Talk Elections

Those to whom English is not native language, that is.

I wonder, what is your biggest problem (if you have any) with English? For me, probably articles. Polish totally lack articles.

Honestly, I don't think I've got any problem with written English at this point. I lack vocabulary on select topics, but that's about all.

My main problem is oral English : in particular, understanding other people talking normally. That's probably the ability I've had less occasion practicing.

Idiomatic expressions and, to a lesser extent, the use of prepositions can be difficult at times. The English tense (better: aspect) system is also tricky. Since my mother tongue is rather primitive in that respect and hardly distinguishes between expressions such as I eat and I am eating and only has one grammatical way to talk about events in the past, it is sometimes difficult to figure out whether I need to use the present simple or the present continuous or the past simple or the present perfect.

Understanding the Scottish.

That's the biggest problem.

"Those to whom English is not native language . . . ."

Those to whom English is not a native language. :)

Damn articles.

Even though I've kinda transformed into a near-native speaker since I'm studied and lived my 'social' life in English since I'm five years old (and on the census I'd probably have put 'English and French' as my mother tongues, rather than just French), I'd probably say my difficulties with English include my horrible accent, my consistent inability to pronounce sounds we don't have in French (th, vocal h) and my occasional tendency (like all compatriots) to use Gallicisms in my spoken English.

Well, Hashemite said it all.
I filled "French and English" on the Census and my problem is my Quebec accent, wierd English sounds and syntax too much based on the French one.

I actually don't mind the Quebec accent. There's something that's just so quintessentially Canadian about it (I'm sure a fair few Quebeckers would hate me for saying that though!). :P

I don't know how it sounds in English, but Québecois accent in French is awesome.

Certainly there are few things better than people with Québecois accents swearing.

Wow, most French people from France usually look down on it/us and say that we talk like uncivilized baboons who don't speak real French (which means they clearly haven't heard the Franco-Ontarian accent or, gasp, the Acadian Chiac accent). Thanks for this welcome appreciation :)

And Al is right, swearing in Québecois is generally awesome. Or even just being angry.

From a forum perspective, I guess the spelling of certain words. When to write words together and when to separate them and when to use dashes is one area of confusion. Another is British and American spelling, which I sometimes get mixed up.

In spoken English I have a bit of a Swedish accent, but I think I generally have rather decent pronunciation.

Really, that's what most French people think ? It sounds a bit funny and weird when you are used to the french accent, but yes, I like it. I tend to like original/colorful accents and dialects in general. Maybe that's part of my Italianhood. ;)

Not all (and perhaps not 'most') French people, but I have experience with a fairly significant sample of French people who are, shockingly, arrogant stuck-up imperialist morons who look down on practically every other Francophone country which isn't France/Paris. I had a principal at the Lycée Français in Riyadh tell us that education in Quebec sucked because they didn't teach proper French, and I've certainly met countless other French people who looked down on you because you had a weird accent.

I much prefer the slightly annoying but otherwise nice and cute type of French people who are enamoured by Quebec, call us their 'cousins' and dream of an idyllic postcard landscape with a small cottage in the distant woods with cute white snow on the ground and with wild animals (which doesn't really exist and hasn't existed since New France, but I digress).

Yeah, it's true that France is rather good at producing arrogant assholes who think of themselves as the center of universe and the embodiment of perfection. However, I don't think this is really the prevailing view among a majority of French people (hopefully). I don't know how widespread is the naive Québec-loving attitude, but I guess there must be some people like this as well.

Yeah, I don't think its widespread, but I feel as if there is an underlying sentiment with a lot of people, which is not malignant or particularly arrogant, which looks down on the Quebecois accent. I've come across a few of the naive Quebec-lovers, we knew a family of such types back in Riyadh in 2000 which are ironically going to drop by to visit us in Ottawa next month (they came to Quebec for the first time last winter or something). For me, I find these particular people more amusing because they're a dying breed of bourgeois conservative Chiraquien types who promptly panicked when the ragtag coalition of anarchists, communists, socialists, tree-huggers and soixante-huitards behind Hollande won. Maybe I should hide my Eva Joly and Corinne Narassiguin ballots when they come?!

As a German I have to acknowledge problems with:

1. aspects

2. aspects

3. aspects

4. "interlaced" relative clauses

5. at times realizing of explicative relative clauses

6. uncountable nouns

7. r-sound. I still can't say squirrel or rural.

I don't even want to start about my problems with English pronounciation.

You can ask Franzl :P

Franco-Ontarians clearly have the superior accent, though.

I need a couple of sentences to get rid of the more horrible aspects of my accent when speaking English.

To be fair, Americans can't say Squirrel either.

Ah, I really need to get to Timmins one day. I'm woefully unversed in the Franco-Ontarian accent.

Also, I'd tend to agree with Hashemite re: the Quebec accent. When I tell people I'm learning French, even folks here in Canada will tell me it's not "real French" because "it's Québécois."

And to that, I say je m'en fiche!