this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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On some unsavory corners of the internet, ESL (english second language) is used like it’s an insult.
Bitch english is my fourth language the fuck are you talking about.
"Bitch English" is the language I speak aloud while writing an overly polite email to assholes.
My gay friends, whenever I would get sassy with them, would tell me, "Sorry sis, I don't speak Biatchanese". Always had us hollering.
That’s one of those “jokes” that says way more about the person telling it than the subject of it, in more ways than one.
I’m not sure what the terminology is in English, but in German, any language learned non-natively (so after the age of ~7) but in an immersion scenario is referred to as a second language (Zweitsprache), even if it’s the nth language where n>2. It actually indicates a greater mastery (especially in speaking) of the language than the other option: foreign language (Fremdsprache). My master’s program changed partway through from Deutsch als Fremdsprache to Deutsch als Fremd-/Zweitsprache in recognition of the fact that many of the graduates were going on to teach German in Germany.
Ironically, I’m a native English speaker, but I did my training in German, so I don’t know much technical terminology in English (as you can tell by the clunky-ass “immersion scenario” above; I don’t think “language bath” works in English, but I don’t know how to approach that sentence without conceptualizing immersion the way I would in German, as a Sprachbad so I ended up having to force a weird circumlocution).
Sorry to derail this a little as I'm aware you're a native speaker, but you did remind me of my interactions with ESL Germans online, where they'd say "Apologies if my English isn't great; there are gaps in my vernacular" or something wonderfully eloquent like that, that which always comes off as such a casual flex 😆
I think it’s actually caused by the same thing- I have a broad English vocabulary, but don’t know what sounds most natural in this case.
For another derailment, I had a eureka moment several years ago when I wanted to say “time flies” in a German conversation, but didn’t know if you’d say it exactly the same or say “the time flies,” (it’s actually “time flees” in Latin and die Zeit flieht in German, so I would have been wrong either way), so I just said “tempus fugit” with a German accent and suddenly realized why so many nonnative but super advanced English speakers use the original versions of international phrases (mostly Latin, but also things like “qué será, será,” instead of the same without accents or even “whatever will be, will be,” or “hotelier,” instead of “front desk worker”).