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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Do you correct your Chinese friend's English?
They say they want me to, but I never do. I feel like an asshole when I do.
"Homework."
"What?"
"It's homework. Not homeworks. Homework is not a countable noun, so you don't plural it."
Depends on my mood with most of them, but with my good chinese friend,,, rarely. I just rephrase things usually until I know he understands what I'm talking about. but, for correcting the mistakes he makes whilst attempting to utilize the English language, no, I don't correct him.
I don't. My spoken English is terrible.
I help out friends with written English though. If they ask me. I spent a lot of time in the past helping to do these toastmaster speech things.
Not unless they seek.
And, I like it when they correct my tidbit Chinese
I don’t unless my friends ask me if their pronunciation or other is in/correct although before I even have to utter a word my friends seem to correct themselves. I do however correct the English teachers/colleagues I work with because they have terrible English even though they think they sound near enough native and that my English is in the wrong because they can’t be!!!!
Shining_brow:
I was saying "washing washing" for MONTHS@!!!! finally someone pointed it out....
('xi'... not 'xie')
Rarely... though we often joke around about it.
This is the problem with only wanting a native speaker to talk to (other than being a pathetic excuse to do nothing!) - the lack of correction. With NNS, meaning needs to be negotiated better for understanding. Whereas for the NS of a language, we know what we can leave out (or mix up) and still be able to (mostly) understand.
So, when meaning is lost, then correction. If not, normally let it go (unless it has unintended side-effects... "I play with myself"), or if I just hate it (eg, "relax myself" or "Starbucks is good coffee").
Didn't you ask this question already?
Englteachted:
I use this answer whenever I see a troll repeat themselves.
I'\ve had people who were offended when I corrected their English. If they are my students and close friends yes... strangers? No