American English Majors( or people with great English skills) always put down people with grammar errors..why?

Question

Grammar errors and lack of vocab and fluency. For example, i'm just a quiet guy with average skills overall in all areas of my life. i dont' do anything to perfection. nothing. Ok, but at least i know some stuff and am interested in learnng.

Then i say "I want to become fluent at some foreign language" and immediately i get the "You're not even good with English, how can you be fluend in another language?"

Or i say "I want to teach English to foreigners"...and i get "Your english skills are crap....you shouldn't be teaching"

Why is it people are so mean like that? Perhaps in real life people don't go around telling me i'm a low life with no english proficiency , but there's plenty of those kind of comments here in Yahoo answers.

My quetion is why? Do they think they are better than others?

Answer 1

I think one reason some people are so picky about grammar is that they have been trained so forcefully to hunt out grammar errors (in their own writing), with the result that they are quick to notice even very slight grammar issues in everything they read. I for one spent many years of public education having many grammar principles pounded into my head by picky instructors until certain types of (even small) errors became glaringly noticable to me, not because I'm mean, but because I am in the habit of noticing them unconciously. Furthermore, people like to be right (or feel like they are right) about something. My advice is not to let people's criticism bother you too much.

Answer 2

There's a difference between making a few grammatical or spelling errors, which everyone does at least occasionally, and being unable to communicate meaningfully. You were able to write a coherent sentence and express yourself and pose your question. Many of the people who ask (and answer) questions here are completely unable to communicate effectively, and many of them, it seems, are native speakers of English. This is a horrendous situation; we are not talking about rocket science, after all, but simple, effective communication.
If you want to become fluent in a foreign language, that is an excellent desire, and it will absolutely improve your knowledge of English at the same time.
As for teaching English to non-English speakers, that is also a noble aspiration, but you should have a solid grasp of English grammar and vocabulary in order to do that.
If your grammar and vocabulary are often criticized, perhaps it means you should strive to improve in those areas. Learning is a lifelong proposition. It's never too late.

Answer 3

Well, I see your point. But, the fact is, most Americans (as clearly seen by the evidence on YQ&A) don't even know how to use their own English language properly, never mind a foreign language. Many other nations teach their children numerous languages before the age of 10. We can barely speak our own properly, much less write it.
So, I can also see why someone who does have a sharp vocabulary would look down on an American who doesn't; after all, considering how much information is available to us there is no excuse for such poor grammatic skills as we Americans seem to have.

Answer 4

well...i would never say you shouldn't be learning a foreign language....and i'd have to hear you to see if you should be teaching someone english...

but the reason why people who use correct grammer put down those who don't is because when you make BIG errors, such as double negatives, or using a participle when you should be using the past tense...well...you sound stupid. plain and simple. i guess for me, i never studied grammar until i became an english teacher...but still, i didn't make glaring grammar mistakes. i just don't see why it's so hard for people to use correctly spoken english. i don't think i'm better than anyone else, but it IS hard for me to understand why someone can't simply repeat what they hear spoken. maybe that is the problem, maybe people who have problems with grammar were not given a suitable model to follow.

for example, why do people say "I haven't never" or "I don't do that to nobody" or "What I done was..." it sounds rediculous!!!! and i don't think it takes some special grammar brain to see that.

so...for someone to go around claiming to speak english well, and teaching others to speak it..they shouldn't be saying "Don't never use...." or blah blah blah.

Answer 5

Learning another language helps you improve your native language because of translation and grammatical concepts. As an English major, I sometimes get frustrated with people's lack of knowledge about English and poor vocabulary. But who's fault is that? Teachers are responsible for some of it. Parents, too. However, it's not important to us as a culture to speak correctly, so we don't encourage that as much as England or Ireland. In England, if you make a mistake, people could tease you about it for weeks, so you try your best. In the end, I realized that we use a lot of vocabulary that other English language speaking countries don't use. The reality is, American, Canadian, Australian, etc. are dialects of English, with their own spellings, their own colloquialisms (slang) etc. The best English is "The Queen's English." But you have to admit, r english sux.

Answer 6

It's not mean to say that you shouldn't be teaching English to others if you aren't very good at it yourself. After all, you wouldn't want a math teacher who couldn't add, would you? Or a history teacher who didn't know the difference between the American Revolution and the Civil War?
Using bad grammer makes you sound uneducated, which in turn makes people wonder if they can really trust what you are saying. If you want to make a good impression, learn to speak and write well. It isn't that hard and it will really make a difference.

Answer 7

I'm an English major and I've been known to do that myself. I don't put other people down, though. I merely correct them, which I hear gets annoying after a while. I can't speak for other English majors but I do it because I think they deserve to know the correct way to speak, write, etc. It should help them in the long run.

Answer 8

In real life people don't have to read what you say. It's easier to overlook mistakes when they are spoken as opposed to when they are written.
If you don't have a firm knowledge of how your own language works, you can't expect to have one for how a completely foreign language works. To teach you can't just give people the reason of, "because that's the way it is", you have to understand yourself *why* it is as it is; otherwise you'll just help to bring up people exactly like yourself.

Also, as an adult (or close to one) you really shouldn't be so tempermental to what absolute strangers have to say to you over the Internet. It's about the same level of serious as a five-year-old calling his three-year-old sister a "poopyhead".

Answer 9

You should learn another language if you want - the grammar you learn studying a foreign language can help you learn English grammar, too.

And when you learn about dialects, you'll also learn that foreigners don't use grammatically correct "native" language all the time, either.

Answer 10

They might not understand why people cant or wont speak good English. They worked hard to become English majors and with that in mind they might think they are better than other.