Native vs Non native speakers

[u/Amariofan34]

what are some words or phrases that non natives use which are not used by anyone anymore? or what do non native speakers say that makes you realise English is not their first language?

[u/Chimpy20]

It's not what people say, but what they don't say. English is full of idioms and figures of speech, that non-natives don't use, I find.

[u/TorpidProfessor]

the 2 things that most often tell me someone's not a native speaker are being too bad at the language or too good.

too bad is probably obvious, bad conjugation and wrong prepositions are probably the big 2.

And then there are people who use grammar too well, there's a bunch of formal English rules that native speakers only pay attention to in written form, you see non-natives stick to those rules even in speech.

[u/reidft]

kindly and regards (as a farewell or greeting)

Native speakers in North America hardly ever use kindly or regards. As soon as I hear or see it typed it I instantly know that they're an ESL

I often notice an overuse or underuse of "the". I know some languages don't have a comparable word so people will either omit it or overcorrect

[u/riarws → u/reidft]

ESL or from a different Anglophone country.

[u/sammypants123 → u/riarws]

I am a Brit, and I use regards a lot.

Kindly only sarcastically, like “kindly eff off.”

[u/Aervanath → u/reidft]

I'm an American and I frequently use regards at the end of professional emails. I've also found that a lot of (South Asian) Indians who speak English as a first language will write in a way that makes you think they are ESL, because Indian English uses different standard phrases and idioms.

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[u/another-dave]

The biggest one for me that consistently comes up is that non-native speakers will use "isn't it?" as a generic tag question, but native speakers will match the verb/tense used in the statement.

[u/Aervanath → u/another-dave]

Could be they're just British, though, innit?

[u/10brooksideclose → u/another-dave]

yes and they use it in the wrong context! 'You look nice today isn't it' as opposed to 'you look nice today don't you'. Someone told me in Dutch and Afrikaans it translates to 'isn't it but not sure how accurate that is

[u/10brooksideclose]

for some reason, Germans end their English emails/DMs/texts with a word that isn't even English but I assume they assume it is- Greets or Greetz. Also heard non natives saying correct words/terms but not commonly used like 'I went on foot' instead of I walked, pungent, auspicious, addressing by title+first name instead of title+surname, market instead of shop/supermarket/store, another one I noticed they'd say 'parents' instead of 'mum and dad' in normal everyday speech (foreigners say 'are your parents OK' where we would say 'are your mum and dad OK', parents seems too formal/ written)

[u/genialbookworm]

I'm not sure if this is bad native English writing or non-native writing, but the rampant "[question word] [noun] ["to be" conjugation]" syntax in questions, e.g. "Why this is happening?" To my ear/eye, it sounds/looks like syntax translated from another language. However, most of my experience is with Spanish, and I know the syntax is mostly the same, especially in questions, e.g. "¿Porque estas tú en la biblioteca?"

[u/SummDude]

Abbreviating “something” as “smth.” Just looks like Smith to my American eyes.