This is quite recent but I’ve been browsing Lemmy a bunch lately and quite often I see extreme grammatical errors.
I’m not talking about like, incorrect stylistic choices between commas and dashes, or an improper use of ellipses or missing commas or incorrect use of apostrophes in its/it’s or in multiple posessive articles or just plain typos or any nitpicky grammar nazi shit like that, but just basic spelling specifically.
It’s one thing when you can’t spell some pretty uncommon words and you’re too lazy to look it up and/or use autocorrect, but it’s a completely different league to misspell very basic words, very recently I saw someone spell “extreme” as “extream” which is just kind of baffling, I actually can’t even imagine how one would make such a mistake?
And it’s not been an isolated thing either, I’ve seen several instances like that lately.
Am I going crazy? Is it just me?
I’ve always experienced the opposite - native English speakers are horrible at spelling because they don’t have to put any effort into comprehending the language, vs non-native speakers who frequently have to take ESL tests for either academia, work, or immigration, and therefore had more exposure to spelling practice.
Bruh slept through 13 years of English lessons 😂
Lessons are forgotten fast. Ask an adult to do 3 digit multiplication and watch them fumble. Ask about geometry and they’ll ask Google for a calculator. I don’t remember how to do projectile physics. All the same for English. If all a person does is speak the language while writing very simple messages (in comparison to English essays), the memory of complex synthesis is lost fast. If they’re not continuing to do those tasks in life, it’s gone.
I agree. My experience doesn’t really align with the idea that ESL learners are better spellers. English is a conventional language, so it’s not like there is a dictated spelling. Spelling is just a convention.
That would depend on how long they’ve been studying the language for, and their goals/needs in language learning. Someone who needed to learn English and pass formal tests for the sake of employment or immigration will eventually reach that level, but someone who either hasn’t been studying that long or doesn’t consider it a critical priority because they’re just browsing English websites and media for fun might not.