On Mon, 04 Sep 2006, David Gerard wrote:
[greatly oversimplified history]
I speak French to a reasonable degree, and have travelled to plenty of places where English is not the first language.
I find that I can simplify my English - short sentences, easy words, repeat for emphasis - and can be easily understood by a non-native speaker.
I think English is one of the easier languages to speak and be understood, and probably one of the hardest to speak as a native. Things like collective nouns add no extra information, but considerably add to the vocabulary.
But you can brutalise English and still be understood, which I gather is not the case for Chinese.
Cheers, Andy!