Define this word

[ToniL]

Can anyone define the word CONVERSATE? You would never believe how many college educated people don't know that CONVERSATE is not word!!! The V.P. of the company that I work for used the word and it made my head hurt...

 

[MakeItSo]

I think you shouldn't be so hard on the natives. We non-natives really have to concentrate when speaking, hence we automatically have to query our internal vocabulary/grammar database before we open our mouth...you don't!
;-)

My German is definitely worse than that of many non-natives - as long as I talk. Theres a big difference to when I write however. Cause then I can re-read and correct each sentence.
Spoken word is out, can't take it back.
I think it's only natural to become a bit slumpy in everday lingo...
(-:

[blue]An eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind. - "Mahatma" Mohandas K. Gandhi[/blue]

 

[Dimandja]

>So I would refrase it to "Some ESL speak better English then OTHER ESLs" and "Some Americans speak English badly by their own choice"

As an ESL myself, I agree.

But to address what ToniL said, the reason many ESL speak or write better English is:

1. They had no other English choices.
2. Not all ESL are good in it really, but, in your (our) profession, one will tend to run into "overachiever" ESLs. ESLs who don't exert extra effort at what they do are usually not even here (US). Those you meet here are usually special in their own way.

Imagine, getting up one morning and deciding that you were going to buy a ticket, and leave everything you ever knew, in order to start a new life in an alien nation. That's special.

That's also why this country (US) is so special to many of us: we are mostly foreign people who came here to really work hard and change things. Immigrants built this nation.

 

[Katy44]

I read a newspaper article once where a couple were talking about 'formerly' adopting a child. Were they doing it retrospectively? Had they already done it?! I have also heard 'pacific' used in place of 'specific' and it really irritates me.

I would love to know the grammatical errors I make that irritate others! (form an orderly queue...)

 

[ZoomerZ]

I struggled enough with co-worker trying to understand how is silver not working?
which appeared to be SERVER...beat that!

Dimandja,
I second your 1 and 2
1. They had no other English choices.
-Hilariously true...had been there (still not completely out)
2. ..."overachiever" ESLs.
Those you meet here are usually special in their own way.
-High Five!
Am I sound like Dimandja's support group???

 

[ToniL]

Katy,

Good one... That sort of thing bugs me, too... I work with an Indian man to whom I showed some software that I am developing, and he mentioned that I forgot some "paren-thesis"... It took me 10 minutes to figure out that he was saying parentheses... He didn't say it wrong, that IS the way it's written, but phonetically, I was lost...

Peace,
Toni L.

 

[BobRodes]

I don't feel baffled that ESL speakers speak better English. I learned much more about the English language from studying French and German as a teenager than I otherwise knew. For example, formally working out concepts of tense is not something that one does when learning one's first language as a child, but is typical of learning a second one, short of immersion in the foreign culture.

If the American school system placed greater emphasis on learning a second language, we would find that we better understood our own.

Bob

 

[GwydionM]

Ourself can debatify the issueishes in doubletalksi, ifish us-all choosify. But just what does conversate say that's not in 'talk about'.

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A view from the UK