[General] How a text comes across

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Well, this observation is going to sound weird, that's why it is in this part of the forum, and probably many native speakers won't be able to understand it. Why? You'll see.

Happens that every time that I read something in English that is written by someone who speaks Spanish natively, I can sense that, in his mind, he was trying to translate. The English that he is using sounds beautifully in Spanish, is like a perfect translation of something that sounds very natural in Spanish. I'm not talking about someone who just started to learn English, I've noticed it in CPE essays and such. When I read something written by a native, it sounds completely different, even when is short and concise, and the structure of the language that they use are anything but Spanish sounding.

Have you, non-native speakers, noticed this as well?

Do you, native speakers, feel something "off" in our posts besides the grammatical errors and misspellings?

Forgive my mysteriousness, this is my esoteric post of the day.
 

probus

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It is called mother-tongue influence. We suffer from it when we try to learn Spanish and other languages, just as you do when you try to learn English. We tend to use our native phonemes and we tend to use word-for-word translations of our more commonly used expressions, nos frases mas usadas.

My apologies to Spanish speakers for the lack of an accent over mas. In my latest version of Windows I could not figure out how to render it.
 
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Tdol

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It's not always the case, but it's not uncommon to have a good idea of a writer's first language,even when the English is very good.
 

charliedeut

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Well, this observation is going to sound weird, that's why it is in this part of the forum, and probably many native speakers won't be able to understand it. Why? You'll see.

It happens that every time that I read something in English that is written by someone who is a native speaker of speaks Spanish [STRIKE]natively[/STRIKE], I can sense that, in his mind, s/he[unless you only sense that when a man wrote the piece] was trying to translate. The English that s/he is using sounds beautifully in Spanish, it's like a perfect translation of something that sounds very natural in Spanish. I'm not talking about someone who just started to learn English, I've noticed it in CPE essays and such. When I read something written by a native English speak [we Spanish speakers are also natives], it sounds completely different, even when it is short and concise, and the structure of the language that [STRIKE]they [/STRIKE] is used [STRIKE]are [/STRIKE] is anything but Spanish sounding.

Have you, non-native speakers, noticed this as well? Indeed! ;-)

Do you, native speakers, feel something "off" in our posts besides the grammatical errors and misspellings?

Forgive my mysteriousness, this is my esoteric post of the day.

Here's a helping hand from a non-native speaker of English who sensed exactly what you exposed. :up:

PS: Note that you could use "they" instead of "s/he" or "she/he" if you are not speaking of any particular gender.
 
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