The_Blog: As a non-native english speaker I find it funny to imagine how native speakers perceive my use of the english language. I learned BE in school, but the main amount of phrases and vocabulary comes from the internet, articles, games, movies and such. So I picked up allot of phrases and a certain vocabulary that, in combination, may seem odd to someone who learned the language right from the cradle. And yeah I also kinda regret not paying as much attention as I could on Latin. Although I always liked the historical background of the language and the time it was spoken in. THe german language is definitly, how should I say it, more pronounced than other languages. It may seem a bit harsh to people that are used to a different language. It may sound very serious times ^^There are allot of links between european languages. It is very interesting to see a word in allot of different languages. Often you notice that the words are kind of similiar in many languages.
It has been my personal observation that non-native English speakers and writers, in particular those from Europe have absolutely fantastic English even if they've only studied it for 1-2 years. They do not always have confidence in their own ability using English, but they tend to write it and speak it better than native speakers/writers that have used it their entire lives. The only difference is that when they speak it they usually do so with a foreign accent of their mother tongue which can sometimes make it a bit difficult to understand some things at first, but usually it is not too bad and the more you're around them the more you pick up on the accent and it becomes a non-issue.
I think the reason for this is that native speakers learn the language their whole lives from day one, but they also learn all the slang and bad habits and cut corners and get complacent and it only gets worse over time, but someone who just learns the language as an adult in a formal academic setting learns it properly and in their quest to learn and use the language their academic "clean" version of English ends up being free of all the bad habits that develop in native speakers over time, and the rules are fresh on their mind and stay with them better.
Just about every person from Europe I've ever met or communicated with over the Internet who has studied English for at least 1 year or more has been like this in my experience. Oddly I've never observed this same phenomenon anywhere else in the world except Europe.