Jun 2021
36 / 83
Jun 2021
Jun 2021
Crimson_B
Jun '21
noenoh

As someone whose mother tongue is English, I think you're really good at it. As a child, I always used to try and pronounce the words on my own without ever finding out if the pronunciation was correct, which led to me being an adult who mispronounces some words :disappointed_relieved: it is quite difficult to unlearn. However, can I ask you how you managed to learn so many languages? I'm genuinely astounded and curious because my brain is like a sieve most of the time so I find it difficult to learn a different language.

Kura
Jun '21

Broken ass English is my first language because my parent both didn't know English well when I was a kid, but expected me to just... magically learn it at school??? Where they would teach in both English and French??? (I didn't realize I was going back and forth from French and English words for a long time) Also they wouldn't talk to me at home in their language only in their broken ass English because they didn't want me learning their language because 'if you speak something else you get picked on or shot' but would talk to everyone else in their language so no mater where I was I could never keep up with the conversations. (I still have a lot of trouble keeping up)

I'm terrible at all my languages I should know 3, technically 4. 2 from my parents, they are both immigrants from different countries, and 2 from the country, since the country I'm in has 2 official languages but honestly no one could be bother to learn French past it being mandatory in school if they're not in a French province.

Llyrel
Jun '21
1
Scarlet_Cryptid

Well, learning the basics in school wasn't much of a nightmare: English is a compulsory subject here, so I've been studying it since I was, like... 9? :sweat_smile: The grammar was never -that- difficult to me... but then again, my native language is Italian, we have verbs with suffixes that change with each pronoun, we have a ridiculous amount of articles and we randomly assign genders to inanimate objects, so I guess my perspective on what's meant to be difficult is kinda skewed :joy::joy::joy:

What WAS difficult, though, was learning stuff like slang and chatspeak. I found that the best way to learn quickly was to spend time on forums and chatting with other native speakers... however, not everyone I talked to seemed to be aware that slang terms, abbreviations, acronyms and chatspeak can be VERY difficult to understand for a non-native speaker. I wasn't aware of the existence of Urban Dictionary back then, so when I saw people saying stuff like "LMAO", "ROTFL", "BRB", "wut" and so on and so forth I used to get extremely confused XD false friends were also another can of worms of their own. Even to this day, there are sentences I know how to use in an English-speaking context... but have absolutely NO IDEA how to translate in Italian :'D

Pronunciation was/is also incredibly hard and one of the things I'm still very self-conscious about. The fun thing is that, despite the fact that my entire school career was focused on learning British English, I have a much easier time understanding American English. Though I guess Youtube, videogames and in part movies are to blame for that :'D

noenoh
Jun '21
Crimson_B

:blusht: Im not fluent, I only understand them and be on survival mode if in overseas...

Summary

First of all, Im old af, so Ive some had time for it xD

Since I speak Spanish(and I LOVE IT), a romance language, it share many roots with other romance ones so it makes easier to understand and remember (cheat!). Spanish also have a lot of unaltered Latin and greek words (cheat! cheat!!) the grammar is similar too so you jsut need to focus on the conjugations. (Plus I had some books in italian and french I tried to understand on my own when I was a kid and there were also lots of portuguese influence with the brazilian soap operas and their super nice songs my mom used to watch hahaha I love you Roberto Carlos lolololol about that, many artists used to sing their won hits in various languages so its a common thing for latinx people to share our roots).
With japanese, I should thanks my weabo side, and I learned it from a japanese native teacher (basic level) so I can survive in Japan (also the vowels and consonants have the same pronounciation as in Spanish lol)
For Armenian, Im just recently studying it for my story purposes, so I have a reason/passion to do it. Sadly I havent found much time to do it if Im trying to keep English practice as well oTL and their scripture system is something I need to give proper time. I want to reach at least a survival level on it.
For English... as I said, its mostly because its the forced karenish language to use and I need it for work irl too and currently for my story since Im aiming to be seen more than only for Spanish readers. So its out of a necessity...

I think you can learn almost any language that is related to your native one or one taht shares similar pronounciations. Ive heard for English language native speaker Chinese its easier to learn (spoken)

I feel you on that!! ToT it happens with English for me. Public schools didnt have the best english teachers back in my time (since we were just being freed of the communist system when I was in highscool and they hated anything that was related to USA so the teachers werent properly trained so most of us were self taught) so it wasnt until we had access to internet we could get more exposure to media in the original language than just dubbed/translated one.
If you ever try to learn Spanish, dont worry if you mispronounce some words, we will understand you and help you if needed. We know the conjugations and gendered words are difficult for more a lot of foreigners.
Keep curious and dont be afraid to fail. Natives loves when people who tries to learn their language.
Thats the real communication/understanding between humans the wish to understand each other.

vothnthorvaldson
Jun '21

3d in order of learning
2d best (or less bad) in term of skills
1st in term of use. At this point, I can't speak properly my birth language, and my English is still very approximative, so I factually don't have a good language anymore :sweat_smile:

sorible
Jun '21

Korean is my first language and so when we moved states and I went to school, I learned English from books, games, other people, etc. It was a lot easier for me to pick it up because I was younger. Even living in America for so long, I still mispronounce words like "pomegranate" and "latte".

Sometimes I go back into my korean accent again without realizing it which sometimes makes others(strangers) think I'm bad at English. I remember giving a presentation in an online class and I'm pretty sure everyone was super confused.

NickRowler
Jun '21

My first language is English but I have dyslexia, so I am not the best at it.

I do also know some Japanese and German but not enough to hold a conversation.

GGOkumura
Jun '21

English is my second language. Spanish is my primary language.

Crusoe
Jun '21

Nope, it's my second, my first is my native language Dutch!

GGY
Jun '21

Languages with me have always been an uphill battle. English is my first language and the only language I can speak well. I learned Spanish in uni but have forgotten most of it XD

I can read and write French and a bit of hiragana but I can't speak Japanese and I can't speak French for the life of me and I grew up learning French for most of my life XD

I also have Ghaninan parents who speak Twi fluently and I can only understand it lol. I'm much better at understanding languages than speaking them myself cause I grew up in such a diverse place : )

maseba
Jun '21

No, in fact my level of English is low, but even so, I speak two maternal languages: Spanish and Catalan.

starless
Jun '21

My first language is Korean and English is my second one. I went to a college in the USA. I don't speak Chinese and Japanese though I can read and write a bit of them since I learned Chinese alphabets when I was a kid.

Ninjaniksel
Jun '21

No, my first language is Dutch. I've been mostly self-taught in English until I was 11 and learned it in school but never consumed much English media online until a few years ago. I've only been writing in English for about a year and a half now.

Caro
Jun '21

English was my second language. Spanish is my first, French is my 3rd but i’m only comfy reading so I’m not 100% fluent. And I’ve been learning Japanese for the past year n a half.

Iris-Grimoire
Jun '21

Nope, my first language is (Brazilian) Portuguese! I'm very fluent in english though, because I used the internet as my socialization space during school, and the more I learned there the more I could understand my friends. Now, if I could direct that drive into spanish...

Kaydreamer
Jun '21

English is my first language. I don't have a second, which is pretty common among English speakers, especially in Australia where you don't share borders with any non-English speaking countries. It's a shame, because knowing more than one language has enormous mental benefits, but it's really hard to learn when you don't have the opportunity to immerse yourself.

I'd love to live in a non-English speaking country for a couple of years, so I could pick up another language. I always fancied the idea of Japan, since I know a tiny bit, and Japanese is quite easy to learn. But I never got around to it, and I'm no longer in a stage of my life where it's particularly realistic. Maybe it's something I could do much later on, though!

Scarlet_Cryptid
Jun '21

THIS. The closest I ever came to immersion learning was the semester I spent in Italy in 2004. (I was an art major studying Renaissance and Medieval art history. Absolute score of a semester.) They taught us Italian in the classroom, and we had to use it on the streets in the town we were living in. I still remember a handful of phrases and words that got a lot of use. By the time we left, after being there almost four months, I was on the cusp of being somewhat conversational. I think if I'd been there another month, it would have clicked.

And then I came home to America, and knew absolutely zero people who spoke Italian, other than my college roommate (who was on the same trip), and she wasn't fluent either. And, like, why would we talk to each other in our limited Italian when we were both native English speakers? So yeah... it's been around 17 years since then. I know fragments of it are still in my head, but to say I'm rusty would be a gross understatement.