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(Message started by: mikedagr8 on Mar 13th, 2008, 2:21am)
Title: English speaking?
Post by mikedagr8 on Mar 13th, 2008, 2:21am
Just a thought here.
I have come to see a lot of members are not from native English speaking countries. How did you guys learn English? At school? If so, was it enforced upon you? If not, was it due to your family or any other reason?
I am just interested as I am not very strong in languages, yet people on this forum seem to be fluent or able to speak quite clearly in multiple languages.
Here in Australia, English is a requirement all the way through school, and in most schools require students to learn a language in primary school or secondary school.
I am wondering whether it is the same overseas but for Englishs.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 13th, 2008, 2:55am

on 03/13/08 at 02:21:56, mikedagr8 wrote:
Just a thought here.
I have come to see a lot of members are not from native English speaking countries. How did you guys learn English?
Saturday morning cartoons ("fun factory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_Factory_%28TV_series%29) and "DJ Kat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DJ_Kat_Show) on Sky channel)


Quote:
I am just interested as I am not very strong in languages
The best time to learn a new language is before you're 7 or 8. Cartoons are an ideal medium, imo. It sadden me a bit that we have so many dubbed cartoons these days (I don't think we have many local cartoons, so they're all foreign); that means all those kids that could have learned English automatically now won't. If they were subbed, the youngest ( being unable to read) would still pick up the language.
Being able to read subtitles myself, I find watching all that subbed anime really hasn't tought me much japanese yet. Oh, if only I'd had japanese cartoons when I was young; I'd be fluent by now.


Quote:
Here in Australia, English is a requirement all the way through school, and in most schools require students to learn a language in primary school or secondary school.
I am wondering whether it is the same overseas but for Englishs.
We had French, German and English classes the first few years in high school, and had to keep at least one of these languages in our curriculum until the end.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Mar 13th, 2008, 3:20am
For me, I learn English mainly from my friends. In our school days, we tend to converse using both Malay and English. Needless to say, it was filled with funny moments. ( I remembered once, when a friend of mine was asked by the teacher on how he spent his weekend. His reply was, "My uncle taught me how to fish." Everyone laughed, because it sounded to us like his uncle taught him to act like a fish. Although it's grammatically correct, it did not stop us from calling him fish. )

Personally, I find that reading is the best way to improve one's English. Since I'm an avid reader, to the point of being an addict, I find it easier than trying to consult a dictionary every now and then. Conversing, however, is another matter. I find Americans is the easiest to understand ( must be because of all the hollywood movies I've seen ), whereas Australians could be quite difficult to understand ( at first, it gets easier now )

towr, maybe the reason you're not fluent in Japanese yet because it is much harder to master than English ( to me anyway ). I'm an anime freak myself, but safe from a few common phrases, I'd be lost without the subtitles as well.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 13th, 2008, 3:35am

on 03/13/08 at 03:20:56, JiNbOtAk wrote:
towr, maybe the reason you're not fluent in Japanese yet because it is much harder to master than English ( to me anyway ). I'm an anime freak myself, but safe from a few common phrases, I'd be lost without the subtitles as well.
Well, if I were still in my prime language-acquisition years, that wouldn't matter. Japanese children have no more trouble mastering their language than English children have mastering English. It's the most natural thing in the world* to a child to learn a language, even a second or third.

The problem to learning it at an older age is that your brain isn't primed anymore for acquiring a new language, and so it takes a lot more effort. In addition, the lure of subtitles means I don't even really try to understand what is said; I just read what they mean, and only feel what they say (emotional cues, intonation etc).


*) aside from eating, sleeping and defecating
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Master of Everything 42 on Mar 13th, 2008, 6:04am
i grew up in Canada, so i speak normal English, but i once lived in Germany, so i picked up a few words there, but all i remember are the numbers 1-7

*spelt how they are sounded

ince, fye, dry, fear,fumph, zex zeben

and the French that has been forced upon me by my stubborn French teacher, the horse

and words from video games, like anon, from Lufia 2
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by ima1trkpny on Mar 13th, 2008, 8:12am

on 03/13/08 at 02:21:56, mikedagr8 wrote:
If so, was it enforced upon you?

"forced"?  :P


on 03/13/08 at 03:35:37, towr wrote:
The problem to learning it at an older age is that your brain isn't primed anymore for acquiring a new language, and so it takes a lot more effort. In addition, the lure of subtitles means I don't even really try to understand what is said; I just read what they mean, and only feel what they say (emotional cues, intonation etc).

Neat that you want to learn Japanese. From what I've seen the asian languages can be very difficult to pick up...


on 03/13/08 at 06:04:35, Master of Everything 42 wrote:
ince, fye, dry, fear,fumph, zex zeben

hehehe... yes, I know you spelt them phonetically... but it's eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, seben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwolf, etc  :P
(Second language german in my case... )
I don't know tons about other country's requirements, but here it is pretty much required to take another language (especially if you want to get into one of the universities, etc) Being from Cali, the most common language the students take is spanish, but mine offered french and german as well. Only down side is that we didn't actually start learning them until high school when, as towr already pointed out, it was harder to pick up on the language.
Are you trying to learn a language Mikey? If so, good luck and I sympathize... languages weren't my strong suit either. :-[ One thing I found helped a lot was to find someone to converse a lot with who was a native speaker so I got used to hearing the correct grammar. Just keep immersing yourself in the language as much as possible and when you find yourself starting to dream in the language you're on the right track LOL
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 13th, 2008, 8:52am

on 03/13/08 at 08:12:38, ima1trkpny wrote:
Neat that you want to learn Japanese.
Well, you shouldn't think too much of it; I'm not putting any effort into learning it at all. It's more wishing I could understand it than actively trying to pick it up.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Hippo on Mar 13th, 2008, 1:47pm
When my school age started my teacher told my parents that I am strong in math but with absolutely no talent for languages. We have to learn Russian in Czech in the 70s. I have learned English for 2 hours a week when I was 13 (non school courses). On high school we continued with both English and Russian and at university we stop both at the end of the first year (I am not sure with that). I was never tought more than 2 hours a week.

When I was in the third year at university there was "velvet revolution" here. My roommate started watching CNN for more than 10 hours a day as he planned to ask for a place at a university in the US (with success). I have planned family life instead. The CNN watching was a good lesson for understanding spoken (US) English. We were not prepared for dividing sentences into words problem.

Of course as I do cs math, I should sometimes read what other wrote (Knuth, Tarjan, Fredericson, Tamassia, Rauch-Henzinger, Thorup, ...).
I am sure my English will never be perfect, but the language will not be the main problem during my explanations :).

I have 2 doughters ... older is 8,5 now, younger 3,5.
The older attended English pre-school from 3 years, the younger from 2 years. The younger spends around 40 hours a week listenning and speaking English. The older did it, too.
Unfortunately as she is going to school, she speeks/listens English less than 5 hours a week, now. But I am sure she will never have problems to refresh the "knowledge".
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by mikedagr8 on Mar 13th, 2008, 11:09pm
LOL! I had to learn a second language since I was four up until last year. 12 years, and I still wasn't able to speak the language.

1trk: I was up late last night studying for my chemistry test and doing my maths, I didn't bother reading over my errors. It turns out I studied so hard, and the heat just killed me in the test, that I had a mental blank and made some errors. :'(  :-[

BTW English isn't my native tongue, gibberish is. Just I can't seem to be able to get a response when I speak, so I adopt English. ::)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 14th, 2008, 1:01am

on 03/13/08 at 23:09:49, mikedagr8 wrote:
LOL! I had to learn a second language since I was four up until last year. 12 years, and I still wasn't able to speak the language.
Since you were four? And they didn't manage to teach you to speak it?
I can hardly imagine what ill-founded teaching method they tried to use. Just speaking the language in a natural context around a four-year old should be enough to have him pick it up.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by mikedagr8 on Mar 14th, 2008, 1:09am

on 03/14/08 at 01:01:39, towr wrote:
Since you were four? And they didn't manage to teach you to speak it?
I can hardly imagine what ill-founded teaching method they tried to use. Just speaking the language in a natural context around a four-year old should be enough to have him pick it up.

I wasn't exactly wanting to learn it mind you, I was apprehensive. It's not like I don't understand anything, just, I'm not where I could and should be. I can pick up most things when spoken, but I can't speak or write well (in any language).
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by rmsgrey on Mar 14th, 2008, 10:05am

on 03/13/08 at 08:12:38, ima1trkpny wrote:
hehehe... yes, I know you spelt them phonetically... but it's eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, seben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwolf, etc  :P

*cough* sieben, if memory serves (and Babelfish agrees with me... and points out the missing umlauts on the vowels in funf and zwolf, which I had forgetten)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by ima1trkpny on Mar 14th, 2008, 12:32pm

on 03/14/08 at 10:05:49, rmsgrey wrote:
*cough* sieben, if memory serves (and Babelfish agrees with me... and points out the missing umlauts on the vowels in funf and zwolf, which I had forgetten)

typo... yes it is sieben. The umlauts I don't know how to do in this format... I assume if I wasn't so lazy I could probably just copy and paste from symbols but that would be too much like work.  ::)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Sir Col on Mar 14th, 2008, 2:08pm
Actually this forum doesn't let you make posts containing umlauts anyway (you get a bad request), so...

If you're typing German and the umlaut key is unavailable or unknown then you can always replace the "umlauted" vowel with the standard vowel followed by an "e". For example, fuenf = five and zwoelf = twelve. It might look a a little strange but try it out in Babel Fish:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Unfortunately you cannot ignore the umlaut as it can sometimes produce a completely different word: schon = already, but schoen = beautiful. On other occasions it can be the difference between singular and plural: tochter  = daughter, but toechter = daughters.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 14th, 2008, 2:59pm

on 03/14/08 at 14:08:00, Sir Col wrote:
Unfortunately you cannot ignore the umlaut as it can sometimes produce a completely different word: schon = already, but schoen = beautiful. On other occasions it can be the difference between singular and plural: tochter  = daughter, but toechter = daughters.
That's mostly a problem if you use the words out of context. If they're imbedded in sentences, it will usually be clear what is meant (albeit not always)
"Sie ist ein schones Madchen" vs "Sie ist schon eine Frau"
Well, even aside from the case (?) you can really only go one way with the meaning of schon in these sentences.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Sir Col on Mar 14th, 2008, 4:41pm
I am certainly no expert in the German language, but it is my understanding that whereas context is helpful in most cases, for someone beginning to learn the language it will only lead to bad habits if the umlaut is ignored.

If you didn't use an umlaut, compare, "Sie ist schon" with "Sie ist schoen".
What about "Ich habe die tochter geheiratet" versus "Ich habe die toechter geheiratet"?

Even more problematic... suppose I wanted to say, "I would like to marry the daughter."

I should write, "Ich moechte die Tochter heiraten."

However, missing the umlaut results in the slightly clumsy, but understandable: "Ich mochte die Tochter heiraten".
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 15th, 2008, 3:38pm

on 03/14/08 at 16:41:11, Sir Col wrote:
I am certainly no expert in the German language, but it is my understanding that whereas context is helpful in most cases, for someone beginning to learn the language it will only lead to bad habits if the umlaut is ignored.
I can't really make up my mind on the issue. On the one hand most written languages are rife with homographs anyway; on the other hand adding extra exceptions isn't doing a student any favours either.
Of course, at school I learn to write with umlauts; then on the internet I learned not to bother. Everyone understood me perfectly without, and it's too much work entirely to create umlauts (at least without also creating other nuisances.)


Quote:
If you didn't use an umlaut, compare, "Sie ist schon" with "Sie ist schoen".
Without further context I don't see what could be meant by "she is already"/"she already is".


Quote:
What about "Ich habe die tochter geheiratet" versus "Ich habe die toechter geheiratet"?
Bigamy is rather rare in Germany (and the west in general); so the latter case would be rare. If used in isolation it would need the umlaut to avoid the default assumption.
On the other hand if it's followed (or preceded) by a disambiguiting sentence it might not matter. If you add "Sie sind gans glucklich.", than the daughters must have been plural. Of course, it might necessitate the reader to backtrack; which isn't a nice thing to do as a writer.


Quote:
Even more problematic... suppose I wanted to say, "I would like to marry the daughter."

I should write, "Ich moechte die Tochter heiraten."

However, missing the umlaut results in the slightly clumsy, but understandable: "Ich mochte die Tochter heiraten".
Hmm, does "mochte" have any meaning without the umlaut? I can't quite see the problem. Although in a formal written proposal, I suppose it's best to be as correct as possible.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Eigenray on Mar 15th, 2008, 4:58pm
Distinguishing homographs and homophones in context isn't hard, but it's interesting that most of the time, the brain seems to do it without any conscious thought.  For example, if you (or a native English speaker, at least) hear me say "well, you just know what I mean," it wouldn't even occur to you that I might be talking about holes, sheep, fairness, negation, vision, or cruelty.  Your brain knows there's only one grammatical interpretation, and rejects the other 63 (at least) without even telling you.  Bad grammar is frustrating because it requires thought to parse.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Sir Col on Mar 15th, 2008, 5:38pm

on 03/15/08 at 15:38:57, towr wrote:
Without further context I don't see what could be meant by "she is already"/"she already is".

It is unlikely that this sentence would appear in isolation, but there's quite a difference between "Sie is schoen" = "She is beautiful" (with umlaut) and "Sie is schon" = "She already is" (without umlaut).


Quote:
Hmm, does "mochte" have any meaning without the umlaut?

moechte/mochte are the present subjunctive/imperfect first person forms respectively of the verb moegen (to like):
Ich mag = I like
Ich moechte = I would like
Ich mochte = I liked
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Mar 16th, 2008, 8:09am

on 03/15/08 at 17:38:09, Sir Col wrote:
It is unlikely that this sentence would appear in isolation, but there's quite a difference between "Sie is schoen" = "She is beautiful" (with umlaut) and "Sie is schon" = "She already is" (without umlaut).
I'm not disputing that there's quite a difference there; I'm disputing it's much a problem. Especially considering all the homographs in english and the total disregard for linking pronunciation to spelling. For example 'read' (present tense) vs 'read' (past tense); 'breath' (verb) vs 'breath' (noun).
I don't see why it can work for English but wouldn't work for German. Not having to write umlauts is worth the extra ambiguity; not to mention ambiguity is great for wordplay.


Quote:
moechte/mochte are the present/past first person subjunctive forms respectively of the verb moegen (to like):
Ich mag = I like
Ich moechte = I would like
Ich mochte = I (might have) liked
Well, ok, aside from that you can't distinguish 'mochte' from 'moechte', since they're so close. (Then again, it's very similar to the problem with 'read').
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Ghost Sniper on Mar 18th, 2008, 7:51am
I actually lived in China till I was 7, so when I moved to Canada, I had to learn English from the ABC's. It was harder for my parents, who took English classes in China, to learn English than me.  :P
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Master of Everything 42 on Apr 3rd, 2008, 1:38pm
Do you know i site where i could learn German, because my father lives there and it would b great to be able to talk to the people there.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by ssa on May 4th, 2008, 11:29am
Cartoon Network and games.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by jakelittle on Mar 17th, 2010, 5:41pm
The best way to learn English (or any language) is to associate with others.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Stormchaser on Apr 9th, 2010, 4:25am
I've basically studied at school. But in fact I was able to learn it when I went to the US.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by malchar on Apr 9th, 2010, 7:15pm
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.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by towr on Apr 10th, 2010, 4:13am
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.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Grimbal on Apr 16th, 2010, 12:10pm
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.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by ThudanBlunder on Apr 16th, 2010, 2:04pm

on 04/16/10 at 12:10:18, 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.

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
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Noke Lieu on Apr 20th, 2010, 11:37pm

on 04/16/10 at 14:04:49, 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



I'm not sure I agree with that...
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by LukeSchool on Jun 17th, 2010, 10:10am
English speaking and currently learning asian languages such as japanese.  kinda hard but trying to learn all those syllabic phrases.   8)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Quasar on Aug 9th, 2011, 2:00pm
I start learning english in school and I improve it alot since using the internet.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by khuram4u on Oct 27th, 2011, 3:47pm
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
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by beingblogger on Jan 5th, 2012, 4:06am
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.
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by kalispero on Jan 7th, 2012, 10:34am
it seems natural in these days, 21st century to speak some other languages than domestic
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by martincroe on Feb 13th, 2012, 2:34am
we have to learn English through daily read English news paper and read articles....
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by frankrizal on Feb 21st, 2012, 6:56pm
English is the universal language.. So it's important that we learn how to speak with it..  :)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Ela on Jul 18th, 2012, 10:39pm
Tip: take 4 long weekends with tons of
old american classics. you'll speak english
better then the queen of England. ;D
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by Googlebot on Sep 9th, 2012, 2:10pm
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  8)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by cartoonle on Dec 1st, 2012, 11:45am
From TV, at school and from internet :)
Title: Re: English speaking?
Post by rathodh61 on Jan 11th, 2013, 7:52am
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.  ;D


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