Me (non-native English speaker) and my GF (born and raised American) had an **argument** yesterday. We were having a **serious discussion** and she laughed at what I said, specifically my choice of words, 3 times and I found it VERY offensive. Then she told me that even native speakers make mistakes and sometimes when she’s having serious discussions or arguments with her family or friends, they will make fun of (in good humour) each other’s English to lighten the mood and it was a part of the American culture. I can’t relate to this cuz this is absolutely not a part of my culture and even when I make mistakes in my native language nobody till date has ever made fun of me. Is she correct? Is this behaviour a part of the American culture?
Edit: We made up. Everything is good now between us. We are still just as madly in love with each other as we always were and are seeing each other in person in 4 days (I live in Canada).
31 comments
Constantly, but only with friends.
We will also deliberately play up our regional dialects as a form of self-effacing humor.
In my group of people we playfully tease each other sometimes about using bad English, but it’s never mean-spirited. But yeah if my friend says something is gooder than something else, I’m gonna laugh.
Yeah. Accent humor is pretty popular in the US and has been for decades if not more.
Sometimes Americans will tease each other over accents or how someone pronounces a word. Or if someone messes up on grammar, it could sound funny to a native speaker.
However, I don’t think I would laugh at a non-native speaker making a mistake. That does seem rude. At the very least, you shouldn’t be laughing at someone while trying to have a serious conversation.
It definitely is. I make fun of my sister’s ridiculously bad grammar all the time and my own when I make mistakes. Don’y take it too personally. You can usually tell the difference between somebody being friendly teasing versus being outright mean and if you don’t want someone to do that, just be honest. Most people will be nice enough to respect that.
If they’re not a native english speaker? Yeah, it’s rude.
If they *are* a native english speaker? Yesterday my roommate used the phrase “working functionally” and the day before that I used “mood behavior” in a sentence, neither of which mean anything. I stuttered *one time* when talking to my brother when we were teens and he made fun of me for it for years. He even had me in his phone contacts that way.
Although I’m pretty sure if you poke fun at *anyone’s* language mistakes in the middle of an argument, you’re only going to make things worse. Casual joking only, and with people you know well enough to joke. Making fun of someone for whom english is a second language is kind of a dick move and needs to be handled with more care than that if they say something strange
All the time with friends and family.
Without knowing what you said, I suspect it was phrasing a common saying a little differently. The example I always think of is “*It’s what it’s”* instead of “*It is what it is*.” Does it mean the same thing if you looked it up in the dictionary? For sure, but it’s definitely not how it’s said. Her laughing was not likely meant to hurt you, it was probably just genuinely funny-sounding to her.
Hey, grab me a soda, will you?
You mean a “pop”, asks the Midwestern friend.
No, she means a “coke”, says the Southern friend.
🙂
Accent Humor is fun
People always poke fun of me for how I say water and I can do nothing but laugh cuz it is honestly funny
For sure.
I will never not laugh and mercilessly tease someone when they mix up “don’t” and “do not” and say “doe not.” Nothing personal. It’s just funny.
Yes. I’m a southerner who lives in the Midwest and I lightheartedly mock their accents all the time.
What was your specific word choice? It’s very possible that you said something unintentionally funny because English is a weird language.
Always. People will poke at one another’s mistakes good naturedly. It all depends on context, if it’s someone who you are close to it’s common, if it’s someone who you are not close to then it would be considered rude.
All day every day.
My friends and I sometimes banter about how we pronounce words.
Absolutely!
And even if a non native speaker made a genuinely funny mistake, we would laugh, not to mock them, but just because funny things are funny. And of course, we’d explain the mistake and correct way to say something.
Yep! We often make fun of each other’s accents, especially people down South.
Are you angry about the comments or that it was used to deflect from the serious argument? The former is very common and you should laugh it off. The later is a problem but should be framed as the issue being joking while in a serious situation rather than an accent issue.
She is correct. This is very common.
Also, my wife is English, and even we do this.
Here is my best tip for you…as someone who has been with the same woman for over 20 years….
When she starts laughing like that during an argument, it is a good time to seize the opportunity, laugh with her, and deescalate the argument.
You will get much further in life that way.
I had a Russian roommate for a number of years and sometimes I would mess with him. For example, one time I tricked him into saying “moose and squirrel.” I wouldn’t have done that to someone who wasn’t a close friend, though. Foreign or otherwise.
With that said, my wife is non-American and I don’t make fun of her accent. My Italian is a lot worse than her English, so the few times I tried it, she ripped on me mercilessly in retaliation. Of course, our kid is 100% bilingual and every once in a while he’s ornery enough to bust on her for her English. He usually gets a scolding for doing so.
As for English-language accents, I had a Canadian coworker and she used to bust *my* balls for how I talked, so of course I’d hit back. For example, whenever I would say the word “roof” she’d go “RUFF!!!” like a dog. Of course, I was constantly driving her batty with cracks about her growing up in an igloo and having a pet penguin (it was true that her hometown was *way* the fuck north).
Generally speaking, you can *sometimes* get away with it if it’s a loved one or a close enough of a friend, but it depends. You wouldn’t be able to get away with it otherwise.
**EDIT:** another story comes to mind. One time I came back from the airport and a bunch of my friends were at my place (it was a shared rental house) eating In-N-Out. I was like “awwwww man, you guys didn’t get me any?” The French girl immediately started mocking me. “Ohhhhhh, what is the matter, they did not get you a burger?”
So I mocked her accent by saying “un buuuuuhgeh? Well, I’ve got a *boo-ger* for you!” and then I stuck my finger up my nose and pretended to flick an invisible booger at her. She was both unamused and amused at the same time, in that French way.
In my family, if one person accidentally says the wrong word or stutters for like A SECOND, we all race to be first one to make fun of them for it. You sling it back at them in an exaggerated manner, then the original speaker flips you off, laughs, then you go back to the conversation. If you were trying to have a serious talk, that talk is no longer serious and whatever point you were trying to make is void.
I think there’s probably a combination of things going on:
1. A lot of people use humor to try to lighten the mood or to diffuse an uncomfortable situation during serious discussions or arguments.
2. Pick on friend’s and family member’s traits or habits is a type of humor that is common.
Americans have a very optimistic view on life and use these things for ways to appreciate the moment. She didn’t mean anything harmful by it – chill out.
Where in India are you from that this type of mocking isn’t the norm? Because in my experience, Indians mock each other mercilessly enough to make Americans blush …
You’ll have to give us more specifics, but from your follow up comments so far, it seems like you are too tightly wound to think about this objectively and are just looking for people to validate your existing opinion.
Depending on the person, many of us will joke about ANYTHING to lighten the mood. Laughter is a good way to diffuse a situation, and I purposely choose awkward word combinations to make my partner laugh.
If the behavior offends you, you really shouldn’t hold it against your girlfriend. It’s something lots of us grew up doing and it will happen. She can do it less frequently out of respect for your culture, but you have to calm down out of respect for hers too. Best of luck to you buddy.
The feeling I’m getting from you is that you have already made up your mind and are pushing for responses that confirm what you’ve decided. The more I read your comments the more you come across like you’re really hung up on this and just want to punish your girlfriend. If that’s what’s happening, break up and leave her alone.
As far as your question,
>Do Americans sometimes make fun of each others’ English to lighten the mood?
Yes, constantly, as evidenced by the vast majority of responses in this post. If that is not something you can accept, then don’t. Break up and move on. If you genuinely feel like she was just being a jerk, break up and move on. If she has apologized and you haven’t accepted it and don’t want to accept it, break up and move on. Punishing her isn’t appropriate and makes *you* a jerk.
Before you guys comment, look through OP’s post history. He talks in other posts about his GF being an absolute size queen and then says that his 5 inch dick is “massive” and “an anaconda.” OP is just straight up manipulative and dumb.
English is 3 half-languages in a trenchcoat, with rules derived from cludging those together. The only way to properly learn english is by wrote internalization of usage cases without deliberately understanding why.
As a result, the habit of English speakers to pedantically correct each other’s English is an international pasttime, especially on the internet.
Don’t take it so hard.
Yes. People (I.e. my wife) will also jump at the chance to emphasize and exaggerate any word I may have mispronounced or stumbled over in the heat of the moment. It is the WORST! But dammit, it usually ends the argument and results in giggles. Very angry, unwilling giggles on my part.
If you can’t laugh at yourself, how the hell you gonna laugh at somebody else?
Yes, it is part of American culture, she isn’t lying to you. We even make fun of our own mistakes often. Saying “I no English too good” is a fairly common comedic phrase used after getting tongue tied or otherwise using our own language poorly lol.