really tired of seeing people write 'broken english' dialogue in RP to suggest 'foreignness' in their characters. it's lazy and grating and it's time to think about second languages more thoughtfully. even just from my observation, second language mistakes tend to come more from > - ThreadSky

runehallow.bsky.social • 6 hours ago

really tired of seeing people write 'broken english' dialogue in RP to suggest 'foreignness' in their characters. it's lazy and grating and it's time to think about second languages more thoughtfully. even just from my observation, second language mistakes tend to come more from >

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stephgabz.bsky.social•5 hours ago

I taught English, World History, Western Culture and Geography in China for 14 years. My students were either really confident or self conscious about their abilities at the high school and university levels, but rarely used some of the broken English I see in some writing or media.

stephgabz.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Idioms and colloquial expressions, some plurals and minor issues with tenses were the common problems, but rarely anything truly qualifying as broken English.

soleil-xrd.bsky.social•5 hours ago

no it pisses me the fuck off, especially because XIV itself pulls this and it makes some people feel justified to recreate it for their own characters. there's so many thoughtful ways to explore language and language barriers and it's so aggravating to see "brown man talk funny" as a trope still

elidibus.amaurot.social•6 hours ago

Ohhh this pisses me off. I don’t rp but if I saw this I would be so angry. It’s so high-key racist actually!!! Shows a lot about people’s language ideologies regarding second+ language speakers, and it’s always crazy coming from monolinguals!

ashlaran.bsky.social•6 hours ago

This right there! English is not my first language and it's always insulting that people show non-native speakers as somewhat stupid! (And yes, it's always coming from monolinguals!)

fishingway.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Malapropism is a way funnier and more accurate way of doing this, signed someone who has said “that ship has failed” when I meant sailed

283leis.bsky.social•5 hours ago

the crazy thing is that almost everyone in Eitherys speaks the same language! Obviously other languages exist, but even people on Tural, Hingashi and other shards speak it fluently. At this point making your char struggle with it just feels lazy at best.

sneef.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I'll be real, as someone who's second language and often see it.. Idk, it gets so grating at times. I have my mistakes, I make my grammar errors and all. But I've never talked or spoken like even half of how some of them make it look like lmao.

Or errors come from various things, either >

sneef.bsky.social•6 hours ago

> accents and such making some letters or words hard to say, repeating maybe some words too many times, etc.

But never sounding like so LOLL.. So thank you for mentioning it 😭

runehallow.bsky.social•6 hours ago

yeaahh i imagine it's twice as frustrating to see this when you write/speak in a second language yourself 😭

sneef.bsky.social•6 hours ago

It can be at times, since I am still struggling alot with some words, or pronouncing them, writing well, etc. It's something I keep striving to do better with!

But I think also the OC's who interact with the second language OC's can sometimes make me frustrated, it's kinda both?

runehallow.bsky.social•5 hours ago

ooh, can you elaborate on that?

sneef.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Like sometimes the way an OC can come off, speaking second language.. I've at times watched some OC's talk to them or act like the OC is actually stupid or the like. Even if the OC was actually written well with their struggles to talk common.

So idk, it can kinda go both ways?

seocshadowfall.bsky.social•5 hours ago

this bothers me as a native English speaker, too. i view this thru the lens of Japanese. i took 3 yrs of it in HS XX yrs ago. i don't speak in "broken Japanese," i speak in short FULL sentences. any1 immersed in a language for 1 yr will have that same ability. vocab is where i/they are lacking.

runehallow.bsky.social•6 hours ago

unfamiliarity with certain colloquialisms and from more subtle grammar mistakes, i.e. using plurals and articles where they exist in one language but not the other. there are issues of structure but it's not the fractured, childish way of speaking i keep seeing lately.

lieutenant-wubs.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I wish colloquial or phrase misunderstandings were used more because they can be so funny and genuine.

I still laugh/am haunted by the time I thought the phrase “knock boots” meant “pick/get in a fight” and I said it to one of my regulars and he stared at me with so much shock and disbelief LOL

runehallow.bsky.social•6 hours ago

in fact, i guarantee that even actual children do not speak like this.

william-s-churros.bsky.social•4 hours ago

for real lmao the way people represent english as a second language speakers is often so obviously influenced by like racist shit from movies moreso than ever speaking to someone who speaks english as a second language. its just cringe

martineei.bsky.social•2 hours ago

They way I complain about this so much. It makes me feel so bad as an esl, I just am either made to feel like stupid or something when I see people ‘take’ on these things.

manatrigger.bsky.social•6 hours ago

one of the ways my ancient bozjan character shows he struggles a little with modern, common english is never using conjunctions. its lil stuff like that

lostreveries.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Can confirm since I work with little-littles who are learning a second language- they do not!!

syunikiss.bsky.social•6 hours ago

RAAAHH That gets me!!!! Like as an esl speaker I just pause to think or guess myself LMAO. When I write Niamh she goes -insert phrase here incorrectly- and she just goes “like that??? Ah maybe that’s not right”

jisatsumania.bsky.social•5 hours ago

i tend to stray away from using contractions for characters who aren’t as good with common as others as well as the plurals thing. there’s another way i do this but it’s hard for me to explain. it also kinda depends on how the language itself is meant to function. i tend to do better with hingan >>

jisatsumania.bsky.social•5 hours ago

characters speaking common because i actually know japanese so i can sort of visualize / piece together how grammatically different the languages are

tsunderway.bsky.social•6 hours ago

There are better ways to define "common" not being a first language I feel like. A personal favorite for me is using idioms/slang, because they can and do differ from place to place. It's also just fun to research them or create unique ones for fantasy settings.

runehallow.bsky.social•6 hours ago

colloquialism, ye. that's the easiest way for sure. but on a granular level, it helps to think about what exists in one language vs the other in terms of sentence structure. syntax, tense, verb conjugation; these can all be subtly different and sometimes crop up when switching languages

sheepskin.bsky.social•6 hours ago

was just complaining about this w a friend last week mannnn

runehallow.bsky.social•6 hours ago

i keep seeing it in public RP spaces and it's baffling

saintofbouncers.bsky.social•5 hours ago

When I observe an ESL-speaker's speech patterns before I try writing them, I find that they come off sounding more formal and educated, rather than Marx Brothers-ish. Was just doing this with a German character whose intelligence is immeasurable, and happy to not make him sound like Col. Klink

saintofbouncers.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Focusing on actual speech patterns, rather than words we may believe them to have "mispronounced," shows us that maybe the ESL person is a more nuanced and poetic speaker than we ourselves are. Thinking again of the German guy, for sure.

saintofbouncers.bsky.social•5 hours ago

I work one time as Editor for woman from Carpathia who write exactly the way she talk. And I never want to change it because this is poetry.

thecrocofkugane.bsky.social•2 hours ago

As an Asian, seeing you mention it as commonplace is saddening. English is my first language, but malaphors occur, and transliteration can potentially mess grammar up.

But to code broken English as a trait is inherently racist, and I do not want to engage with people if they are guilty of this. 😩

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