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Why lie about native English speaker?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
43 messages over 6 pages: 13 4 5 6  Next >>
s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5190 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 9 of 43
04 July 2011 at 1:45pm | IP Logged 
I think it's irrelevant what people claim they are. It's more important what they demonstrate. There is good writing and bad writing in English regardless of the origins of the authors. Native speakers can write turgid incomprehensible prose.

It is true that certain kinds of mistakes or formulations probably indicate the presence of another language. For example, I get scam letters over the internet from Africa or some Eastern European country. Very often something sounds phony. It may be just some little turn of phrase that tells me that this is not right.

Being able to write spontaneously and well in a different language is a rare but learned skill indeed. It should be pointed out, of course, that there are different types of writing genres. Emails, blog entries, forum posts, academic papers, newspaper articles, advertising, public signs and fiction require different skill sets.

I wonder how many people can participate in forums in different languages. I do in French and English, but I couldn't imagine trying to participate in a forum of native Spanish speakers.
1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5771 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 10 of 43
04 July 2011 at 1:53pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
The Google test:
"being fair on": 204.000 hits
"being fair to": 4.620.000 hits

.. though some of those hits represent non-native bunglers (like me). Apart from that: our languages would become poor indeed if we only used the most common constructions in all cases. Kudos to Cainntear for confirming that "being fair on" is possible.

Also, the hits for "fair to" will include some followed by a verb. But yes, it looks like "fair on" is less common. Curious. The OED doesn't give examples of either construction and my Spanish<->English dictionary treats them as equivalent.

Does anyone know the German equivalent...?

Quote:
The misleading syntax in leosmith's original question is caused by a limitation on the length of thread titles.

Yes, but under the circumstances, he was asking for trouble!!!

Edit: Actually, how do you know? It may be true that the grammatically correct title wouldn't fit, but that doesn't prove leosmith's motives. There are some idiosyncracies in everyones writing, but in general I give people the benefit of the doubt and assume it's either dialectal differences or just that no-one writes quite like they speak, but this topic does strike me as kind of suspicious....

Edited by Cainntear on 04 July 2011 at 2:05pm

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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6463 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 11 of 43
04 July 2011 at 2:19pm | IP Logged 
Well, Leosmith's message showed clearly that he didn't ask for reasons to lie about some unidentified native English speaker - he wanted to discuss people who falsely claim to be native English speakers. So the formulation was definitely misleading.

Next question: why did it happen? Inserting "being" would have saved the question, but I checked that there wasn't room for that. Finally: I have read other messages from Leosmith, and he doesn't appear to be your average spammer, nor an outlandish foreign alien falsely pretending to be an Anglophone American citizen. So I believe that the formulation just was an isolated lingustic mishap caused by unexpected external constraints.

Edited by Iversen on 04 July 2011 at 2:31pm

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Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5526 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 12 of 43
04 July 2011 at 4:41pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Iversen wrote:
The Google test:
"being fair on": 204.000 hits
"being fair to": 4.620.000 hits

.. though some of those hits represent non-native bunglers (like me). Apart from that: our languages would become poor indeed if we only used the most common constructions in all cases. Kudos to Cainntear for confirming that "being fair on" is possible.

Also, the hits for "fair to" will include some followed by a verb. But yes, it looks like "fair on" is less common. Curious. The OED doesn't give examples of either construction and my Spanish<->English dictionary treats them as equivalent.

Does anyone know the German equivalent...?

My first thought was that, ignoring expressions like 'to be fair on the eye', to be fair to refers more to your treatment of a person and to be fair on more to your judgement of that person, a bit like to be harsh to/on somebody.
In German I might say 'fair zu jmdm sein' or 'jmdn fair behandeln'

ETA: I would find it interesting to see how different people react. You know, whether they show it when they notice I am not a native speaker, whether they comment on it or not. It would also be interesting to see if what gets me busted is something I haven't been aware of - but I'm too lazy for such an act. And in most cases it'd be more interesting to not claim anything myself, but let the other party assume I am a native speaker.

Edited by Bao on 04 July 2011 at 9:39pm

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Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4669 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 13 of 43
04 July 2011 at 5:19pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Iversen wrote:
The Google test:
"being fair on": 204.000 hits
"being fair to": 4.620.000 hits

.. though some of those hits represent non-native bunglers (like me). Apart from that: our languages would become poor indeed if we only used the most common constructions in all cases. Kudos to Cainntear for confirming that "being fair on" is possible.

Also, the hits for "fair to" will include some followed by a verb. But yes, it looks like "fair on" is less common. Curious. The OED doesn't give examples of either construction and my Spanish<->English dictionary treats them as equivalent.


Where I grew up outside New York City, it was quite common for kids to say "that's not fair on me" and so on, but it's not what I would have called standard, even in the area.
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B-Tina
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
dragonsallaroun
Joined 5287 days ago

123 posts - 218 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish

 
 Message 14 of 43
04 July 2011 at 7:19pm | IP Logged 
I concur in Bao's opinion insofar as I like it when people assume that I'm a native speaker of their language (which happens far more often with Polish than with English, possibly because Poles don't expect anybody to learn their language...).

I like it because certain facts often cloud the judgment of other people. They tend to adjust themselves when they are aware that they're talking to a non-native speaker, all the more if that non-native speaker comes from a country they don't like.
(For the very same reason I post in other forums under a gender-neutral nickname...)

Also, it poses kind of a challenge for me: how long can I participate in a conversation/a chat without giving myself away as a non-native? I'll be more attentive to mistakes I may make, and that in turn helps my concentration.

Finally, I guess that it is also a matter of identification (though I'm not sure to what extent this applies to other people). Some people just love a certain culture and its language so much that they just want to pretend that they're (already) part of it - and no longer a foreigner.

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w1n73rmu7e
Newbie
United States
Joined 5700 days ago

31 posts - 46 votes

 
 Message 15 of 43
04 July 2011 at 7:35pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
The Google test:
"being fair on": 204.000 hits
"being fair to": 4.620.000 hits

.. though some of those hits represent non-native bunglers (like me). Apart from that: our languages would become poor indeed if we only used the most common constructions in all cases. Kudos to Cainntear for confirming that "being fair on" is possible.
I see that Cainntear's Scottish. Maybe it's an acceptable construction in Scottish and/or British English, but it definitely is not in General American English (and yes, I am an actual native speaker, by birth).

Edited by w1n73rmu7e on 04 July 2011 at 7:36pm

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egill
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5456 days ago

418 posts - 791 votes 
Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

 
 Message 16 of 43
05 July 2011 at 1:12am | IP Logged 
w1n73rmu7e wrote:
Iversen wrote:
The Google test:
"being fair on": 204.000 hits
"being fair to": 4.620.000 hits

.. though some of those hits represent non-native bunglers (like me). Apart from that:
our languages would become poor indeed if we only used the most common constructions in
all cases. Kudos to Cainntear for confirming that "being fair on" is possible.
I
see that Cainntear's Scottish. Maybe it's an acceptable construction in Scottish and/or
British English, but it definitely is not in General American English (and yes, I am an
actual native speaker, by birth).


Fellow "GAE" speaker here. I have to respectfully disagree: although less common that
the other variant I've definitely heard the construction with "on" before.


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