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Topic: English speaking? (Read 13652 times) |
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malchar
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #25 on: Apr 9th, 2010, 7:15pm » |
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towr, what's your native language if you don't mind my asking? Anyway, I've always spoken English, so technically I shouldn't even be posting in this thread. However, I have found that Chinese is surprisingly easy to learn. Without knowing too much about Japanese, I would say that Chinese is probably the easier of the two, especially for mathematically-oriented people. Also, after you learn a second language, the third seems to come a lot more easily.
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towr
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #26 on: Apr 10th, 2010, 4:13am » |
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My native languages as Frisian and Dutch; and English comes pretty close since I started learning it (from cartoons) when I was five or six.
I think the biggest problem for speaking Chinese is the importance of differences in tones for the meaning of a word. Just noticing those distinctions is very difficult if you haven't grown up in that kind of language.
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Grimbal
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #27 on: Apr 16th, 2010, 12:10pm » |
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It seems to me that when you are young, you are hard-wiring your brain to recognize the important features of your language and ignore irrelevant variations. You learn to classify spoken sounds into a limited set of sounds, a "sound" alphabet. From there you build the words.
This hard-wiring takes place when you are young, when your brain is still malleable.
The trouble is, different languages use different sound systems. Sound features that are important in one language are irrelevant in another.
So, if you learn a language late, you will not be able to rewire your brain to the new sound system, so you end up speaking one language with the sounds of another. That is why it is so difficult to get rid of the accent of one's mother tongue.
In Chinese, the tone is an important feature that changes completely the meaning of the words, so the Chinese are hardwired to route tones early in the early stages of understanding speech, where the words are recognized. For western languages, the tone changes the meaning of a phrase only in a general way, like making it a question, or expressing uncertainty or mood.
So I think that if you haven't experienced Chinese as a child, or another language that uses tones to distinguish words, you will always have trouble telling some words apart, and always need to guess, or use context to get the meaning of a phrase.
But that is true also for other languages. For example, french has subtle distinctions in vowels that other languages don't have.
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ThudnBlunder
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #28 on: Apr 16th, 2010, 2:04pm » |
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on Apr 16th, 2010, 12:10pm, Grimbal wrote: For western languages, the tone changes the meaning of a phrase only in a general way, like making it a question, or expressing uncertainty or mood.
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Yeah, I think English uses only two tones, the 1st tone (flat tone) for normal speech and the 2nd tone (rising tone) for questions. And Australians manage to get by using only this 2nd tone! LOL
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Noke Lieu
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #29 on: Apr 20th, 2010, 11:37pm » |
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on Apr 16th, 2010, 2:04pm, ThudanBlunder wrote:
Yeah, I think English uses only two tones, the 1st tone (flat tone) for normal speech and the 2nd tone (rising tone) for questions. And Australians manage to get by using only this 2nd tone! LOL
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I'm not sure I agree with that...
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LukeSchool
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #30 on: Jun 17th, 2010, 10:10am » |
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English speaking and currently learning asian languages such as japanese. kinda hard but trying to learn all those syllabic phrases. 
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Quasar
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #31 on: Aug 9th, 2011, 2:00pm » |
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I start learning english in school and I improve it alot since using the internet.
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khuram4u
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #32 on: Oct 27th, 2011, 3:47pm » |
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Here are some suggestions and are very effective since i use them to improve english, as i am not a native english speak but now i am good at English.
Here are some goals you could set yourself:-
Join an English course - a virtual one or a real one (and attend regularly).
Do your homework.
Read a book or a comic every month.
Learn a new word every day.
Visit an English speaking forum every day.
Read a news article on the net every day.
Do 10 minutes listening practice every day.
Watch an English film at least once a month.
Follow a soap, comedy or radio or TV drama.
A good way to meet your goals is to establish a system of rewards and punishments.
Decide on a reward you will give yourself for fulfilling your goals for a month.
A bottle of your favourite drink
A meal out / or a nice meal at home
A new outfit
A manicure or massage
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beingblogger
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #33 on: Jan 5th, 2012, 4:06am » |
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I am from India and only few get to learn English starting from kindergarten. There are less number of English Medium schools in India. The situation has improved a lot today compared to when I was a child and there are lot of options available. Even government schools in some states are coming up with compulsary English programs which is a welcome step.
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kalispero
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #34 on: Jan 7th, 2012, 10:34am » |
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it seems natural in these days, 21st century to speak some other languages than domestic
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martincroe
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #35 on: Feb 13th, 2012, 2:34am » |
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we have to learn English through daily read English news paper and read articles....
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frankrizal
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #36 on: Feb 21st, 2012, 6:56pm » |
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English is the universal language.. So it's important that we learn how to speak with it.. 
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Ela
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #37 on: Jul 18th, 2012, 10:39pm » |
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Tip: take 4 long weekends with tons of
old american classics. you'll speak english
better then the queen of England. 
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Googlebot
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #38 on: Sep 9th, 2012, 2:10pm » |
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English is the international language. It is easy to learn. We here in Bulgaria learn English in school. I think the most important languages ​​to know are English and Russian
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cartoonle
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #39 on: Dec 1st, 2012, 11:45am » |
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From TV, at school and from internet
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rathodh61
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Re: English speaking?
« Reply #40 on: Jan 11th, 2013, 7:52am » |
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Hii Everyone...nice to meeting you.
My self Harisingh Rathore.
I am new to this forum.
The best way to learn English (or any language) is to associate with others.
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