Who are you out to?

biguy87 wrote:It actually kind of made me laugh. It was quite a sweet story about a friend who you fancy, who clearly likes being fancied. He probably is slightly curious himself even if he won’t admit it or act on it. Anyway he likes teasing you... etc

You may be right about that cuz there's another thing I didn't mention. When I told him I liked him and that I'm sexually attracted to him, he reacted like a homophobe and kept doing that for a few days. Then I told him the majority of the homophobes behave like that because they're attracted to their own gender but are afraid to admit it. Suddenly he started acting quite different without a trace of his previous homophobic behavior and a little later he started teasing me.

biguy87 wrote:...and then it took all of your strength not to rape him... etc.
You probably didn’t mean rape. You probably meant pounce on him, or have your way with him.

Ofc I didn't mean actual rape. But as you have probably figured it out already, English isn't my native language and I can't know every single word of synonym of it. I certainly didn't know "having my way with someone" can be used in that context. An English teacher in the university told me my level is somewhere between C1 and C2 with C2 being the level of natively English speaking people, like yourself. And since I'm not C2, I know a handful of words about having sex with someone cuz they don't teach you that in any English lessons, no matter of the level - you have figure these one out on your own, mostly from movies. Add to that the culture of our local LGBT community where "rape" is usually (but not always) used as a synonym of having a wild, rough and animal-like style sex with someone.

biguy87 wrote:Like many people who speak English as a second language, you seem to have a better grasp of it than many of our own countrymen!

It's not my first language either (born in Holland, native Dutch speaker) but I've often heard that myself.

I also work as a translator, translating documents solely from Dutch into English because I'm much more comfortable expressing myself in English.

biguy87 wrote:Yeah as I said I didn't think you meant it that way, but I thought you should know that there are some people who would take issue with the wording. All in all it was a funny post as I said.

Your English is brilliant. It's rare that it comes across in your posts that it's not your first language, though obviously there were other clues. Like many people who speak English as a second language, you seem to have a better grasp of it than many of our own countrymen!

Ha! And I thought sometimes you (meaning native speakers) didn't understand me precisely because it's not my first language, despite my best efforts.
I've seen natives make absurd spelling mistakes such as "your" instead of "you're", "their" instead of "there" and that has always amazed me how can they not know such obvious differences.

biguy87 wrote:

René wrote:

biguy87 wrote:Like many people who speak English as a second language, you seem to have a better grasp of it than many of our own countrymen!

It's not my first language either (born in Holland, native Dutch speaker) but I've often heard that myself.

I also work as a translator, translating documents solely from Dutch into English because I'm much more comfortable expressing myself in English.

I was aware that you were also not originally from these shores, but there were certainly no clues in your use of the language. If you hadn't mentioned it in other threads I'd have never known.

Thanks

I wish I sounded as native in speech, hahaha. I don't seem to be terribly good at picking up accents and such. I'm sure I've picked up a little bit of American midwestern, northern English and central Scottish stuff over the years (and lately southern US stuff) though

(Married a Michigander, lived together in Yorkshire for 8 years, Lanarkshire for 2 years now, together seeing a guy originally from Texas (though residing in Maryland) for 4 months now.)

biguy87 wrote:

Valso wrote:Ha! And I thought sometimes you (meaning native speakers) didn't understand me precisely because it's not my first language, despite my best efforts.
I've seen natives make absurd spelling mistakes such as "your" instead of "you're", "their" instead of "there" and that has always amazed me how can they not know such obvious differences.

Yeah those are some of the worst, most cringe inducing ones. There are others, such as would have/would of, and our/are. Of course there are those who claim it is just the language evolving as it has always done.

I do have to behave myself though and I make it a rule to generally only correct people if they ask for help, eg proof reading, unless someone really pisses me off. Sometimes I'll do it as 'banter'. I do know some people who can't spell due to things such as dyslexia, and they have lots of other strengths and can add value in other ways that I can't. Also no one likes a pedant.

I think the reason non-native speakers are better at the language than many natives is that you have learned the official textbook version of the language, rather than learning it by growing up surrounded by it and picking up colloquialisms and dialects.

I'm similar, though if I was correcting, I'd take it to a further extreme I guess and also want to see e.g. "cringe-inducing" here rather than "cringe inducing". The meaning is different. A cringe inducing ones means there is a cringe and it's inducing instances of something/unity.

I actually learned mostly from talking on MSN Messenger with my first boyfriend in my teens who was English, had OCD and would correct every mistake I made.

biguy87 wrote:I think the reason non-native speakers are better at the language than many natives is that you have learned the official textbook version of the language, rather than learning it by growing up surrounded by it and picking up colloquialisms and dialects.

You're right about the dyslexia and things but when you've learned the language in a specific spelling, then reading misspelled language is very difficult, almost impossible. That's why when I can't understand what the person meant, I simply skip it and don't bother reading it.
As for the quoted thing, that may be one reason. But the main reason is that our English teachers wouldn't let us "evolve" to the next level, if we haven't mastered the previous one first. If you're always failing the English exams, you'll never make it past A1 which is pretty much the baby level. Speaking of which, back when I was 6, there was this program called "Window of the world" or "Window to the world"... It was 30 years ago, so I can't really remember the name of the program but it included not only textbooks. There were also casette tapes which were part of the lesson, there were even some songs, like "Old McDonald had a farm". Amazingly, I still remember some of that song. I didn't realize it back then but it was amazing and was the primary reason I learned English faster than others. When I was 13-14, teachers told my mom I was far more advanced in English language than the other kids at school thanks to this casette tape program for learning English.