Taboo language/Schimpfen in der Fremdsprache

In an old post entitled Fucking Jävla Skit Language, Watch me sleep discussed a problem encountered by teachers of English in Germany too:

Taboo swear words are probably among the first thing a second language learner learns if they have a teenage mentality. But while it's easy to master swear words, I don't think you ever really internalise the depth of feeling associated with the taboo.

I don't even know how offended most native speakers of English are when they hear the F word being overused, and whether they are more offended in the USA than in Britain, but as someone who grew up amidst a lot of swearing (not all elicited by me), I find myself seeing the swearer as younger and less competent.

(Via Language Log)