Not basing my opinion on internet postings actually. I live in the states. I may have made a grammar error, but at least I can tell the difference between your and you're, there and their etc. I wasn't trying to sound like a douche, I was just pointing out the obvious. It's pretty sad.
English was my second language (Portuguese being my first), and I honestly think I have a better grasp on it than 98% of the people here and 97% of the people I actually know.
Still, how often are you exposed to hand written material these days? I mean, unless you're still in school or work in one of the few jobs that would require hand writing over typing, I find your statement hard to believe. I would disagree, when learning English as a second language, you have to comprehend all it's strange anomalies and contradictions, but if your first language is English, these things come naturally without thinking; in fact most people won't have even realised they exist until you point some out to them. So who really has the better grasp on English? The ones who've had to think it over consciously, or the ones who know it without realising?
Definitely the ones who have to consciously think about it, because when you write unconsciously, you're prone to make a lot more mistakes... BTW, is anyone else paying a LOT more attention to grammar and spelling while replying to this thread?
I ain't I do think English is a hard language to learn, with all the exceptions we have to grammarules
@ Electric_Shaman Still in school but still not really exposed to hand writing that much. I based my opinion on my friends (texts etc.), forums, and a couple games I play. It may not be a true opinion, but until proven otherwise, I won't change my mind. You do have a really good point there, though I learned it by going to high school here. No ESL classes either, straight to American Literature on my first year. The first 2 weeks were tough, but then it got pretty easy. I'm not saying I didn't have to do more work to understand the basics, but I still didn't take special classes for it.
Yes, in fact simple contractions such as this are taught in the US during first grade when students are six years old!
That's being pretty judgmental. You can't make a blanket statement about all native speakers, especially since I can pretty much guarantee you I have a firmer grasp on the English language than you.
BTW - from Arn's The Rules "Please avoid correcting spelling and grammar. English is not the primarily language for many people, and grammar discussion does not really add anything of substance to most discussions"
