germans and Austrians call Kartoffel.

@@davidbraun6209 Nice i was able to connect the dots on my own.

Here we call it Grumbeere. Other Germans think it comes from Krumme Beere (crooked berry) but it comes from Grund Birne (ground/earth pear)

It's interesting and deep. The language of your emotion and heart is english. The language of your reason and brain is spanish. You can explain English, cos it's the idiom you choose to love and teach with proficiency and personal compromises for real life.

@statin Gracias, practicando todos los días.