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In my experience, at least some aspects of the Indian English exists because we Indians often mentally translate what we want to say from our native language (w
by jbhoot 1y ago
In my experience, at least some aspects of the Indian English exists because we Indians often mentally translate what we want to say from our native language (which are plentiful) to English before it comes out of our mouth.
I don't imagine this is a uniquely Indian phenomenon – other non-native English speakers would be doing the same.
- esperent 1y agoEven Irish people whose main language since birth is English do this. There's a verb in Gaeilge which does exist in English but is translated as "does be". Examples: - He does be eating his breakfast - She does be out walking the dog It's the continuous/habitual form of to be, so the implication is that she does be walking the dog everyday, or regularly. He does be eating his breakfast everyday. The interesting thing is that you'll meet Irish people who were never fluent in Irish - learned it in school, sure, but never spoke it daily - who still use this conjugation when speaking English.
- frabert 1y agoIt really do be like that sometimes
- dndvr 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitual_be#Hypothesized_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitual_be#Hypothesized_sourc... yes, the aave usage does potentially be having its origins in he
- drewcoo 1y agoThat seems like the present progressive to me. <present tense be verb> <gerund> I am eating his breakfast. She is out walking the dog. https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/present_progressive_tense.htm https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/present_progressive... To argue with myself, smarter people than I have claimed the same construction as yours in AAVE. Check the section on tense here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_En...
- hnfong 1y agoIn my native Cantonese (and this probably applies to a lesser extent to Mandarin as well), pronouns are inherently non-gendered, and when we speak in English we tend to randomly pick one (he/she) and thus occasionally get the gender wrong. That said I think there are "levels" to so called "mental translation" -- I don't think I consciously mentally translate anything at all, but I guess sometimes the neural pathways or whatever are kinda repurposed/re-used even if there are some differences between languages.