English as a second or third language

[Norgy]

It is paradoxal, I agree.

[Josquius]

I've always been quite jealous of Scandis and Dutch. They have their own private local language all totally walled off and protected with its own ecosystem, but at the same time English is close enough that learning it isn't too much bother (and they learn how to learn languages with it).

The closest thing to a non-native "tell" is that folk here are usually always using "proper" text-book English. But then there's plenty of native speakers who do this too so.... Yeah. Its not like in speaking where there's some shibboleths and other common slips folk make- though with those I think you tend to have to be familiar with a particular language's speakers, for instance the French misuse of normally.

As to people working in English...again this is impressive. When I worked in a Japanese office or visit Switzerland I find the whole experience of being surrounded by another language for most of the day quite mentally exhausting.

[Oexmelin]

So I am basically almost alone in not using English at work, it seems.

No.

I obviously worked, and lived, almost exclusively in English when I taught in the United States - which does wonders for picking up slang... But this was, as Josquius notes, quite mentally taxing, in ways that native English-speaking folks often can't imagine - and ways I hadn't imagined either. As my partner then was Irish, I also did not have a "safe heaven", a household where I could retreat to, and speak French - unless I called my parents. Only a few French colleagues I met for a beer, from time to time.

Since I've returned home almost four years ago, I work and teach almost exclusively in French - which means my English likely has deteriorated. I still read in English (but not exclusively, as history still welcomes publishing in a variety of languages), talk to some ex-colleagues and deal with colleagues from the Rest of Canada over the phone, but it's quite a (welcome) change.

[Maladict]

My American in-laws seem to understand me well enough, and I make a point of not correcting their grammar too often.

[Norgy]

I've always been quite jealous of Scandis and Dutch. They have their own private local language all totally walled off and protected with its own ecosystem, but at the same time English is close enough that learning it isn't too much bother (and they learn how to learn languages with it).

To be fair, the English language does contain a lot of loan words from Norse and Danish, and when the tables turned, our languages have had a serious impact from English.

The Scottish dialects have a lot of old Norse in them, like "ken". Aye, I ken.

[The Brain]

A danger is that many words look kinda similar in Swedish and English but don't mean the same thing. Examples:

Construction - konstruktion
Massive - massiv
Eventually - eventuellt

[Josquius]

I've always been quite jealous of Scandis and Dutch. They have their own private local language all totally walled off and protected with its own ecosystem, but at the same time English is close enough that learning it isn't too much bother (and they learn how to learn languages with it).

To be fair, the English language does contain a lot of loan words from Norse and Danish, and when the tables turned, our languages have had a serious impact from English.

The Scottish dialects have a lot of old Norse in them, like "ken". Aye, I ken.

You don't have to tell me 



When I was living in Sweden people always thought I was Danish.

[Tamas]

Despite spending a decade working full time jobs in Hungary before moving to England, I have never held a job that didn't have English as its official language.

[Duque de Bragança]

By using the Duolingo app, I managed to learn some Italian, which actually is the easier of the Latin languages to pronounce for a Norwegian. Spanish is not easy, and the only way I recognise Portuguese is by the sibillants. Bom dia my butt.

The hardest part is not the sibilants, not that difficult to pronounce or recognise (Lisbon dialect might be different ) nor that many, even the hushing sibilants (shibilants) in Portuguese but the nasal vowels, namely the diphtongs. There are like 23 vowels, compared to 5 in Castilian (Spanish a.k.a the pentavocalists) to give you an idea. Italian has a bit more than Castilian, on par with Catalan I'd say (heptavocalists).

Stress is roughly the same as Castilian, so no problem there though not the same as Italian, more singing, except in the Alentejano variety of Portuguese, "singing" as well.

I wish I had kept practising my German, but when I was in Berlin two years ago, I was  and spoke mostly English.

Given the trouble I went to learn German I try to practice it every now and then.

[Grey Fox]

My english is awesome. If you disagree you can blame yourself. I've learned it here since I was 16 years old.

[Norgy]

Well your English certainly takes a tire iron and beats my French into a bloody pulp.

[crazy canuck]

My english is awesome. If you disagree you can blame yourself. I've learned it here since I was 16 years old.

 

[viper37]

2) For us with English as a second or third language, how much of the information you consume in a day is in English?


3)And how do you keep up with slang?


4) There are English words I have read so many times yet still fail to understand. Like "maladroit".

2) A lot.  I read the news everyday in English, I read about finance and economics, I read here a few times during the week.  More than half of what I read during a day is in English.

3)  Ah.  Well, I watch television mostly during Winter.  So, it really depends on the tv show.  Game of Thrones and Star Wars are not good shows for slang.  The Sopranos and BoardWalk Empire were better.

Otherwise, I don't meet English speaking folks.  Languishites are the only English speakers I know personally and they don't travel much toward Eastern Quebec, for some reason.

4)  I can help with that one:  It's a French word    Gauche?  Ah, damn. 
Clumsy.    Droit = right.  "To be right", like a right angle.  Therefore, maladroit is mal = bad, wrong.  Constantly wrongly right: maladroit.


Stick with the English vocabulary, it'll be easier for you. 

[viper37]

We also had a girl from Japan.  Admittedly going from Japanese to English is a bigger transition than from German or Spanish - but she really didn't try much and we were still having to rely on google translate pretty regularily just to have fairly basic conversations with her.

My cousin's girlfriend is Mexican.  She's been in Quebec for close to 4 years now.  They've been together for 2, live together for 1.  She still does not speak a word of French and they mostly rely on a translation app on their phone to communicate.

[viper37]

So I am basically almost alone in not using English at work, it seems.

No, I work mostly in French. I read and will later answer e-mails in English.  I put my Excel and my browsers in English (to the annoyance of colleagues who need to use my computer), I'll have to talk on the phone in English later on too, but right now, it's almost all in French.  Boss and colleagues are Francos, most clients are Francos, but some are English Speakers and suppliers are half and half.

I'm just trying to catch up with the late work as I'm new and figure out the needlessly complex systems they've set for themselves.  Rewriting the Excel tables, using formulas and macros along the way.  I just found a Python script to split a PDF file in multiple pages.  This is going to save me so much time right now.