[wmu]

> In continental Europe I have often been in a room with people from 10 different countries say Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, India, China, Korea, England. Everyone could understand each other's broken English with the exception that half of the people couldn't understand English guy.

The problem is that most people are not exposed to real-life English. It's either quite artificial language during classes or well spoken lines in movies. Words are spoken slower and clearer. Native speakers speak fast, use linking, colloquial language, multitude of idioms, phrasal verbs, and tons of stuff never ever touched during classes.

[ralferoo]

"The problem is that most people are not exposed to real-life English. It's either quite artificial language during classes or well spoken lines in movies."

This is true of most languages. My favourite example in Mandarin Chinese that appears very often in TV shows and films, "what are you looking at?" 看什么看？

On the surface, this should be pronounced as "kan shenme kan", Chinese people like to add particles to things, in this case it gains a "-na", and the whole thing when said quickly actually reduces to something approximating "ka'me ka-a". When you've heard it a few times, you just recognise it, but unless you have a native to explain it (or good subtitles), it's impossible to guess.

I should add that this example is particular to the North, especially Beijing, but other areas have similar but different effects.

[bckr]

> real-life English

I get what you mean, but want to point out that this Global English which allows the folks to communicate is real-life English as it gets. It's just not Her Majesty's or Mr. President's.

[bradknowles]

I would equate it more to a Pidgin English, or a lowest common denominator dialect that throws out 80% or more of the parent language.

Yes, I lived in Brussels, Belgium for almost eight years. I heard plenty of Belgians who spoke English better than many native US speakers, but I also heard plenty of people speaking what I would consider a very broken English, more like what is being discussed here.

[james_in_the_uk]

Also, the economics of making a movie mean that the dialogue must be written for an audience with a very low average level of comprehension. I am not a language snob but sometimes it is so poor or obviously dumbed down that it spoils the realism of the film.