How come I speak English?

Imma a bloody Aussie, Why is my language not Australian?
The French speak French, Spanish speak Spanish, Polish speak Polish.
How come I speak English when I have never been to England? :slightly_smiling_face:

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Everyone in Brazil speaks Portuguese.I’m sure most of them haven’t been to Portugal :grinning:

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There’s a theory that the Australian accent developed from a combination of lot of the UK ones.When they came to Oz it was the first time that people from all over the UK lived together.

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Maybe it is more Australian than you think since there’s an add-on for Firefox “English (Australian) dictionary”. I can’t say anything about the languages you mention but the German language has at least two variants (Swiss, Austrian), Firefox even offers an add-on for a regional dialect (Frisian). I guess that there are also differences between Europian Spanish and that spoken in Central and South America.

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My email page has the option
English - US
English - UK

No option for;
English - AU

I use Thunderbird and it offers two Australian dictionaries:
https://github.com/Caskexe/Australian-English-Dictionary

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As I keep saying to Bruce,spending your time kangaroo chasing prevents Australians from a lot of things, including learning the native Australia tribes language :rofl:

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Because we got there first Bretrick…
:uk:

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Americans speak English as do the Scots the Irish and mostly the Welsh do Bretrick.

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Succinctly put, if I may say so.

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The whole world speaks English, if they don’t understand you need to shout louder.

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Mervyn Bragg wrote a good book about the history and development of the English language. I think it was “The Adventure of English”. As with all languages it has developed and morphed over the centuries. Some dialects have been lost, some have grown and split off. Call it what you want.

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Not true.The Aboriginal people got there first and then the Dutch popped in for a look.So the Brits were third.

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Barely :laughing:.

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That’s what they say on good days. On bad days they say “They’ll never learn it.” :blush:

True but Foxie’s answer sounds better to English ears. :blush:

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That seems to be true at times. On this very forum someone from America wrote a sentence that began:
That ya’ll view about …
I am not even sure what that means. I think the chap was trying to state:
something (that) was someone’s (ya’ll) perspective (view) on something (about).
But let us break down the number of English errors here.
The use of “that” with no explanation as to what “that” is referring. “That” is a pronoun and as such is applied after the actual noun has been introduced in order to simplify further sentences. So “Mr Brown lost his wallet” is simpler and easier to use then “Mr Brown lost Mr Brown’s wallet”. But you do need the initial Mr Brown in place for the “his” to work.
The made up conjoined word “ya’ll” is meaningless. One presumes it is an abbreviation of “you all” which itself might be an abbreviation of “all of you”. However here the “you” is in the singular. So introducing “all” makes no sense. Unless there is an expectation that only a part of the person being referenced is of a certain view. Their leg maybe. It also begs the question why “ya’ll” rather than “y’all”. You does not abbreviate to “ya”. And none of it makes sense as applying “you” alone would be less confusing, if wrong. What is correct is “your”.
There is no possessive adjective. The “view” is owned by someone, in this case the “you”. Because the view is owned the “you” needs to change to the possessive adjective “your”. As in “your view”. Not “ya’ll view”.
“View” is of course acceptable, although perspective or opinion would have been better. That would have avoided any possible confusion that the “your view” was not a fine vista but in fact an opinion.
“About” is clearly wrong even if commonly used in this manner. Someone has an opinion on something or your view on something. Not about something. About refers to a proximity to something or the things that surround something. It makes no sense to ask of someone their opinion on what is around something when you want to determine their opinion specifically on that exact something.
Therefore I do agree with your observation of “barely”. For this example sentence a score of 3/10 would be suitable.
Now don’t get me started on the title of this thread…

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Hi Dachs - I’ve often wondered, but too shy to ask, are you a Brit expat living there in Germany, a German with a good knowledge of English or just some kind of International playboy. Man of the world? welcome to the club. :wink:

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Yeah Dachs, I wondered that too?
If you are German, your mastery of the English language is remarkable… :astonished:
When I was but a lad of 18 the pub where I frequented had a German Landlord called Jim.
He was an amazing chap, perfect for the job. He always used to say that the English were a lazy nation when it came to languages. He could speak perfect English, but nobody in the pub could speak German. I’d have to agree with him to a point. His main clientele came from pit villages and were taught in secondary modern schools, all the posh kids who went to grammar school were taught mainly French, we were taught to play darts and work down the pit…Nobody spoke anything but English down there…

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Only this much: what flattering and amusing posts. @OGF and @d00d. If I answered them here, I’d go off-topic. (Remember the other thread, Foxy.) Will send you a PM.

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