European Basquetball

Not really you just get used to the fact that the majority of people in the world who can speak English speak English as a second language and therefore mess it up a lot. Living in Germany I get used to the "We're going tomorrow with the train to Berlin, wana come?" instead of "We're going to Berlin on the train tomorrow, wana come?", the constant misuse of that/which/who, the constant pronouncing -w as -v and more annoyingly pronouncing -v as -w (extra stupid since the -v sound doesn't even exist in German), the complete elimination of the subjunctive from English, pronouncing "work" like "walk. You get used to hearing the same types of cardinal sentences over and over (these are the structures you are often taught in school), and you start to eliminate the subtleties from you own speech because you know they won't be picked up on.

English actually has great complexity to it that very few foreigners will ever master. German has complexities but they're often very explicit, however English complexities are the kind of things that take years of exposure to get a feeling for. Even with fluent speakers these things will go over their heads since they are looking at the meaning of the words, whilst an English speaker will think about why someone has chosen to phrase something a certain way compared to all the available alternatives, 2nd language speakers tend to be happy they have understood at all.

Something as simple as saying 1. "He quickly ate the burger" has a slightly different implication than 2. "He ate the burger quickly". 1. is more stressing that he's in a rush generally and therefore rushed to eat as fast as he could, whilst 2. is more focused on the speed of the act of eating.

For example, "John got a text saying he was needed immediately, so he quickly ate his dinner and left" (he was hurrying). "At the world speed eating championship John ate the food quickly" in this case we are more focused on the speed of the eating rather than a general state of haste John is in, he isn't in a rush generally he's deliberately eating quickly for a purpose. A lot of this is contextual, since this rule will only apply when it can contextually.

Again compare 3. "I only answered 3 questions" to 4. "I answered only 3 questions", they can mean the same thing, and if a German said this to me I'd assume they meant the same regardless. However if a native speaker said it I'd assume slightly different implications from each.

  1. would imply that there were more questions to be answered, however they couldn't answer more for some reasons. 4. Could imply that there were only 3 questions available, perhaps implying surprise at this fact. e.g "I only answered 3 questions in the exame, I'm never going to get a good grade for that" / "In the survey I answered only 3 questions and was paid £100 for that, I'm amazed they pay so well for so little work."
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