Have You Ever Realized You Are Less Sensitive to Your Native Language?

  •  
  • 111
  • 9
  • 5
  • English 
Apr 30th 2010 02:42 languages
An American friend of mine here who has read a lot of English entries mainly written by Japanese people has realized that she has become less sensitive to some wrong English expressions that Japanese people very often use. She says that when she saw them here for the first time, they totally sounded strange to her, however she is used to them and they lately don't sound unnatural to her even though she knows they are wrong. Another American woman who teaches English in Japan feels the same thing and seems to wonder if she is cut out for English teachers.

On Lang-8, I always expect native English speakers to make my sentences sound more natural even though they are grammatically correct. One day, a native speaker told me that he might not be capable enough to judge it since he works with non-native speakers every day. When I was studying Mandarin at a University in Guangzhou, China, I spent a lot of time with American and Canadian classmates after school. Even though they always said that they should keep speaking Mandarin after school, it usually took them less half an hour to start speaking English. They sometimes said that their English was getting rusty since they usually spoke with non-native speakers.

While I lived overseas, in order to keep my Japanese at a standard level, I tried not to mix up Japanese and foreign language words when speaking Japanese, although this was actually very difficult. From the perspective that languages are a communication tool, it's fine to use sort of new languages and words if they help you communicate with somebody. However, needless to say, it's still important to use languages properly.

It's been about 15 months since I joined Lang-8. I've read a lot of Japanese entires written by foreigners. Lately, I sometimes realize how flexible languages are.