- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: the_Ender
People who've learned English after their native language. N. Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Britons, etc. should be able to spell, punctuate, and grammatically arrange their thoughts better than those who've learned English later in life. So far, I've found that not typically the case. That, to me, is disheartening. I've heard from a Dane and a Swiss that have more coherence in their posts than most of the 14-17 year old English speakers. (50% of those polled). Sad sad sad.
I believe that what you said can depend on that people that doesn't have english as their native tounge knows that their posts can be a bit bad, so they try harder to make them better. Also I think that people that doesn't have english as native tounge is more sensitive to typos than english speakers, since they undestand it less anyway. Many people that have english as native tounge may perhaps not care much about bad grammar and typos, since they think that "I write this way when I chat with my friends, and they understand it. And in the forums, why bother with grammar there? Everyone is probably as good as I am at english, and I understand what I write without any problems"
Or something like that. Sometimes when I chat in swedish, I bother less with spelling and grammar than I usually do.