[dghughes]

I've read about native English speakers who take classes to cleanse their colloquialisms from their speech. It's for conducting business with people who speak English but not natively. OP in a way is trying to do the opposite.

[mabbo]

Damn, I would probably benefit from that.

I've had a number of misunderstandings over the last decade where in hindsight, my communication was the root cause. My favourite: "I would". Meaning "in your situation, I would do X". And the person later came back and said "but you said you would do it".

[PeterHolzwarth]

Ooo, that is a particularly great example - I wouldn't have thought of that (no pun intended), and I pride myself on being able to scale my use of English to the skill-level of the person I am speaking to.

In fact, even if I was in "speak simply" mode, I would still use "would" instead of, perhaps, "recommend," as "would" is a shorter word: I favor simpler words over multi-syllable versions when trying to be maximally understandable to someone whose native language is not English. I'm glad you brought it up!

[mabbo]

To this day, I'm still unsure whether there was a misunderstanding or if I was being taken advantage of, but I presume good intent from the person.

[jackvalentine]

Sometimes people just hear what they want to hear. I’ve definitely been in situations where my advice was carefully caveated with a precursor “If I were in your situation, I would do X” and the person has just heard “I would do X”.

[hgsgm]

"I suggest ..." or "[Maybe] try ...".

[frant-hartm]

As a non-native speaker, I fail to see how that can be understood differently.

[PeterHolzwarth]

Which meaning of it do you feel is the one that is clear to you?

[frant-hartm]

I understand it as an advice, recommendation - "If I were you, I would do X".

After re-reading I probably see the issue, but you never said "I will do X" which changes to would in reported speech:

I will do X -> You said you would do X.

Did they understood "I would do X" as "I will do X"?

[LaLaLand122]

I would never understand it as "but you said you would do it", I would say "would" is safe to use with non-natives. But it may depend on the native language of the other person. There are some really weird languages out there!

The other day Duolingo did show me you can say "и A и B" ("и" being "and") to say "both A and B". Start a sentence with "and", a conjunction, without anything before to... "conjunt"... I still can't parse it without raising an exception.

[aix1]

Reminds me of this classic: https://greatbritishmag.co.uk/uk-culture/what-the-british-sa...

"What Brits say vs what they actually mean."

[cardanome]

As a German I feel this is just common sense polite speech.

The only think cracking me up regularly is getting asked "How are you?". I just can't get used to it. Every time I hear it I have a split second reaction of actually processing how I am feeling before reminding myself it was just meant as a phrase.

It is such a shitty thing to ask. It makes me more aware of my feelings but sets the expectations that I am not allowed to actually verbalize my feelings. Don't ask if you are not prepared for an honest answer.

And yes, I know it is just a ritualized thing. Still annoys me.

[PeterHolzwarth]

I get the same feeling of momentary compulsion to exactly answer a greeting when confronted with two very common greetings in Thai: "Have you eaten rice yet?" and "Where are you going?"

To this day, I am still not entirely confident in how I should respond with to the prior.

In regards to the English "how are you?" greeting, think of it as a formulaic inquiry meant only to ensure there isn't anything absolutely horrible going on with you at that exact moment - anything lesser equates to "fine" or "I'm well, thanks."

More broadly, it is an appropriate situation to note anything out of the ordinary going on - "oh wow, I am so tired this afternoon!" etc to scope the ensuing situation. The greeting really is a question that equates to being asked "is there anything particularly out of the ordinary going with you right now I should know about that would impact us talking?" If there isn't, "I'm well, thanks."

(I know you know all this, but your comment got me musing on the topic.)

[zdragnar]

I (a native english speaker) frequently ask this question at the start of conversations. and I am actually seeking information- it is not an empty ritual.

The following are in the context of a workplace conversation; other types of conversations may vary slightly depending on the scenario.

Specifically, I am trying to understand how to set the tone for a conversation. If you are feeling stressed, busy, exhausted or frustrated, I may keep banter to a minimum, decide to ask for a meeting later instead of engaging a full conversation now, or even decide that whatever caused me to get your attention in the first place is less important and offer to help you instead of asking for your help.

If you are feeling bored, content or happy, I might ask for more direct help than limiting the conversation to simply getting an answer to a question.

No matter what the answer is, I'm also trying to use showing an interest in you to set the tone of the conversation to one of camaraderie and collaboration, rather than direction, accusation or competitiveness.

There's a ton of nuance involved, no set rules, and the actual amount of time I am expecting to spend on the topic correlates pretty strongly to how well I know you. I'm not asking to be your therapist or your friend, but I am hoping for an honest answer, and if anyone expresses that they are struggling, I will offer to help however I can.

[secondcoming]

How is it different from 'Wie gehst?', which is "How's it going?" which has the same rules as 'How are you?'

[cardanome]

Not exactly. "Wie geht's"? is more informal and it is perfectly acceptable to say something like "ja muss" or "geht so". There is no forced positivity. You can imply that you are feeling bad or just normal without it being a big deal.

Plus "Wie geht's" is more impersonal. It is more like asking "How is the situation?". It is not as direct as asking "How are YOU" (with you being the subject of the sentence instead your mood/situation being the subject) which feels much more intimate when directly translated to German.

[DFHippie]

As a native speaker of English, when someone asks me that I do try to express how I am, but I know my response is being interpreted relative to a baseline of how people answer this question. If I'm having a rough day I will answer differently from how I would on a good day. But while doing this I'm balancing all sorts of other considerations: how much time I can spend away from other topics, whether I want a closer or more formal relationship with the other person, what they want, etc. I modulate my response relative to the communicative baseline, so my interlocutor, if they're fluent, can infer that I'm doing well or poorly, I'm in haste or willing to take some time, that I put great stock in the my relationship to them or little.

I think this implicit communicative baseline is a huge, invisible barrier to communication among people who are apparently fluent in a common language. You can still understand the question as serious and answer it honestly conveying how you are to the speaker, and have it come off as fake or formulaic to people not aware of the baseline. I'm sure this is true for all languages. The problem, of course, is acquiring a knowledge of these baselines and the context in which they apply is extremely difficult, often even for native speakers. The native speakers find it difficult to introspect about this and explain why they interpret things as they do. Because it is invisible to them, it is difficult for them to teach this to someone else. And it is difficult for them to realize someone else is not doing this and therefore not be offended by non-natives, or people with ASD or whatever, not communicating relative to this baseline. A Dutch person saying something bluntly isn't "just being honest". They are just comporting themselves relative to the Dutch baseline. A Japanese person using non-confrontational polite formulations isn't being dishonest. They assume you are familiar with the Japanese baseline (while not necessarily even being aware this is their assumption).

I think it is common for people to believe people from their native culture come in all sorts but people from other cultures all have personalities in a tight range. They're all lazy or wily or emotionless or angry or cold. I think what they're perceiving is the way one communicative baseline deviates from another. They take this difference as a deliberate, communicative modulation away from their baseline, the honest, neutral one. To them, the other person's neutral state is not neutral. They always speak as they they're angry, say, or in a hurry, or trying to deceive. It is analogous to the way people perceive themselves as having a neutral, invisible accent and all other people speak in some quirky way.

[cromka]

Interesting point, never thought of that. As an ESL speaker, somewhat advanced and with an experience of living in the US for a while, I have learned many colloquialisms that I recently had to become more aware of when dealing with someone speaking the language at a much more basic level. So this concept actually applies to people like me, too, and maybe even more so, since we're less likely to be able to instinctively evaluate how common or rare a colloquialism can be to a another foreign ear.

[matheusmoreira]

I too try my best to learn and use colloquialisms. Excessively formal language is very academic, something you learn in a school rather than by actually communicating with other humans. Inability to understand and communicate using informal language and slang marks us as foreigners. Even subtle differences in word choice can sound weird to native speakers.

I test my fluency by attempting to pass off as a native speaker on the internet. If anyone ever suspected I'm not a native speaker, they never told me. I was once unmasked in an old video game though because of a mistake specific to that game and people from my country, a mistake I had internalized since childhood. That was quite shocking to me...

[bojan]

> I test my fluency by attempting to pass off as a native speaker on the internet. If anyone ever suspected I'm not a native speaker, they never told me.

How does this work exactly? Do you explicitly say you're a native speaker and then wait until someone realizes you are not and tell you?

Because I don't see it happening that people will tell you they don't think you're a native speaker organically, in a conversation that's going on about something else.

[matheusmoreira]

On anonymous and pseudonymous communities, people tend to assume everyone's american for various reasons. This is also true here on HN.

In my experience, when people think someone else is a foreigner, they ask them where they're from. The assumption that they were talking to an american was violated so they try to determine who they're actually talking to. So if I can manage to not violate that assumption, it must mean that my speech resembles that of an american native speaker.

[kingbirdy]

> I was once unmasked in an old video game though because of a mistake specific to that game and people from my country, a mistake I had internalized since childhood. That was quite shocking to me...

I'm curious to know what the "mistake" was here. Is it something like referring to in-game items via their name in your native language, instead of English?

[matheusmoreira]

Yeah, sort of. The game is Tibia, it has an item called copper shield. When I was a kid, all my friends and I used to write and pronounce it as cooper shield. I internalized that mistake to the point I actually thought the item was called cooper shield despite knowing what copper is.

So decades later I went a gaming community on the internet and suggested we all play this old game. Everything was fine until I said cooper shield. One guy immediately messaged me "br?" and I was shocked. No one else noticed it. Turns out he was also a foreigner who learned portuguese by playing the game together with brazilians and he recognized that specific brazilian mistake.

[yodsanklai]

> a mistake I had internalized since childhood

This can happen even in our native language.

[mxgrn]

Well, only in a way :) I don't think colloquialisms are necessarily what I'm after, but rather a richer, literate language.

[jollofricepeas]

For American “literate”language favored by artists and elites:

Avid book readers of classic and Early Modern English literature have a much wider and expressive vocabulary, and are more likely to pepper their speech with socially-accepted literary references.

But for richer American language:

I especially love the colloquialism, grammar and accents across the American regions. They’re so vibrant, punchy and exciting. This is best experienced in person when traveling and stopping into local restaurants but can also be found in literature, music and social media as well but it requires effort to find which it what makes it fun.

In my case, I ask myself a question like what does a 40 year old blue class worker from New Jersey or a 19 year old Floridian rapper sound like, then the hunt is afoot.

Elites find local speech ignorant but I find it mesmerizing - a radiant, colorful flower in a sea of sameness.

[js2]

> blue class worker

Blue collar, a reference to the working class wearing blue-collared shirts as opposed to the professional class wearing white-collared shirt.

Blue class workers are sad students, or maybe Smurfs. :-)

> Elites find local speech ignorant but I find it mesmerizing.

On account of because of your comment, I think you'd really enjoy Ball of Fire (1941).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OwcxH46a16g

[yetanotherloser]

It's possible that blue class workers got those blues real bad. I asked their women for comment, but they said they woke up this mornin', upped, and left 'em. The only ones I could catch up with were very old ones from the Missisippi Delta region, who admitted to feeling like a broke down engine...