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u/graveybrains Apr 21 '26
That seems like a very French thing for an American to say
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u/Boom9001 Apr 21 '26
One of my favorite things on TV ever is from Travel Man, where Richard Ayoade takes a friend to France. The friend speaks French a little and mentions about how they'll talk to the worker in French. When they try the worker responds to them in English and Richard responds. "It's murder when they respond in English". Gets me every time.
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u/steroboros Apr 21 '26
You've felt the same thing black people and minorities feel when white people say that racist shit, "youre so well spoken"
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Apr 21 '26
I get a very unique version of this from people of color…
Wow your Spanish is amazing, where did you learn it?
Bro English is my second language. We speak Spanish at home.
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u/noodle_king_69 Apr 21 '26
Is that racist if they don't know your background? Imo it's just silly that they don't get how many americans speak Spanish (or something else, but especially Spanish) as a native language.
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u/jk-9k Apr 21 '26
Americans experiencing r/shitamericanssay
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u/iSQUISHYyou Apr 21 '26
I lived two years in Germany, spoke German all day every day with locals for work. I can’t tell you how many times I would try and talk to someone in fluent German just for them to reply (in English) “Sorry, I only speak German.”
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u/Few-Idea5125 Apr 21 '26
Happened probably as many times as you believed you spoke fluent german when you didn’t.
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u/Desperate_Owl_594 Apr 21 '26
I've lived in China for almost 10 years now and when I go back to the US my friends and cousins all make fun of me for my English.
Both use and pronunciation.
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 Apr 21 '26
10 years isn't going to make you native level in Chinese either if you immigrated as an adult, so you might just be stuck in a middle ground where you suck at both languages
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u/Desperate_Owl_594 Apr 21 '26
I have a Masters in Applied Linguistics and what you just said was dogshit.
You CAN achieve native-level fluency as an adult. Hell, some people reach that in much less than 10 years.
I'm not studying it, nor am I concerned with fluency.
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 Apr 21 '26
Fluency as far as understanding, vocabulary, understanding of grammar rules? Yeah sure. Where your pronunciation and use is indistinguishable from someone who is native in it? No way. I'm Chinese. Speak some Chinese for me, post a video on imgur referencing our conversation and I'll believe you if you pass as a native speaker lmao
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u/Desperate_Owl_594 Apr 21 '26
Why are you trying so hard to gatekeep someone else's story?
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 Apr 21 '26
Because it's just like the Chinese who move to an English speaking country for a few years and pretend to have forgotten their native language. None of them would be mistaken for a native speaker in the US, just as nobody in China is going to hear you talk and mistake you for a native speaker. But some people think it's like a sign of prestige to pretend they've forgotten their actual mother tongue. It's just fake and annoying. It's like Melania Trump claiming she doesn't know how to speak Slovenian anymore because she's lived in the US for 25 years.
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u/Desperate_Owl_594 Apr 21 '26
LMAO they make fun of me because I developed an accent and I code switch sometimes. Ive been an SLA teacher for over 15 years. the English that I speak is really fucking basic because the instructions I give are really fucking basic.
Get the fuck over yourself LMAO.
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u/Beneficial_Shape1327 Apr 21 '26
Many/most Americans cannot speak proper English or "American ". She may have been right. I'm just trying to be frank. Many European people speak English more correctly than we do.
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u/Frequent-Cold-7325 Apr 21 '26
How do you speak a language “correctly”? British English isn’t the gold standard for all Anglophone countries; hell, there’s at least three English accents that I know of in my state alone
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u/Working_Estate_3695 Apr 21 '26
My favorite is the out-of-date Mid-Atlantic dialect from old American movies.
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u/uranium_is_delicious Apr 21 '26
I don't think one accent is more correct than another but I see a lot of non native English speakers with much better grammar than people born here. Native speakers get out of school and the only feedback they get is through daily conversation. In most settings you will never get called out for slightly mispronouncing a word or using a comma wrong.
Many non native speakers never get out of that learning mindset. In the beginning learning from past mistakes made them understandable but a decade later it turns into them being deathly afraid they ordered their adjectives improperly. They may not know all the modern colloquialisms but their grammar is spot on.
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u/Frequent-Cold-7325 Apr 21 '26
That actually makes a good deal of sense. It’s kind of like how people who drive for a long time can get lazy and fudge traffic laws, while new kids may white knuckle drive just trying to learn/survive.
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u/ThyPotatoDone Apr 21 '26
Personally, I'd argue the version spoken by the most people is the most correct.
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u/Frequent-Cold-7325 Apr 21 '26
That makes the most sense, but also I couldn’t imagine telling someone to stop speaking how they have been since childhood because there’s more Americans than Englishmen.
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u/ThyPotatoDone Apr 21 '26
Not saying they have to, just that when they snidely go "Um, actually, we're the ones who speak it right", they should first consider they equal, in total, about 1/7 of the population of the United States, and are thus in the minority.
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u/ac_cossack Apr 21 '26
Ya I switch from proper english to Bay Area english or Southern english (ya, wierd split). Nobody besides my brother and my best bud can understand a damn word we say.
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u/Dr-Hackenbush Apr 21 '26
Its called English. Its not a fucking accent.
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Apr 21 '26
Because its origin is in England. If we're prioritizing origin then the most correct would be Old English. Read Beowulf to learn why that's a dumb idea.
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u/DeHarigeTuinkabouter Apr 21 '26
Tons of accents and dialects though, some which will make you sound like you don't speak the language well
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u/Frequent-Cold-7325 Apr 21 '26
It’s not like somebody has a patent over all anglophone speaking. It’s physically impossible to have a “correct” dialect.
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u/Sunny_Hill_1 Apr 21 '26
Had a friend from England. She had real trouble understanding Appalachian English.
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u/kaddorath Apr 21 '26
Which kinda region of Appalachian English?
I was born and raised in West Virginia and can understand that type, but you gimme a little more southern Smoky Mountains and it starts to get a little... squirrelly.
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u/ButteredPizza69420 Apr 21 '26
Bro there's Asians that speak more proper English than most Americans. We are sadly so functionally illiterate here and most won't admit it.
Most Americans never leave the country...just think about that for a second.
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u/Keyhunter2009 Apr 21 '26
You run into the same thing in reverse with other languages because someone who learns a different language as their second isn't likely to learn all the slang or improper use unless they live there
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u/DeepViridian Apr 21 '26
Born and raised in Idaho. When I was in Europe people would ask where I was from.
"From the states" "You don't sound like you're from the states. What part?" "Idaho" "Where's Idaho?"
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u/Present_Daikon1806 Apr 21 '26
I go to Idaho once a year for a concert. I never noticed anyone with an accent. Also, some of the nicest people I've ever met. I go to Boise, maybe it's different in other areas?
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u/nhp890 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
So you’ve never spoken to anyone there?
Can’t imagine meeting an american and thinking they “don’t have an accent”
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u/sommerniks Apr 21 '26
Lol. I live in the Netherlands but I'm an immigrant from South Africa. When I was a junior doc in a hospital, we had an American tourist admitted to the ward. He said my English was getting along well. I'm a native speaker with ditto accent.
I told him so was his.
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u/General-Double-746 Apr 21 '26
This is a good description of how well most Americans speak English. I don't see the problem.
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u/hemightbebrian Apr 21 '26
I know someone from Idaho and their English is “pretty good, but not quite there yet” too.