We got a few members here who got English as a second language and do incredibly well. I'm thinking of Afi, JustMe, Enzo, Don Pappo, SVSG (?)....and others will come to my mind.

I got some questions for you.

1. How long have you been studying English?

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking?

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?

4. By which means do you practice your English?

5. Did you ever experience a full immersion period in any English speaking country or some like that?

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)

7. What do you like the most about it?

8. What do you like the least?

9. Do you think it is easy?

10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?

Pssht, I have enough problems with English as my first language. :p

And don't get me started on English majors that can't spell or use proper grammar...I know more than a few.

I find that many times people who learn English as a second language, know it better than those who have it as a first and only language.

DJ,

It's not only English majors that don't know proper English. I am amazed at how many middle school students can't spell. I had a student the other day ask me how to spell the word "Fight". I had to think to myself, "Didn't I know how to spell that word by the time I was in 8th grade???"

Although I believe all subjects are important in school, and granted some will be better at it than others, English is a "must". We don't have to be experts, but we should put a strong emphasis on it from the beginning of one's education.

I don't have all the solutions but think it should be given more attention than any other subject. If you know English from the beginning of your education, it'll be second nature by the time you get to college.

TIS

Thanks for your compliments, Lavi.



1. How long have you been studying English?
From childhood. My mother spoke to me a little now and then.

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking?
When I have practice, say I am abroad, and speak much, I have no problem. When I do not speak for a long time, it becomes difficult to find words, and still more to recall correct pronouncation.

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?
Listening comprehension worst of all. On some channels, especially American, they speak very fast and not always intelligible.

4. By which means do you practice your English?
Mostly reading. And BB

5. Did you ever experience a full immersion period in any English speaking country or some like that?
Yes, not only English-speaking, but with necessity of speaking English.

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)
Yes.

7. What do you like the most about it?
The literature that is written on it.

8. What do you like the least?
Reading in Middle-English.

9. Do you think it is easy?
Yes.

10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?
Now I'm trying to learn German, and Italian is awaiting.

1. How long have you been studying English? Since 7th grade.

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking? I can speak fluently, unless there is some really dirty fight. Then I'd have difficulty understanding how bad an insult someone made.

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?
Writing/Speaking/Reading/Listening. I generally don't pay enough (womanly) attention to what others say or write, even in my first language. I skip reading through what doesn't interest me and often I miss a few details. The same goes for listening.

4. By which means do you practice your English?
Just about anything.

5. Did you ever experience a full immersion period in any English speaking country or some like that?
Yes, I've spent over a year in the US.

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)
Of course, I've always liked it. Voices in my head all speak in English.

7. What do you like the most about it?
It is easy.


8. What do you like the least?
Some of odd accents. :p


9. Do you think it is easy?
Yes, definitely one of the easiest languages ever.


10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?
Persian of course, also a little Arabic but more than I need to know. Right now I'm trying to learn German, firstly because of Mozart's German operas, secondly because of my job, it would help a lot because our electrical system codes are German. I also would like to learn French and Italian if I get the chance. Opera and many other wonderful things are what I can't appreciate enough because I don't know these languages.

Forgot to write what languages I know.
Of course I know Russian, and ancient slavonic as that of church service. That helps in other Slavonic languages, many of them are variants with the same roots basically. Such as Ukrainian, Belarussian, Serbian, Bulgarian(it has cyrillic alphabet) etc.
Polish is my mother's language, but I must confess I'm not good at it.
When I lived in Turkey, I spoke Turkish as a native, but it's good 15 years since I'm back, and haven't spoke a word in Turkish in all this time, so I guess I must've forgot it completely.

Really??

I've heard that it was fairly difficult to learn as compared to, say, Spanish or Italian. I guess they all have their irregularities and points of difficulty, though...

I got some questions for you.

1. How long have you been studying English?
From when I was 3 years old

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking?
Very fluent - can use reasonably complex words, decent vocabulary.

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?
Very good - except that I speak in Indian accent, which Americans hate :p

4. By which means do you practice your English?
I have studied English more than any of the Indian languages. I talk to everyone in english, except my family.

5. Did you ever experience a full immersion period in any English speaking country or some like that?
I am in US from August 2005.

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)
I like it a lot

7. What do you like the most about it?
some nice words, like "indifference" or "naive" which have equivalents in my language, but do not sound natural.

8. What do you like the least?
Most Indian languages can be pronounced in only one way. Ofcourse there are a couple of exceptions. But in english, one has to know exactly how a given word is to be pronounced. An obvious example is the way we pronounce "put" and "cut".

9. Do you think it is easy?
probably the easiest if your aim is to communicate verbally or in a written form. But if you really get anal and start learning what "gerund" or "intransitive verb" is, then life becomes tough.

10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?
Many of you may not have heard of any of these - all are Indian languages - Hindi, tamil, telegu, kannada, bengali. Almost every state in India has a different language. It is not a difference in dialect or accent - each has its own grammar and script. I have lived and studied in schools all over my country. I am not capable of learning any new language at this age

Me? Do incredibly well? :p

Been watching American TV shows since I was like 8/9, and started learning it at school 5 years ago.

Hmm. I often struggle to find an appropiate word, and my accent is terrible, I think.

Reading: 9/10
Speaking: 5/10
Writing: 7/10
Listening comprehension: 9/10

Fuck! Uhm, can you explain this a bit, I don't know the expression "by which means". Does it mean something like "for which goal"?

I've been in America, and English went kinda well.

Hmm. Well, I don't hate it, but I don't really like it neither.

English is probably the easiest language in the world to learn, but a difficult one to master. I mean, over here any 6 year old with an IQ of 70 can say a bit English, but there are few who do speak the language good.

The weird grammar, definitely

See Q 7.

I also know Latin, Dutch and French. In the future, I would like to learn French better (speak it fluently) and start Italian.

I think it is easier than those languages simply because in English you don't have to distinguish between objects as they aren't male or female. This can take a long time for someone who is going to learn that language as a SL.

Then there are pronunciations, and while I can say that there is no sound that is new to me in other languages (we have 32 letters in our alphabet), English, especially American English is more distinguishable for me than Italian or Spanish.

Just to realize how a language can drive you insane, in Arabic there are 14 different makes of a verb or pronoun. They have different makes for men, women, one person, two persons, three or more persons, and that's added to the routine makes other languages have. Also there are irregular verbs that you'd have to keep their 14 makes in mind. That's what I really didn't want to put time on, but damn school system.

In Persian, there is no difference between male and female for anything. However, what makes it hard IMO is that we spell things really hard. We have three different forms for the sounds "s" and "c", four for "z" and so on. It gets really crazy if you want to learn it as a second language.

Okay, no Persian for me. :p Arabic could be an option, maybe someday...

And folks, keep away from Dutch, it's a very difficult language. There are like a million grammatical exceptions, and there are things which don't have a rule, but should have. The only way to get those things right, is having Dutch as your mother tongue. Or, spending years with Dutch speaking people. :rolleyes:

That's exactly so. I felt it trying to master German, where everything has gender (almost like in Russian! ) and a special article.
And as to the number of letters, we have 33, and only few of them vowels... :rolleyes:

Enzo, you'd have the same problem with spelling in Arabic as well. :p As the matter of fact, this is the gift of Arabic character set that Persians had to adapt after Arabs took over. Our alphabet is the exact alphabet Arabs use, however the language and the grammar is different and we have four characters (and sounds) more than what they have. They don't have "P", "G" as in "gas", "Ch" as in chair and "J" as how French pronounce "bonjour".

Me? Incredibly well??? :rolleyes: You better think about it again! And then you must decide if I do it incredibly well...thanks anyway. But I sometimes make horrible grammar mistakes, and sometimes I got confussed with some words for example, "heroin" and "heroine". hahaha!.

1. How long have you been studying English?
Since childhood, but not a big deal. I started to study english seriously when I was in high school, I was the student who got the highest scores in my classroom.But it was british english, then I started to study in an american institute where the teachers speak only in english, spanish is not allowed. I have studied there for 6 years.

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking?
I don´t know if I can write fluently, I can speak fluently if given the opportunity, but if it´s been a long time I haven´t spoken it turns difficult to recover the practice.

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?
Listening comprehension is the worst, this is the most difficult but sometimes it depends on the person who is speaking, I can understand american people(but the hip hop "singers", they talk very fast) but I can rarely understand british people. My english is american english.

4. By which means do you practice your English?
Mostly reading, Mafia books, gangsterBB, etc.

5. Did you ever experience a full immersion period in any English speaking country or some like that?
I have been to USA since December of 2004 until April of 2005.

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)
Yes, I do.

7. What do you like the most about it?
I can have a conversation with people whose original language is not english, I cannot speak chinese, russian, french.For example, if I want to say to JustMe "You are the most beautiful rose in the world", she will understand, this is one of the reasons I am happy to know english when I don´t know how to speak the one another´s language and the one another cannot speak mine. Nobody can make a joke to embarrass you using english language because you will understand, for example, I asked a romanian guy how can I say "Goodbye" in his language, he told me how but it wasn´t "goodbye". I would say what he taugh me to say if there were only men here, but I have to be a gentleman, there are many ladies here, so, I won´t say those words in english. To give you an understanding, I wanted to say "goodbye" in romanian to a girl and she was surprised and she was going to hit me. But another romaninan guy said it was a joke for me. That´s why I can trust anybody else or language.
Sometimes, english is a weapon, it is good to understand the people who you are talking to, sometimes you may not understand or refuse to understand when you don´t want to understand.

8. What do you like the least?
When I have to speak by phone about important things and I cannot afford to miss any words.

9. Do you think it is easy?
Yes, it is.

10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?
Italian, French and Japanese

I just want to say that I really admire all of you BB'ers who know more than just your native language.

As some have mentioned, there are people who speak English as a first language but have trouble, whereas you all sound just great speaking (rather, typing) in it.

My aunt is from Vietnam, and she and my uncle often tell my family about the language. I think the most difficult thing I've learned about Vietnamese is that one word can mean several different things, depending on the pitch/tone of the voice when you pronounce it. Can you imagine?! People would have to repeat things ten times before I could even begin to understand what they're saying.

no, I just meant "how".

Time to answer my own questions.....

1. How long have you been studying English?

since I was 11 or so. But I've been interested in it since a very little child, because my older sister was studying it at school and I would imitate her. I still can remember a nursery rhyme which went something like "One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. Five, six, pick up sticks. Seven, eight, lay them straight. Nine, ten, a big fat hen". I used to tell it when a was 5 or 6...


2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking?

I like speaking in English! My English friends tell me I got a smart British accent, which I'm very proud of... (even if I doubt they only try to be kind to me. Truth is I got an Italian accent, that's it!!)Unfortunately I've got few opportunities to actually talk in English so my fluency isn't as good as I would, but if I'm given half a chance I'd resume it quite quickly (hopefully :rolleyes: )

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?

I'm strictish....

reading 8/10
speaking 6/10
writing 8/10
listening comprehension. It depends. British English is about 7/10. American English is.....definitely LESS!!!!

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)

I ADORE IT!

7. What do you like the most about it?

It's the key to the world.

8. What do you like the least?

Bad accents that make it incomprehensible.

9. Do you think it is easy?

absolutely. No other language (old or modern) is as easy, as far as I'm concerned.

10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?

Well, old languages - i. e. Latin and Old Greek - do not count in this context. So, Italian aside, I know a little French (which sounds sooooo chic! but it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy more difficult than English) and a little Spanish (which sounds fascinating and is very easy for us Italians). I'd like to know these languages better, especially Spanish.

I have a question.

Do is for I, you, they and we
Does is for he, she and it.

Why some people(I mean people whose native language is english)say it don´t matter, he don´t care? I would say it doesn´t matter and he doesn´t matter as I was taugh

"It don't matter" and "He don't care" are just a couple common examples of slang. The proper way to speak it is "doesn't", as you stated. Saying "don't" when it is appropriate to say "doesn't" is just lazy English, stereotypical of American English.

That thing with “do” and “does” is really confusing. The first time I saw Pulp Fiction I was completely lost, lol .

“Motherfuckers who thought their ass would age like wine
If you mean it turns into vinegar, it does
If you mean it gets better with age, it don’t” – Marsellus Wallace to Butch.

1. How long have you been studying English?

Since I was 9 years old.

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking?

It’s harder of course. Sometimes I’m afraid to do horrible mistakes, so I take more time to think at the words to use. It’s easier when I’m drunk cause I don’t fear anything .

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?

Reading very good. Speaking and writing is harder. Listening is quite Ok

4. By which means do you practice your English?

Reading books and watching movies in their original versions

5. Did you ever experience a full immersion period in any English speaking country or some like that?

No, but I’d like to.

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)

Yes.

7. What do you like the most about it?

I like that many things can be said in short sentences, which is more difficult in French. Also I love some movie quotes that sound stupid in French. “Say hello to my little friend…”

8. What do you like the least?

Some expressions can be hard to understand the first time you hear them.

9. Do you think it is easy?

Yes, easier then dutch, like Enzo Scifo said.

10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?

French of course. And I must learn dutch as half of my country speak it. Not an awful language, but really difficult.

Ah, donc t'es de la Wallonie? Ou peut-être Bruxellois? C'est toujours chouette quand un paysan frequente cette place-ci.

Really??

I've heard that it was fairly difficult to learn as compared to, say, Spanish or Italian. I guess they all have their irregularities and points of difficulty, though... [/b][/quote]english is, definitely, one (if not thee) easiest language ever. in portuguese, for instance, there is a different way to use every verb for each person. i.e. "to want" means "querer", but you don't say I want, you want, he wants... you say "eu (I) quero", "você (you) quer", "nós (we) queremos", "eles (they) querem"... not to mention that there must be half the ammount of words.

Lol Ik ben wal. Ik woon naar Bergen. Boeren zijn vlaams, niet ? Wallen zijn werkloze.


I don't know for other languages, but english is really easier to learn then french. There are a lot more irregular forms to learn in french then in english.

Thanks Gina!

That you mentioned reminded me of an episode of a popular sitcom here. Someone was trying to learn some villager's accent and slangs, and the person helping him told him about "reversed verbs". When he asked what they are, the villager told him "It would be nice to have you for dinner!" can have an opposite meaning as "Why don't you get the hell out of my house?!". It depends on the tone of voice.

Lol Ik ben wal. Ik woon naar Bergen. Boeren zijn vlaams, niet ? Wallen zijn werkloze.


I don't know for other languages, but english is really easier to learn then french. There are a lot more irregular forms to learn in french then in english. [/b][/quote]I don't think French is much more difficult than English. French is kind of easy, I think. I mean, if you know some Latin and English, French vocabulary is not diffucult at all. I can imagine Dutch is harder to learn ...

Btw Dedel, if you would ever see any unpardonable mistakes in my French (in the future maybe), you may always correct them.

That's what I'm talking about!

I think I would make quick enemies, and completely by accident.

Lol Ik ben wal. Ik woon naar Bergen. Boeren zijn vlaams, niet ? Wallen zijn werkloze.


I don't know for other languages, but english is really easier to learn then french. There are a lot more irregular forms to learn in french then in english. [/b][/quote]I don't think French is much more difficult than English. French is kind of easy, I think. I mean, if you know some Latin and English, French vocabulary is not diffucult at all. I can imagine Dutch is harder to learn ...

Btw Dedel, if you would ever see any unpardonable mistakes in my French (in the future maybe), you may always correct them. [/b][/quote]Your french seems pretty good... Better then my dutch.

dutch vocabulary isn't really hard to learn as long as you speak english. When I was at school, I used to say english words with a dutch accent when I didn't know the right form. It was kinda working until the day the teacher understood my plan when I said "holydag" in place of vacantie... lol

1. How long have you been studying English? Since I was 10 years old. However I've been in contact with english all my life, from movies, music etc.

2. We all know you can write fluently, but what about speaking? I speak better than I write and for some reason I have an american accent.

3. How would you rate your skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening comprehension)?
Excellent

4. By which means do you practice your English?
By speaking, and listening. In Sweden, all our movies are in english, almost all our TV-shows are american, almost all our music is in english.

6. Do you like English? (stupid one, I know. But there's some people who just USE this language because they cannot do without it but actually don't like it)
Yes I do.

7. What do you like the most about it?
The multitude of words and expressions.


8. What do you like the least?
hmm. tough one.. I really don't like the fact that young swedish kids use at least 20% english words when they speak. But that isn't the english language's fault.


9. Do you think it is easy?
Yes. At least to me, it has come very natural.


10. Which other languages do you know or would you like to?
Fluent in:
Swedish
Danish
Italian

And I speak and understand a little French and Spanish.
Also I'm still learning Sicilian, if you consider that a language.

I would like to learn Japanese, Mandarin, Kantonese.