[Trifectionx]

let me be clear. there are multiple aspects to this subject, but i am going to focus on just one.

i'm going to start with a story.

wen moving to my new flat in university i met my new flat mates, who had already been acquainted with each other for several weeks. one of the several foreign students, from spain, came to manchester to learn english. as a fellow language student i was happy to engage with him about various aspects of language, for instance what sounds natural, unnatural or down right ungrammatical in english. i could see how, although his current proficiency was quite good and more than adequate to see him through multiple common scenarios, his lack of refinement was frustrating as he wanted to take his accuracy to the next level.

so, despite the fear of looking like an elitist perfectionist, i tried to correct him whenever he made even small errors. it occured to me however, that my other flatmates never did this. aslong as it was not completely wrong they would ignore all the minor floors. my flatmate thinks he hasnt made a mistake and the mistake is reinforced.

my teacher also told me that when he went to japan and spoke japanese poorly, the locals would tell him, in fact, that his japanese was actually quite good. i feel that this was a mixture of the kind nature of the japanese and avoiding causing the foreigner to lose face from his liguistical errors.

it is a proven fact that outsiders are treated more kindly and as a result language slip ups are ignored.