Wątek: Why do some people assume if you write a spec of slightly good English you're from America?

Strona: 1 z 1

1 z 5: Sir-Charlie

So I see this a lot. I don't live in the USA but my country speaks English natively yet people always assume I'm from there. I had some dude telling me about his country a while ago and was making a bunch of comparrisons to the US. In fact, after a while, he asked me something to the effect of, "Please describe snow to me. I've never felt snow". LMAO buddy. I live in the tropics I've never experienced snow either. Why is this the case? I can list like 30 countries or more that aren't the US that speak English natively.
In fact, there are 3 times as many people who speak English in India as there are people in the United States, but nobody ever assumes I'm Indian. Hell. If you're a middle classed Western-European, the chances of you speaking fluent English is fairly high even.
What brought this on was, what I assumed to be someone doing the assuming I live in the US bit just a few days ago on this very forum.
So anyways, why is this? Why do a lot of people assume if you write with good English you're from America? Why not New Zealand or Great Britain?
All that I survey, I could easily destroy. From time to time, it is important to remind these small creatures of the true extent of my power. Charlie for Admin
17.04.2024 09:39

2 z 5: Sir-Charlie

Can you edit the title of a thread? Should change speak to write.
All that I survey, I could easily destroy. From time to time, it is important to remind these small creatures of the true extent of my power. Charlie for Admin
17.04.2024 09:41

3 z 5: marchoffmann

Lol nevermind then. Cuz I was gonna say indians have horible accent, no matter how much english they speak. Plus reminds me of tech support. No offense against good hearted indians but just cuz you pointed out india.
People are complicated. This keeps getting prooven over and over and goes to a point where it makes no sense anymore.
17.04.2024 15:55

4 z 5: djsenter

Actually I think that Indian accent can be very beautiful and comforting, while horible is a very strong word to describe a language or an accent spoken by millions of people. No idea where you find all that bitterness and negativity, but anyway I share the same sentiments as the OP, I think America is firstly overrated, secondly in no way represents English in it's entirety and I'm not saying people intentionally dismiss other countries when thinking of English, but it's quite unfair to assume, because that's how it often looks, that every person who speaks decent English is American :D Still, the same can be said about Slavic countries I guess, everyone always talks about Russia, Poland or Czech Republic not so much and it's probably geopolitical reasoning, maybe in many non-English speaking countries the bigger countries are more relevant or memorable to their education systems, no idea. In Poland we always glorified America and I will never understand it, because when Poles left for the US, they were often treated like some inferior nationality, racist slurs were often used towards them and the amount of stereotypes which exist about us, don't even get me started on those :D Anyway sory if I went a bit offtopic, just I think this issue is very broad and has many connotations. Not all of them are based on pure ignorance or have negative intentions, but they exist and a lot could be said about them.
INFJ
17.04.2024 16:28

5 z 5: Sir-Charlie

@4, you hit the nail on the head. Perfectly. Also that bit about the way Americans treated the Poles is a big thing. AS far as I understand the Polish may as well have been another species up until about the 50s. Honestly the way Americans were racist to even other white groups is pretty fascinating and not really talked about. Italians, the Irish, the Poles and most of Eastern Europe in general. It's funny now that the very groups that were so spat upon now make up the largest share of the population in most of the US> We're seeing the same thing happening with Latinos now.
All that I survey, I could easily destroy. From time to time, it is important to remind these small creatures of the true extent of my power. Charlie for Admin
21.04.2024 02:06