“second language” English has problems with articles, unusual plurals, irregular verbs, and tends to an overly formal tone
“only” English has problems with homophones, apostrophe placement, and using slang where it’s not appropriate
A lot of it is just level of attention and effort…
A native speaker isn’t going to give a fuck, or even read their comment/post for sending it. Lots of their mistakes involve autocorrect
Someone who is nervous about how good their English is, will review and catch stuff and fix it.
They’re putting time and effort, and still feeling self-conscious.
Which is why we’ll see an absolutely perfect English comment followed by: Sorry for my terrible English, I hope that made sense! When it’s written at a higher grade level than our newspapers are.
Like think of speaking English as golf. Someone whose been playing their whole lives, but never actually took lessons versus someone who started last year, but has been working hard and taking lessons.
They may get the same score, but it’s hard to say they’re equal. One is actively trying to improve, and will soon and eventually surpass the “natural”.
People who know other languages tend to model their sentence structure on their native language, and swap word for word. This can lead to conjugation issues, e.g. “I am feeling” instead of “I feel.”
People who only know English often base their understanding on the way language sounds, not how it’s written.
Ironically, the former is usually much more readable than the latter.
