In the first place, language barriers is a real shield… but there’s no tough boundaries that can’t be turned down for business… your work of hand is your masterpiece, your name is your brand… and the detail of your work is your autograph…
I couldn’t agree with you more. Because of the language barrier, the person who know so little about the language on that certain place may come off as dumb. I was once a in a place where everyone speaks the local language, it made me feel outcast. It was hard making friends so I think we should just go easy on them. 
Not sure what you mean “language barriers is a real shield… ect. no tough boundaries”. Being able to communicate effectively does hinder what other perceive when viewing your masterpiece, brand and autograph.
A native speaker doesn’t mean he/she is better in grammar. From my experience, many non-native English speaker are better in writings with less grammatical error.
Would really encourage you to look past it, but at least you’re honest and provide relevant information in the context of the thread.
English is not the most spoken language in the world, though yes, on the internet it most probably is.
I forgot to share a funny story with you. You know the great George Bernard Shaw. He has wanted to reform the English alphabet to be a phonetic one. He described the need of reform with the word “GHOTIO” which should sound as [fiʃ].
I expected better from that man! The atrocious spelling of English is due to the history of the words, and indeed how a word is spelled often tells where the word comes from and where its meaning comes from. Which makes studying language so interesting. The “gh” in the example-- is where English took an actual sound from related languages (ch as in the end of the Scottish word “loch”) became an “F” sound later. In Dutch you still see these spellings:
vracht - freight
kocht - bought (the b sound is actually from another word for buy, but the past-tense form ch-gh is the same)
The more you go back to Old English, the more like old Dutch it becomes. Similarly, words taken from Latin and Greek leave their meanings in the spelling. Which lets us do silly things like say “Down on the pharm”. If we had phonetic spelling, we’d lose that. And any new words, you wouldn’t have any chance to take a good guess what they might mean.
Though I remember back when I thought non-plussed meant not surprised, since the look of someone’s face when surprised sure looks like it could be described as “plussed”. +
This is very true. It is one of the reasons researchers believe minorities in the US pass fewer job interviews, and why foreigners in any land are often seen as stupid or uneducated. When you don’t speak a language well, you do a lot of the same things stupid people do: using short words, repeating yourself, relying on body language. If you sound like Borat, you sound stupid.
And while it’s noble (and smart) to remind yourself that another’s language use can’t really show how smart or dumb they are, it’s true (and maybe a basic human thing, I dunno) that people assume intelligence based on language skills.
So it’s not just you. It’s what happens all over the world. It’s why people speak of the “dumb animals” and then “dumb” started meaning “stupid”, when actually it merely means not speaking. Why the deaf and autistic were considered stupid for so many centuries.
I absolutely hate working with clients that don’t know proper English. Then half of the time they get mad at me for not getting their design right but I can’t even understand them, aha.
Then why are you taking on projects by people whose native language isn’t English to begin with? You’re doing them (and their investment) a huge disservice. I find that to be somewhat irresponsible. Such a project is doomed to fail before it has even started, given that the ability to communicate is not only the primary key to delivering a proper solution, it’s absolutely and categorically essential and I find it absolutely understandable that a client would get mad. I would, too.
It doesn’t bother me one bit when I speak with somebody who is still learning. If we’re talking about writing then it only bothers me if I can’t understand what they are trying to communicate. In most cases, if you let the people you are writing to know in advance that you are still learning they are willing to work with you if you bring value to the table. It doesn’t matter so much what language you speak. What matters is effective communication.
That said, there are ***** everywhere you go and some people hate anybody who isn’t like them. There will be haters and there is nothing you can do about them but ignore them.
Okay, got another one for you. How about do you ever realize that you start to speak with a slight accent when talking to say a Hispanic speaking in a heavy accent and when they are not all that fluent with English??? You start to change your words to make it sound like theirs sometimes?? Does that happen to others or is it just me??? Not being racists or anything, just stating the rather obvious.
I lived in Texas for 6 months and came back to Minnesota with a drawl. Took me forever to get rid of it again! Does that answer your question? 
I do it for fun—if not to their face, then in my mind, or after they’re gone. It’s fun to copy accents.
Well said
To any non-native English speakers: How is this problem for you when it comes to people who don’t speak your language perfectly? How is it when an American butchers Dutch, Chinese, German, or French?
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Sometimes it’s about trying to make yourself understood. If I’m talking to, let’s say, an Italian who is struggling to understand me, my guess is that he hasn’t got much experience of listening to English people – he may have had English lessons from an Italian person and find English spoken with an Italian accent is more familiar. So I may modify my pronunciation to see if that helps. But I certainly wouldn’t ever deliberately mock someone’s accent in that way.
That’s a good point, and why I always try to be tolerant of people who are not native English speakers and who make mistakes. I can get by in French or Spanish for the basics, but not really enough to hold a proper conversation any more – I could when I left school but just haven’t had the opportunity to keep it going – and apart from being able to recognise odd words in other languages I would really struggle … and the thing is, I know that I am a much better linguist than most English people![/font]
The thing is that many people whose native language isn’t English are decently educated in at least one other language. I can only speak for Germany, obviously, but nobody here expects someone whose native language isn’t German to be 100% accurate and proficient in it. Not everyone has linguistic talent, so to conclude someone’s stupidity from the lack of being good at one very specific discipline is a very abstract notion to subscribe to…
When I read some of the responses here (and elsewhere), it seems that many native English speakers expect you to be proficient in English (their language), and when you’re not, you’ll be exposed to mockery because you’re thought of as being illiterate or simply dumb, something I find immensely arrogant, irritating, and utterly fatuitous.
Not everyone is that way, thank goodness, but quite a few are and it’s just really, really, well, “silly”, to put it diplomatically.
Certainly not in Australia (most parts, anyway), I’m happy to say, as we have such a mix of cultures here that accents/broken English etc. are a daily norm. People are happy here as long as they can glean the intended meaning. (At our local computer ‘swap meet’, I often have to resort to sign language to communicate with vendors, but it’s kinda fun, actually.)
So that’s why I misunderstand you! I can’t see what you’re signing! 
Well, to flip the script, literally, what about when it comes down to having someone who’s original langauge was not English writing for you? It find that they do a better job sometimes with writing because they are almost OCD or anal about proper grammar and spelling. Although, words do get mix-matched depending on their original language… ie: spanish it happens a lot considering how a lot of the language structure is ‘backwards’ when compared to traditional English (sentences for instance).
That’s lucky for you, too, as it’s not pretty sometimes.
As long as they have a good command of English, it won’t be hard to proof read what they’ve done and iron out any little idiomatic slipups.