It strikes me that European English speakers have a range of things they say that are sometimes grammatically correct, but not a construction that native speakers would ever use, and sometimes grammatically questionable, but charming in its own way. So, I'm going to list them as I hear them:
- "quite many" where we might say, "quite a few"
- "nice" as a descriptor for, well, practically anything. For example, "we had a nice conversation today" meaning a productive or useful interaction, this is a "nice" article, same deal.
- the tendency to begin sentences with "probably"; e.g. "Probably it will rain today".
- and truly annoying to me, the constant use of "i.e." i.e. if it rains, the roads are slippery i.e. there is water on them. Yeah, the "i.e" is not so much for me.
- "it's ok" as a response that, I think, is the equivalent to "Yeah" or "Good"; so if I said, "I'll see you there" "It's ok" might be the response. I find it not to be grammatically quite right, or scan right or something, I can't quite tell which it is, and in certain circumstances, it sounds like the person is trying to give you their approval when their approval is completely unnecessary and would be condescending.
