Euro English, Part I

The little differences in how some speakers of other European languages use their English.

It might deserve its own article to say, but: there are many, many Englishes in the world, far past that of the USA and England (and Australia, and New Zealand. And I see you South Africa!). All around the world there are creoles, pidgin languages, accents, slang, grammar, and expressions that are English, but also, an English unique to that area.

Below are a few examples of the English that you’ll find across the Romance- and Germanic-language speakers of the European continent.

“I study English from 5 years.”
This kind of makes sense! The present tense shows that it is still happening today, and the preposition from marks the time. Instead, native speakers will say “I have been studying English for the past 5 years,” using the present perfect progressive tense, which isn’t how other languages do it.

Another version is, “It makes 5 years that I was in college.”

Spanish and Italian use the verb “to do/make” here: hacer and fare, respectively (though, a Spaniard pointed out to me that he doesn’t think of “hace” in this context as “makes” or “does”. Rather, it is used just to show the amount of time passed).

“I remember you to call me.” and “I remind me of my favorite trip.”

In Italian:

• “I remember” is “mi ricordo” — literally, “I remind myself (of something)”
• “I remind you” is “ti ricordo” — literally, “I remind you (of something)”

So when Italians want to use the word “remember”, they use often use “remind” because that’s how it works grammatically in Italian. For them, someone remembering something is the same as reminding themselves.

German, as best I can tell, works the same way:

• Ich erinnere mich — I remind myself / I remember.
• Ich erinnere dich — I remind you.
• Ich erinnere mich an dich — I remind myself to/at you, or “I remember you.”

In Spanish, it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to even distinguish between “reminding” and “remembering”, as “te recuerdo” can mean both “I remember you” and “I remind you.”

Better for, “I remember you,” though, maybe is “me acuerdo de ti” (which is complicated still, as “acordar” is the verb “to agree”… perhaps here as in, “come to understand,” as in “come to an accord”).

“In the end, we watched a movie.” “In the end, the concert was canceled.”

This doesn’t sound wrong until you hear it way more than you’re used to. It took me a couple months to realize what I wasn’t ever hearing anyone say: turned out, ended up, and after all.

“It turned out that the concert was canceled, so we ended up staying in and we did watch that movie you recommended, after all.”

“We are five.”
“How many people are in your group?” The answer: not, “There are five of us,” but, “We are five.” Italian and Spanish use the verb “to be” plus the number.

They have a separate way of saying “there are,” as in, something exists. For example, “there are 5 cars,” which is, “ci sono cinque macchine,” and “hay cinco coches.” (ci sono means rather literally, “there are,” while hay is sort of a “it has” as when we say, “it is hot,”… a general sort of “it”).

“I have 35 years”
In Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Polish, and Romanian (and I assume others but I stopped checking), it’s not that you are 35 years old… you have 35 years. (In Russian: “to me, 35 years.” They don’t really need to use the verb “to be”… or, articles. Or most prepositions. But it is a rather complex language!).

So there’s the first set of curious differences I’ve noticed so far, and there will be at least one more. Maybe once I learn Spanish or Italian well enough to notice all the tortuous things English speakers are doing to their poor languages, I’ll write a follow-up. Until then, let me know if you have any other fun examples!