Native English v International english
I work in the engine room on a multinationaly-crewed ship. All the Bulgarains, Croatians, Filipinos, Indians etc seem to communicate very well in a subset of English. As a native English speaker it is I who has the most difficulty, especially when it is noisy - I tend to lose concentration when poor grammar is used even though it does not affect the sense. So I must learn the pidgin!
On another point, listening to some Americans is like trying to read a book with no punctuation, it's all delivered in a flat monotone with no pitch changes or pauses to let you figure out the phrase and sentances!
Last edited by mross; 14th Jul 2013 at 09:34.