Even Greener Pastures

@Jerry

Useless as a screen door on a submarine. That’s a pretty good idiom and one I`ve never heard before.

I just commented on another thread pertaining to the often-heard, but false belief, that English was oh so easy to learn. It`s hard for me to say because I never learned English (like a non-native speaker I mean- I don`t use the verb “learn” with respect to native speakers acquiring their native language. It’s just a misnomer). One only need look at Italki`s discussion board and you`ll see how “easy” English is to learn, a discussion board riddled with grammatical errors in English, and sometimes unintelligible discussion topics. They do have some really fine non-native English speakers, but I´ve noticed that even their English can sound a but unnatural to me, a little wooden, like it came out of a book. It`s very subtle and many speak very well. But there’s a slight difference.

I mentioned that native speakers fall back much more on idioms, which aren’t really heavily taught in language courses, and even the really good non-native speakers either don`t know them or don`t use them. I mean those advertising the C2 Cambridge certificate and teach English on Italki. See how you said “useless as a screen door on a submarine”? Even a top-rated C2 Cambridge certificated and really good speaking non-native would never say that. In fact, there’s a lot of idioms they don’t even know because they tend not to be taught.

That’s why I favor a more street style of speaking, rather than sounding like you walked out of a textbook. It just adds an authenticity to the speech is all.