chryssanthi sahar

Haha, I bet that too

You didn't question my English, it was my problem, that I didn't express myself clearly enough.
But what irritates me some times (this doesn't have to do with you) is that many English native speakers here in forum (especially Americans) take it for granted that many non native speakers speak (or better to say write) English fluently. Have you ever asked yourselves how it comes that some of us non-native speakers are so fluent in English? Me for example have never in my life spent more than one week (per country) in English speaking countries (two times 5 days in England and the last time was 18 years ago, one week in the USA 17 years ago and one week in Canada 3 years ago). Somehow English native speakers are not always aware of the fact that English is a FOREIGN LANGUAGE to non-native speakers. But as I said Lizaj, this doesn't have to do with you personally, it is a general conclusion.

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Oriental dancer and instructor of Greek origin, living in Germany
www.chryssanthi.com

Shanazel

I think there is a general tendency among certain native speakers of any language to not quite grasp their familiar language is foreign to other people. I laughed outloud when a French tourist at Arches National Park thought that shouting French at me would somehow improve my ability to understand it. I suppose because the woman I was with spoke French fluently the tourist assumed I also spoke French. Oui, non, and faux pas are the best I can do. I do miss the Spanish part of the forum; the Spanish speakers were very kind about letting me participate and correcting my grammar.

lizaj

Gosh I thought it was only Brits who indulged in that..shouting loudly in English would make Johnny Foreigner understand. And then you add the waving of arms and making faces and he's bound to understand

I was in Nerja in Southern Spain where there is a large ex-pat British community and listened to an elderly British man berating a local tradesman:
" Over the years, I've had a lot to put up dealing with this kind of thing from you people" The irony obviously not lost on the Spanish shopkeeper from his facial expression was ,of course , that he was shouting in English.
Same holiday , I also had to go and ask a restauranteur (in my halting Spanish) directions for a woman (who told me she had been living there for 2 years) and "that man doesn't speak English!"

hebahosni

this is ironic that i find you talking about native speakers who expect that others know their languages. the situation is very different here as Egyptians or Arabs in general believe that foreigners don't know a word of their language so they automatically start communicating in English with any foreigner. that actually makes foreigner students who study arabic very angry as they find that hinder their attempts to improve their arabic through communicating with natives. i don't know if this is relevant, i just wanted to share it with you.

chryssanthi sahar

Haha, this happens also with the Japanese I've studied Japanese at the university for 7 years, I lived and studied one year in Japan (at a Japanese university) and I speak Japanese quite fluently, so you can imagine how frustrated I get, when I am in Japan and Japanese people try to communicate with me in very bad English, which I don't understand because their pronunciation is awful, ignoring my fluent Japanese Only when I tell them directly that the should speak Japanese and not English they start speaking normal Japanese.

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Oriental dancer and instructor of Greek origin, living in Germany
www.chryssanthi.com