Harley Spencer
Official Checked Star Member
What bothers me are grammar nazis who complain about the English of people who's main language is NOT English. I'm Belgian, I speak Dutch, and I SURE DO MAKE mistakes when I speak or write English. Or any other language for that matter. Are you guys fluent in any other language? With no mistakes at all?
I don't get it. People all over the world are learning English because it's an important language, but you don't learn a language overnight. Things may seem very evident to you like the difference between "than" and "then", but when learning the language you sure do screw up sometimes when words sound similar. Even if you know the difference in meaning.
What bothers me is the complaining and bitching. What bothers me is that people who's main language is English, take it for granted that their language is an important one in the world and that everyone should be as fluent in it as they themselves. You get irritated by mistakes... Why? In all my time posting on forums (or on the web in general) I never had a message from someone telling me something like "Good job man, but I see you're always mixing up the words then and than. You should...". It's always bitching. It's always "I'm holier than thou" and you make mistakes and I am so fucking good. I don't think it's a coincidence people all over the world know two English words even if they don't speak the language at all:
Fuck you
For people whose first language isn't English, it's different. I don't know any languages fluently, other than English, and I know I'd make lots of mistakes trying to learn another language. English is a hard language to learn. Lots of people that teach languages have said that English is the hardest language to learn, and I agree, it probably is.
But for people whose first language is English, when they are constantly making these mistakes, it gets a little annoying.
I know exactly what you mean about people who speak English getting all holier than thou about the language. I was in a line at a coffee place a few months ago, and there was an older man in front of me, who had two Asians in front of him (I'm not good at distinguishing exact Asian nationalities, like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, so I just say Asian). The two Asians were talking to each other in their native language, and the old man in front of me growled at them, "Go back to where you came from if you can't speak English. This is America!" I'm just like.... wow, seriously? What if you went to another country, for whatever reason, and you didn't know anyone but the person you were with, you weren't fluent in the language, and you were just hanging out at a restaurant? Would you not talk to each other in your native language? Honestly. People can be so rude.
Oh, EDIT: Fuck you can be fun to say, no wonder people learn those words!
2nd EDIT: And it's not just this forum where I see people whose first language is English making these mistakes. This board is extremely diverse, but some other forums I've interacted on consisted of mainly Americans, and really, it's kind of embarrassing to see so many Americans that don't know their own language.