'I speak good English' or 'I speak English well'?

[nq:1]A Sunday pub lunch disagreement needs resolving. A friend stated that 'I speak good English' is actally not good English at all and that 'I speak English well' is the correct way of saying it. Is she correct and, if so, why?[/nq]
I have no great problem with either grammatically, but I think people would usually use these constructions to speak of other people and not of themselves, e.g.

Einde O'Callaghan emailed this:
[nq:2]A Sunday pub lunch disagreement needs resolving. A friend stated ... of saying it. Is she correct and, if so, why?[/nq]
[nq:1]I have no great problem with either grammatically, but I think people would usually use these constructions to speak of other people and not of themselves, e.g. "You speak good English" or "You speak English well".[/nq]
How

[nq:1]A Sunday pub lunch disagreement needs resolving. A friend stated that 'I speak good English' is actally not good English at all and that 'I speak English well' is the correct way of saying it. Is she correct and, if so, why?[/nq]
'I speak English good' is not good English, but neither can 'I speak English well' be described as well English.

John Briggs

[nq:1]A Sunday pub lunch disagreement needs resolving. A friend stated that 'I speak good English' is actally not good English at all and that 'I speak English well' is the correct way of saying it. Is she correct and, if so, why?[/nq]
I would say that the latter is a little bit more formal. The first is a little bit funny to my ear, even, though it is perfectly correct and I might well say it

[nq:1]Einde O'Callaghan emailed this:[/nq]
[nq:2]I have no great problem with either grammatically, but I ... e.g. "You speak good English" or "You speak English well".[/nq]
[nq:1]How would you say this about yourself?[/nq]
For a start I'd be a bit more modest - I'd probably say something like "I think my English (or French, or German, or whatever) is quite good".

Regards, Ein

[nq:1]A Sunday pub lunch disagreement needs resolving. A friend stated that 'I speak good English' is actally not good English at all and that 'I speak English well' is the correct way of saying it. Is she correct and, if so, why?[/nq]
To me, there is a slight difference of meaning between the two.

In "I speak good English", "good" is an adjective denoting the quality of the English b

I way always told English is either correct or incorrect, it can't be good or bad, well or ill.
Neil Jones

[nq:1]I way always told English is either correct or incorrect, it can't be good or bad, well or ill.[/nq]
To my way of looking at things, you have been misinformed. There has been a tendency in English since about the middle 18th Century to try to define "correct" English. However, the language changes (thank goodness) faster than the pedants can keep up with. There are formal rules of gramma

[nq:1]I way always told English is either correct or incorrect, it can't be good or bad, well or ill.[/nq]
You were told wrong. English has a large number of gramatically and syntactically correct ways of expressing any given idea. Some ways are better than others. They can be more arresting, more elegant, clearer in language, or more concise (to name a few possibilities). The exact choice cou

[nq:1]Now don't start me on the subject of spelling or I'll quoste Shakespeare/Shakspear/Shagsberd (all his own spelling, I believe) at you again.[/nq]
Don't believe everything you read. His own preferred spelling seems to have been Shake-speare (a bit like Pitt-Kethley, I suppose).
John Briggs