Etiquette - do you correct your friend/partners English in social/home settings?

Discussion Open Forum
1

hey,

So you’re out and about with your Taiwanese friend or partner and you can’t help but notice some of the errors they make in spoken English e.g. omission of ‘the’ or adding an ‘s’ when not needed.

Do you correct them or let it slide?
Maybe you yourself speak some Taiwanese or Mandarin that is not so flash either. Do they correct your errors? Do you appreciate it when they do so?
If you do correct them do you think their spoken English has improved over time?

Curious to hear other peoples experiences on this one. There is no right or wrong answer and it always boils down to individual personalities and personal relationships.

.:.A.:.

2

Usually I just say something like: “Christ, neebs! Wiz youze born stupit or did ye huv tae practice, likes?”

3

I think the proper etiquette is to ask the person’s preference, and respect that.

If it’s a language exchange friend, I generally correct mistakes if we’re alone together, because we will have agreed to do that as part of the LE. I definitely appreciate it when corrected, but not everyone does.

Also, if errors are incessant, I limit the amount of corrections to a manageable number so as not to distract too much from the conversation, and tend to strategically choose which ones to work on to help guide improvement.

Some people improve when corrected and some don’t.

My wife and I correct each other, because our relationship began as an LE, she’s an English teacher and we both want to improve. It’s our mutual preference. I tend to correct her minimally or not at all in the presence of others, though – it’s distracting.

4

I correct my wife sometimes, but never in front of other people. Her english is quite good and doesn’t need much correction. My mandarin is nothing close to conversational but when it does get conversational I have already told her to correct me as much as possible.

I never correct anybody else unless they specifically ask.

5

Cuz, ken? unless yiz wiz born an’ raised in Fife, then obviously yer English is gonny be totally fucked up, 'n that.

6

Cuz, ken? unless yiz wiz born an’ raised in Fife, then obviously yer English is gonny be totally fucked up, ‘n that.[/quote]
Yor alrigh’ yoo, but yor mayte… ‘ees a fookin’ wankor!

ahh the Queen’s English. She’s gonna get eaten alive when we move back :laughing:

7

I’m french. I can communicate in english without problem. But I know the english I speak is not good. So, to all native speakers, when we (foreigners) make mistakes, please correct us ! it helps a lot !

(if it’s like 15 mistakes/sentence, you might want to pick the most ear-aching one, bu still, it would make next sentence with only 14 mistakes !)

btw, same for taiwanese people whe we’re trying to speak mandarin ! (and stop telling us “You’re chinese is so good” when we just said “NiHao”…^^)

8

This one is really specific to the person… I would never do this to a person unless they said this sentence to me first, and then I would probably do it no more than once or twice per meeting.

Drives me crazy, as well. By the way, what that actually means is “Your chinese sucks” :slight_smile:

9

From what reading I’ve done about language learning, random corrections during a conversation are not supposed to help at all.
I’ve also found that even when people ask someone to correct them, actually they get annoyed at constantly being interrupted during a conversation.
I only correct my husband when he says something that is an unintentional double entendre, or is offensive. He often uses the ‘n-word’ for example. I’m trying to break him of this habit before we go to any Western country. Otherwise, if I understand him, great, and if I don’t, or he doesn’t understand me, then the explanation is not really a schoolmarm correction, it is just two people trying to communicate.

10

I agree completely. I never, not even now correct my kid’s grammar structures, tenses, or even genders (in Hindi each noun has a gender like in French) and yet they automatically improve their spoken skills by listening to us. It takes time, but it’s auto-correcting.

Ditto when I picked up Chinese. I automatically picked up sentence structures by listening to them.

Besides, it’s no fun being corrected by friends unless they ask for it, and let my Hubby try correcting me :fume: …in ANYTHING :laughing:

11

[quote=“bababa”]From what reading I’ve done about language learning, random corrections during a conversation are not supposed to help at all.
[/quote]

Interesting point. I don’t have much experience with it but I think maybe I’m starting to think this as well.
Thanks for the great replies divea, bababa, dnwolfgang, and dragonbones.

It seems to me that some people reach a level of proficiency in a language and then stop progressing. In two cases that i know personally the proficiency of the person was significantly higher than other people from the same country.

This thread has got me thinking. thanks

12

My wife always tells me to correct her, but I usually forget unless we are arguing and then it makes her really mad.

13

:roflmao:

14

I’ve found it really helps me when people kind of subtly correct me by restating things correctly or using the correct word in a way that doesn’t disrupt the conversation. eg. if I say - “hey, let’s go do xyz” with some mistake in there - if, instead of either telling me about the mistake or just saying ok, they correctly say “ok, let’s go do xyz”, then I’ll pick up on the difference and learn from it without having to feel like I’ve been corrected.
I definitely wouldn’t go around outright correcting people unless they asked for it, but I would be more likely to model the correct grammar/vocab.

15

I’m with Dragonbones.

My partner’s English is pretty reasonable, but he makes a few slip-ups. I occasionally correct him or suggest new vocabulary because it might be useful - albeit not essential - for his job (i.e., the news industry, where occasionally he is asked to get the breaking English-written or spoken news because his English happens to be better than others’ in the studio at a particular point in time). I especially correct repeat errors and provide vocab I know might be of value or of interest.

I strongly avoid correcting anyone in public (outside of the classroom, that is - and even at school I will judge the advantageousness of correcting at any particular moment). However, I might correct him in front of a close group of friends if it was necessary for communication, in the same way that I would correct a native speaker who got the name of a book wrong. Can’t think of many times I have needed to do it though.

If most of you foreign posters out there are anything like me, you have a mix of friends - some from your home country, some from elsewhere outside of Taiwan, and some from Taiwan. And everybody in your circle has varying levels of Chinese and English. There’s probably not much reason to correct a partner’s English in social situations as others will light-heartedly make it clear if your significant other is confusing them.

For social situations and for relationships, I’d say that the message and not the grammar is important. Unless, of course, someone needs impeccable English for a job and specifically asks for constant correction.

That is not to say that I don’t love and appreciate the beauty of English and that I don’t wish my lover could understand more complicated English so that I could throw it at him and express myself more subtly. But living contentedly from day to day seems more important than making our lives together an English lesson.

I will just add, that one thing I do try to avoid is dumbing down my grammar. I have seen new arrivals in Taiwan speaking to lovers and colleagues in a way that isn’t going to help anybody. You know what I mean - when somebody says: “I go 7-11” (probably while miming it), instead of “I am going to the 7-11” (while miming it).

If you have been living abroad for long enough, you can probably judge a non-native speaker’s level easily and adjust your language without the need for mangling your own language.

But as DB said - it’s up to what your partner wants. And what you want, if learning their language.

I do like Dr. McCoy’s take, though:

Nothing like a correction mid-argument to bring out a lot of stuff that needs dealing with. :slight_smile:

16

Corrections are NT1500 each. That makes her more madder.

17

I rarely correct English mistakes unless it changes the meaning. For example I texted my girlfriend asking if she wanted to X. She texted back ‘pass for me’. I was very surprised when I got a text back asking what time I was picking her up.

But overall I find nothing worse than a conversation constantly interrupted by corrections. I prefer to be in a conversation where the conversation isn’t important and both of you want to focus on correcting. Or learn by imitation (correct definition) of the native speaker. The problem is that sometimes I find myself speaking like my girlfriend. Which means no verb tenses but rather using verb and time instead. She has really good vocab and pronounciation but almost no grammar or verb tenses.

I did correct some non-English speaking (but high level) Europeans this weekend with the difference between shade and shadow since this is a very common error. But it was actually a new conversation starter.

18

I might ask for clarification if something was said that caused confusion, and then it may be necessary to state the correct form/word so that we agree about the meaning. But otherwise, absolutely not, no way, in the course of a conversation.

For one thing, there’s the small matter of not being an English teacher when you’re not in the classroom.

More importantly, if you correct someone then you assume a position of authority. If someone is genuinely your friend and you have an equal relationship, then it’s rude to keep stopping them and I would only do it to clarify a misunderstanding.

Still, in the case of repeated errors, I don’t see any harm in casually mentioning them at a suitable time if your friend appreciates your help. If someone genuinely wants to improve, they’ll appreciate occasional mini-lessons.

19

For me, it’s a matter of

a: only with my wife, in private.

b: choose the moment - when there’s no harm in interrupting the flow or changing the subject, when she might appreciate it/not mind.

c: choose the means - preferably working the same form into my sentence, or a pause, nod or wink to see if she notices something’s up, though this does risk coming across as condescending.

The exception being Americanisms, which get slapped down sharpish. Tongue in cheek, of course.

20

[quote=“fruitloop”]For me, it’s a matter of

a: only with my wife, in private.

b: choose the moment - when there’s no harm in interrupting the flow or changing the subject, when she might appreciate it/not mind.

c: choose the means - preferably working the same form into my sentence, or a pause, nod or wink to see if she notices something’s up, though this does risk coming across as deman[strike]condescen[/strike]ding.
[/quote]

That sounds like asking for a u no… :smiley: