How do non-native speakers in London master English so easily compared to native speakers?
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### Anecdote: Migrants in London
Living in London, I’ve noticed a large population of migrants from various European countries like Romania, Italy, Spain, and Poland. Despite not being native English speakers, most of these individuals display excellent English proficiency.
### Curiosity Spark: English Fluency
As a native English speaker from Northern Ireland, I’ve never had the need to learn another language. In contrast, migrants in London seem to effortlessly master English without much difficulty. What is the secret behind their seamless language acquisition?
### Possible Reasons
1. **Daily Practice**: Migrants may have more opportunities to practice English in their day-to-day lives in a multicultural city like London.
2. **Motivation**: The necessity of English for communication, work, and daily activities motivates migrants to learn the language quickly.
3. **Immersion**: Living in an English-speaking environment provides constant exposure to the language, facilitating faster learning.
### Conclusion: Learning English as a Non-Native Speaker
In conclusion, it seems that the combination of daily practice, motivation, and immersion in an English-speaking environment contributes to the seemingly effortless mastery of English by non-native speakers in London. As a native English speaker, it’s fascinating to observe how others excel in a second language with such apparent ease.
**#EnglishLanguage #LanguageLearning #LondonLife #MigrantCommunity**
Many many non-native speakers grow up learning English in school and watching English-language TV and listening to English-language music.
English has become the de facto lingua franca of the world.
Most tv series and movies are but with subtitles, because of this we are confronted with it at a young age and learn it most faster because of this
Not that hard when the whole world is “forced” to learn english thanks to all media being in english? If all media were in spanish most people would probably learn spanish instead đ
A lot of schools have English classes thru middle and high school. TV shows and movies are often shown in English with another language in subtitles.
Because it’s so incredibly ubiquitous. I hear and read as much English as my native language, if not more.
english seems to be the language of the internet, at least in a large enough capacity that many people around the world grow up surrounded by english content
cause we grew up learning english cause that language kind of dominates the world. i grew up reading books, watching cartoons,movies (with subtitles) .
anyways even my parents are non-native english speakers too so so it’s kind of like how babies learn their native language. it’s easier cause most of us learn it parallelly to our native language.
Besides what others already said, if you knew more languages you would realize English grammar is very easy compared to things like Spanish
1) english is VERY easy. No special letters, no long toungetwisters in regural speech (looking at german here), no extremely convoluted laws (language is just lawless for the most time).
2) internet is heavily english. This site, YouTube, Facebook, Discord, StackOverflow… It’s all english. Same with job offers: most higher level jobs require english to communicate with other branches/divisions.
3) schools have second language as mandatory. English is the choice 90% of the time.
Language is so interesting when kids learn it.
My grandparents were immigrants. They didnt want their kids âconfusedâ
( an outdated theory that learning two languages is harmful. We know now that not only is it good, it is the easiest way to learn another language)
Anyway they wouldnât let the âkidsâ speak the immigrant language even at home.
So they spoke English to them, and took them to school where they only spoke English.
But the adults would speak another language.
So my grandma could listen and understand, but not speak the family Dutch.
When she traveled in her 60s to Holland,
She was amazed how much she actually understood. She could only respond in English.
You can’t escape it, if you want to use internet you need English, as an Italian before learning English like 90% of internet was locked to me
NSWF WARNING
>!I specifically learned English because I was a teen with an h*ntai addiction and there are too few in Italian, so I started reading it but before doing the deal I translated each lines because I wanted to know the story!<
I’ve studied Linguistics and Language Learning.
Statistics show a very different scenario compared to what people commonly believe.
* The vast majority of migrant adults remain at a VERY LOW level of English even after 10 years after migration. They need an average of 30 YEARS to score a “very good” level, which is still below natives (as shown on the graph on page 6). [https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/177/pdfs/what-drives-language-proficiency-of-immigrants.pdf](https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/177/pdfs/what-drives-language-proficiency-of-immigrants.pdf)
* Only individuals who migrated before 11 years old are able to achieve the same level as native speakers.
* Adults who really speak well had formal instruction in English (attended hundreds of hours of English lessons, college, make constant effort to learn, etc.).
* Speaking advanced English requires around 1000 hours of guided instruction. As the article above points out, learning solely through “immersion” is a myth. Just think of all the years you spent at school learning your own native language. Migrants don’t learn magically either.
* Migrants can learn enough basic English for their everyday lives through immersion and sound fluent (maybe that’s why you have the impression they speak well). But most of them struggle with language that is a bit more complex, nuances, slangs, expressions, sayings, formal language, a contract, even a news article, etc.
* This is one of the biggest barriers for integration, which is related to opportunities, income, marginalization, discrimination, etc.
* The number of immigrants who can’t speak English is so big and intensifies the problems of the migration crisis… that the [UK even threatened](https://www.businessinsider.com/david-cameron-muslim-women-learn-english-2016-1?r=US&IR=T) to expel those who fail to learn English.
As a Portuguese living in the UK, I was taught English in school from the age of 5 (in Portugal). Most things I consume are in English and itâs a very easy language to learn.
As a TEFL tutor, I can say that many countries now are teaching English in schools. Turkiye, Germany, China, Japan, Brazil, CĂ´te d’Ivoire. They take more years of English in school than I took of a foreign language when I was in school (3 years of French). English is also pretty much the international language of business, and therefore it’s not just beneficial, but in some cases mandatory that they learn.
Also a fun fact: studying university+ level sciences in Saudi Arabia means all of your classes, textbooks, and exams are only in English, because some words in English have no translation in Arabic.
I don’t think it’s a thing of the language itself but how widespread it is, videogames, movies, social media everything has a lot of English content. Maybe if, for say something, Italian had the same impact in all that the same amount of people that has English as a second language would have Italian.
It’s not. I’m from France and most people here don’t speak English especially old people (boomers and +) I’m still struggling with English after almost 2 years of learning. I also read that in some countries in Asia (Japan and China ) very few people are able to hold a conversation in English. The best in english are scandinavians , germans , and dutch people who are able to speak English without any accent or mistakes.
Communication is a desire everyone has. If you move a thousand miles away from home and don’t know the language of your new home, you have a desire to learn the language.
It does not come easy to everyone. You most likely only interact with people who can and want to speak English. You won’t notice those, who avoid using the language or those who live in their own national ‘clique’ within London.
On the other hand, English is the most important language in the Western world and anyone, who wants to learn or interact more with the wider world, is forced to learn it as well. You have a head-start in this regard, so use it well.
English is difficult. Most people I know hated learning it and can not speak it. In London, you see people who need to know English because their livelihood depends on it. Don’t be afraid to learn or familiarise yourself with a new language, but to be honest, you most likely won’t need it if you plan to work/live in an English speaking country.
We study too much english probably to phd level
Likely: it’s not easy. These people work very hard to learn a second language, and there are likely billions of people who don’t speak English, and chose not to move to London
Survival. And it’s quite simple to learn the basics (when compared to other languages). I find English a less complex language than french, just to name a neighbor.
Another story is to *understand* some of your accents.
Because it’s a trivial language, about as easy as they come. No genders, no conjugations of anything, the grammar is basically past / present / future with the perfect / continuous variations thrown on and a few exception verbs.
Compare that to something like German that has about 10x the rules, and German isn’t even one of the hard ones.
Complemented by it being ubiquitous in entertainment and on the internet obviously.
The entire Internet is somewhere between 20-50% English.
A point not mentioned that I’ve had explained to me by non-english folk.
English is also extremely easy to learn ‘buisness’ talk. As in, asking directions, talking to the boss, stuff like that. You can just kinda throw the words in any order in a sentence and you’re generally understood.
Think of all the different ways you could jumble around “Can I have a pint of milk please” and English speakers would still understand the meaning.
Small talk is apparently the true test. Mostly due to the insane levels of regional slang we have in Britain.
personally it was being made fun of that made me want to improve my english. native english speakers often make fun of immigrants and first generation immigrants when they make grammatical mistakes.
Because English is a fairly simple language that most people have been exposed to since childhood. You also have to study English from primary school until college. Global media and entertainment is also dominated by English. Still, go to the listed countries and you will find a countless number of even young people who butcher the language or barely speak it. Obviously the ones who have emigrated to the UK would speak the language well.
It’s not easy, it’s absolutely necessary at this point in time.
I assure you writing it is faaaaaaaaar more simple than speaking it đ
In addition to what everyone else is saying, for one thing, English is VERY WIDELY taught all over the world, so anyone with schooling through HS is likely to know a smattering of it. Plus, you canât get away from it culturally no matter how hard you try
On t-shirts, products, in movies, thereâs no getting away. In some cultures it even has a âcool factorâ to it and advertisers will use it even though their population is non-English speaking. In some cultures, the âhigher classâ may use some English expressions here and there for status signaling.
I remember visiting one country where McDonaldâs was having a special event called âChicken Party!â which I found hilarious.