People don't get enough credit for learning English

[Blue]

It depends on an individual's circumstances of course.

Look at this English textbook from Indonesia: http://i.imgur.com/TrfBS48.jpg

If you're from a country that has a first world education system and teaches English from a young age, you have a pretty major advantage. People who speak a Germanic or Latin language natively have another big advantage.

And as someone studying the language of a country whose movie, TV, and publishing industries put out very low quality content, I think English learners have a huge advantage with a massive library of high quality, big budget TV shows, movies, books, podcasts, websites, music, audiobooks, instructional materials, and everything you could ever possibly want.

If you're from a country where Indo-European languages aren't spoken, the education system isn't of Northern European quality, and American media isn't ubiquitous, then being able to speak English is a far bigger accomplishment than it is for a Swede or German.

[DangerDave2010]

It's interesting that you would feel like that despite learning English to C2 (Isn't that a better level than most natives? ) Could you elaborate a bit ? Do you think just because it's unavoidable then it's not worth acknowledging achievements in learning English? That it's something to be expected of people ?

That's how I feel about my own achiements. For other ppl, I'd want to encourage them to learn and feel good about their achievemnts, so I'd do my best to keep similar thoughts to myself.

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

It depends on an individual's circumstances of course.

Look at this English textbook from Indonesia: http://i.imgur.com/TrfBS48.jpg

If you're from a country that has a first world education system and teaches English from a young age, you have a pretty major advantage. People who speak a Germanic or Latin language natively have another big advantage.

And as someone studying the language of a country whose movie, TV, and publishing industries put out very low quality content, I think English learners have a huge advantage with a massive library of high quality, big budget TV shows, movies, books, podcasts, websites, music, audiobooks, instructional materials, and everything you could ever possibly want.

If you're from a country where Indo-European languages aren't spoken, the education system isn't of Northern European quality, and American media isn't ubiquitous, then being able to speak English is a far bigger accomplishment than it is for a Swede or German.

Assuming that the Swede or German has access to that massive library of high quality of everything you could ever possibly want of course.

(...also known as never mind).

I've lost count of how many times I've been asked to translate between Scandinavian English and Other European English.
Personally I can't say that I've never gotten credit, people tend to want to use me for quite a lot of things just because I know English better than them.

[William Camden]

It depends on an individual's circumstances of course.

Look at this English textbook from Indonesia: http://i.imgur.com/TrfBS48.jpg

If you're from a country that has a first world education system and teaches English from a young age, you have a pretty major advantage. People who speak a Germanic or Latin language natively have another big advantage.

And as someone studying the language of a country whose movie, TV, and publishing industries put out very low quality content, I think English learners have a huge advantage with a massive library of high quality, big budget TV shows, movies, books, podcasts, websites, music, audiobooks, instructional materials, and everything you could ever possibly want.

If you're from a country where Indo-European languages aren't spoken, the education system isn't of Northern European quality, and American media isn't ubiquitous, then being able to speak English is a far bigger accomplishment than it is for a Swede or German.

I've noticed Turkish speakers struggle with English, which is not like Turkish at all. Typical Turkish textbooks published in Turkey for learning English are, to put it mildly, not going to produce any breakthroughs although I have seen none as bad as the Indonesian example. In these circumstances the ones that make real headway in learning English are overcoming quite a lot of obstacles to do so.

[iAnonGuy]

The circumstances for an ESL is much better than for an Anglophone learning another language.

That's why they don't get enough credit.

If Russian was in the position English enjoys, and had the exposure and proliferation of English... We wouldn't have much issue learning that language.

Another thing, is that ESLs tend to not have "great" English. Many do, but that is not generally the case (if we are to speak... quasi-statistically). Many good examples can be found on this forum:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5159&start=30#p60434

Tons of misspellings, and tons of grammar errors. One could only imagine how this person actually speaks the language - when they don't have the luxury of proofreading (even if only *as* they write) their English.

This is not to pick on them. This is indicative of what I run across all the time. I think our ability to just trudge through bad English without issues doesn't allow us to see the true disparity between Good English and Bad English. Many of the errors in this post would be avoided by the average American 6th grader, yet you can easily get a C1 with this type of output... I still have 5 page handwritten short stories from the 5th grade with less misspelling and grammar faults, and I doubt my classmates were much worse.

[asterion]

The circumstances for an ESL is much better than for an Anglophone learning another language.

That's why they don't get enough credit.

If Russian was in the position English enjoys, and had the exposure and proliferation of English... We wouldn't have much issue learning that language.

Another thing, is that ESLs tend to not have "great" English. Many do, but that is not generally the case (if we are to speak... quasi-statistically). Many good examples can be found on this forum:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5159&start=30#p60434

Tons of misspellings, and tons of grammar errors. One could only imagine how this person actually speaks the language - when they don't have the luxury of proofreading (even if only *as* they write) their English.

This is not to pick on them. This is indicative of what I run across all the time. I think our ability to just trudge through bad English without issues doesn't allow us to see the true disparity between Good English and Bad English. Many of the errors in this post would be avoided by the average American 6th grader, yet you can easily get a C1 with this type of output... I still have 5 page handwritten short stories from the 5th grade with less misspelling and grammar faults, and I doubt my classmates were much worse.

I can only guess that the circumstances for you, learning English punctuation, were not the best. The circumstanceS for an ESL IS much better-and I will guess that this is something innovative.

Tons of misspellings and grammar errors? I can see only 4: langauge( slip of a pen, obviously), economical instead of economic benefit, trully instead of truly, and dictature instead of dictatorship( she is living in France, and learning French intensively).

[rdearman]

The average American 6th grader would fail English spelling exams in Britain. As well as being marked down in punctuation tests for using the "serial comma" in writing. Bad English is sort of relative.

I believe it is unfair to compare a native to a second language learner. If we ignore all the time before starting school, the average US 6th grader would have had over 40,000 hours of exposure to the English language and 7171 hours of formal instruction of which they'd have received an average of 1080 hours dedicated to English language.

I think it is unreasonable to expect anyone with less than that number of hours and exposure to have the same level of ability. The fact that a second language learner managed less than 5 mistakes is actually pretty amazing.

[Random Review]

It depends on so many things, doesn't it? Native tongue (and how close it is to English), access to high quality instruction, affordable access to English-language books, music, TV series and so on, contact with peers also learning the language to a high level, opportunities to use the language, etc. I think anyone deserves credit if they reach a significantly higher level than others from their generation/culture/native tongue, etc.

To take two ridiculous extremes, a working-class guy/woman from North Korea would deserve immense credit for reaching a level that would be embarrassing for a middle-class, highly educated Norwegian professional.

[Cavesa]

The circumstances for an ESL is much better than for an Anglophone learning another language.

That's why they don't get enough credit.

If Russian was in the position English enjoys, and had the exposure and proliferation of English... We wouldn't have much issue learning that language.

Another thing, is that ESLs tend to not have "great" English. Many do, but that is not generally the case (if we are to speak... quasi-statistically). Many good examples can be found on this forum:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5159&start=30#p60434

Tons of misspellings, and tons of grammar errors. One could only imagine how this person actually speaks the language - when they don't have the luxury of proofreading (even if only *as* they write) their English.

This is not to pick on them. This is indicative of what I run across all the time. I think our ability to just trudge through bad English without issues doesn't allow us to see the true disparity between Good English and Bad English. Many of the errors in this post would be avoided by the average American 6th grader, yet you can easily get a C1 with this type of output... I still have 5 page handwritten short stories from the 5th grade with less misspelling and grammar faults, and I doubt my classmates were much worse.

Ok, so I write worse than a 6th grader and my writing was still graded C2 in 2010 (the best part of my CAE), congratulations on having learnt your native language

-I gladly admit my English has been deteriorating. I haven't touched a grammar book since 2010 to review, and I don't care that much, English is simply not a priority. Why should it be? My skills suffice for all I need, I don't like the language much, and I still need to dumb it down for most other ESL speakers (and I meet many more than natives). So, why bother?

-I don't proofread much, so talking about the "luxury of proofreading" doesn't make much sense here. And while my English is now not great, as I am spending much more time on other langauges (and have been spending more time on other languages since 2010), it is not true that one's writing in a foreign language must be necessarily better than speaking. In my DALF C2, I got 42/50 for the spoken part, and only 16/50 for writing, that's just an example. I have no clue what is my spoken English like now, true, but you cannot judge it from my writing.

-English is definitely not a priority language. Languages of the countries I might move to are.

-I usually post in the middle of the night. Sometimes, my 4am writing contains stuff I would be definitely ashamed for during the day. Therefore my posts are not that representative as insomnia and fatigue are the usual co-authors.

And while I find it rather funny to have been chosen as the example of crappy ESL speaker thinking too much of herself (I never claimed my English to be awesome. The C1 is the result of an official exam, not my guess), I think this attitude is exactly what makes anglophones so unpopular. Don't get me wrong, it is not the "but Cavesa's English sucks" note, you may be absolutely right about that. It is the "you are just paying for being born into an inferior country and doing what is expected of you, so you have nothing to be proud of" attitude. And it is especially funny to read criticisms of C1 skills in a foreign language, coming from someone with no experience with such a level. So, how can you say whether it is easy or hard to become a C1 speaker of a language?

[Jar-Ptitsa]

The circumstances for an ESL is much better than for an Anglophone learning another language.

Why? What's much better for us? I suppose you mean that English is the global langauge, so for that yes, it's global, but why are the circumstances so much better for example for a francophone learning English than an anglophone leanirng French? or spanish person etc.

Another thing, is that ESLs tend to not have "great" English. Many do, but that is not generally the case (if we are to speak... quasi-statistically). Many good examples can be found on this forum:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5159&start=30#p60434

Tons of misspellings, and tons of grammar errors. One could only imagine how this person actually speaks the language - when they don't have the luxury of proofreading (even if only *as* they write) their English.

Please translate her post into French, and we will see if it's better than an average 6th grader (Are they 11 years old?)

Although I think it's not good to compare the grammar faults by a native speaker and a foreigner who's learned the language. It's a different thing.

The results like C1 are for a foreign langauge, never your native one.