How did you learn to speak English?

[el_fury]

English is my first language, but when I was trying to keep up with my Japanese, getting pen pals was helpful! Ideally, find someone who is trying to learn your language too, so you can both correct each other and improve.

Also, props to all of you for learning this insane language.

[koopaconan]

I've studied some English in school. And then, the pop culture, the Internet and my personal interests makes the rest!

And I'm from Spain, and here we dub everything. I literally can't remember ANYTHING -movie, tv show, whatever...- without the dub. I really envy those countries with the no-dub tradition: They're better to start learning the language since childhood.

Fun fact: I've got a degree in computer science (basically I'm a tech guy) and since I rarelly use english in "casual conversations", my "tech english" is much better than my "casual english".

Also, sometimes I made some stupid grammar mistakes, but people usually tell me that I'm good enough to express myself properly xD

[SethJH]

American English is also my first language (having a class on it every year while in school). Interestingly enough, where I live, many American English news anchors and reporters come here for speech training because it is considered the "Standard Accent".

However, I'm trying to learn French, German, and Russian. I recently downloaded an app called Duolingo which has been really helpful in teaching me the basics of French. I've been studying Russian the longest, but finding good free educational materials seems to be hard and I don't know anybody personally who speaks it natively. I can only pronounce the alphabet and I have a very basic vocabulary. That is a disappointing thing about living in the midwestern US-- everybody is encouraged to speak only English and therefore you don't get any exposure to different ways of speaking.

[blop]

Haha here in France everything is dubbed too on TV, hopefully I live in Paris where most of the theaters have subtitled movies and not dubbed, but outside of Paris it's harder to find.

[APM]

My native language is Portuguese (Brazilian)

When I was a child, my English was horrible (my English test too). My parents put me in a English learning school, and I studied there for 3 years. Plus I started exploring computers since I was 4, started to listen to music in english 12 hours per day and playing american video games since I was 13. I'm not fluent, but now I can talk english freely, and I can't stop listening to music... XD

Now I'm studying Japanese... (learning kanji is hard >.<)

[mg78]

reading manga online and playing multyplayers lol
it was the late 99 beginning of 2000, in less than a month i did better than 6 years of eng @ school

[CelestialNavigator]

Russian here!

Well, I'm studying English since I was three. Started with a group for pre-schoolers, then in school I had a deepened course and later I started to, you know, talk to English-speaking people online + movies, music and book in English because some interesting stuff is hard to find in Russian.

So...I speak pretty much fluently...I guess?

[VermillionWorks]

I learned English by crawling around the floor as a baby and listening to my English-speaking parents, school helped a bit too. I also learned all of my swear words from my older sisters and television.

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Sorry, that was dumb. Carry on. XP

[Menbung]

The power of videogames is so strong, that combined with songs and reading books or articles that I liked were my main choices. Aside from basic mandatory lessons in school (they're not really helpful tho)...

But the most important thing was my motivation to learn, I wanted to speak english, to understand what those characters on screen were saying, so it's not that I bought books to teach me, I just read, played and listened to things I loved in english, that way I learned without even noticing it.

Also watching movies/series without subs is really good, I mean, training your ear is very important and also fun. Accents are everywhere.

[efdvorsky]

I was a mix of cartoons and speaking to my grandfather. I'm Puerto Rican, but my grandfather from my mother's side is a Slovakian immigrant from New York City (back in the 1930's). He met my grandmother (who is Puerto Rican) there and they moved to the island.

So my mother comes from an English-speaking household and since she raised me more than my Spanish-speaking family, I was just in constant exposure to it. I sometimes get both mixed up and speak a lot of Spanglish, though...

[YamamotoRyuunosuke]

I had a lot of british friends when I was in Spain so I kinda learnt it by osmosis lol.
I don't really know how I learnt it, I was with my english speaking friends and I absorbed it, I never actually studied it.
Then I moved to to England 2 years ago. I started studying a bit of proper grammar, wasn't that hard.

I think english is the easiest language to learn(That's why everybody in the world studies english). The actually hard part to master is to understand what other people is trying to say when you talk in real life.

[koopaconan]

The actually hard part to master is to understand what other people is trying to say when you talk in real life.

Totally agree.

So, to improve that, I've just started to listen some English podcasts (it's kinda funny, cause I'm usually walking down the street with the mp3 player in one hand and continuously rewinding the "tricky" parts or the ones that I didn't hear properly).

[WarkDatch]

only little to be honest

[scythe]

I'm Australian, so English is my mother tongue, but the good thing about it is, I also know American and British through movies, TV and books. Yeah, I know they're just dialects and not languages in and of themselves, but it's still a cool thing, especially when you realise that lots of Americans have no idea about Australian English. There are literally thousands of words, sayings and idioms unique to my homeland that you can only really learn by living here, whereas I've learned a plethora of Americanisms and Britishisms throughout my life simply through media exposure.

Example, take this:

One arvo, me and my mate planned to hit the turps, and were about to crack open our first tinnie, when we realised the fridge had carked it, so, still keen to knock a few back, we jumped in the ute and headed to bottle-o for some more amber fluid. Unfortunately, my place is out in woop woop, so this took yonks, especially when we had to chuck a u-e after the fruit loop forgot the way. We got there in the end though, and coz I know the sheila who works there, we even got mate's rates and an esky chucked in for free. It was a deadset ripper!

No one actually talks like that, but it's still perfectly understood by any Aussie. How'd y'all go?

[Airgita]

I lived in Australia for a few years when I was little and I spoke virtually no english when we moved. If you ever want a challenge, try picking up a new language in a place where they talk in thick accents. My mum was so frustrated that she didn't understand anything anyone was saying for the first few weeks we were there and she spoke perfect english!

And I'm so relieved I'm not the only one who suffers from the "seen the word many times but can't pronounce it" problem. I pronounced melancholy mellon-cho-lee until my sister finally corrected me. She reads good, you see.

[Airgita]

I was so shocked that nobody knew what yonks or ute were. Fair dinkum, they're basic words!

[scythe]

Bloody oath they are! I have a pretty standard Aussie accent, not at all broad like Paul Hogan or Steve Irwin.

When my partner moved here she had real trouble with the accent. Fair enough too, English was her third or fourth language. Now she's dinki di

I'll never forget her face when one of my mates with a really thick accent drawled out at her, "Sowareaboutsyafrom?"

[ratique]

My basics I picked up in school, although English has always been by far my worst subject. I hate learning languages in a school system, Math and Physics were much more my thing. When I was nearly done with school, I was barely able to use basic English, I doubt I would have survived anywhere outside Germany.

Then I happened to run into a US soldier. I learned a lot from him. After we married and he went on deployments to Afghanistan, I played way too much World of Warcraft. My guild was on an American server, and I enjoyed chatting and skyping with them a lot.

So... I learned English from gamers and soldiers. Needless to say, I find it hard not to curse constantly.

[scythe]

Funny, I learned German online in a similar setting. Then I met and partnered up with a half-German. Problem is, she's half French too, and 12 years later, I'm still completely piss-poor at French. Now we have a half-French kid, this is proving to be an issue I'm going to have to rectify.

[ratique]

If you are piss-poor, that means that you know at least all the curse words and how to order some random dish/drink. And let's be honest, that is all one needs in this world ; )