Non-native English speakers... what about our English?

by **stevyy** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:55 pm

jpguy wrote:Another thing, I CAN'T READ AN ENGLISH BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY AT ALL...
I tried 2 or 3 times to read a book, and it was so difficult... the grammar, the vocabulary was so hard and bast that I always found myself looking for 2, 3 word per page... Harry Potte, Water for Elephants, it was absolutely impossible to me, I had to sell the book to someone cause I just couldn't... specially when I was at the bus trying to read it, it was so hard for me to just skip the word , it's not convenient, what if I'm missing an important point in the plot...

my french teacher at university used to say that when you watch television in the language you want to learn, that you will automatically raise your level of speaking.. the words will come from alone.. the more time you invest to learn a foreign language the faster you will get where you want to be with it.

by **jio** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:58 pm

Anyway I am taking up Turkish next year. I guess it would be interesting to see how that will turn out lol.

by **Crazy4Brit** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:36 pm

I've read quite few novels in English such as Robinson Crusoe, the secret garden, Gulliver's travels, little women, some Shakespears' plays and Lord Byorn's poems (which i love!)

by **AlexZ** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:41 pm

I don't like this thread.

by **jio** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:42 pm

AlexZ wrote:I don't like this thread.

We still like you though

Website · by **Cactuar** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:49 pm

This is rather odd, I don't remember ever learning English. :lol:

Which brings me to another question, does anybody here ever remember actually learning their native language?

I guess I'm a native speaker but I was raised in Malaysia and we have our own version of English sometimes called Manglish (which I'm pretty sure is "mangled English" shortened). But jpguy, your English is amazing for someone who doesn't speak it at home, I'm really envious! I took up Japanese several years ago but it's not as easy as it looked... :-?

All of you guys who aren't even English speakers posting in this forum, I think you're all pretty amazing.

I would never post in any non-English forum no matter how much I love the topic.

by **fran_** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:50 pm

I would have never known you guys didn't know how to speak english well.

by **Crazy4Brit** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:55 pm

fran_ wrote::o I would have never known you guys didn't know how to speak english well.

I have a pretty good pronunciation, but there are things you can only learn in English speaking countries!

by **ANH** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:55 pm

I tried reading a Spanish book once. I couldn't read it either.
LI actually went to school for a year in Mexico City, and it was the most awkward thing.
We had to study different subject as practice for some uni exam.
I excelled in Math and history, etc..... The hardest parts were Spanish.
I looked the part, but my accent was horrible. Half of the time, I didn't know what I was reading (when reading out loud), etc....The worst was when the teacher would poke fun at my reading skills. I'm not sure if he knew I was a foreigner (although, it was pretty clear I wasn't from there) or if he thought I was just stupid.
Just a complete and total stress-feat. I would dread entering the stupid classroom.

I didn't do too bad on the test.
I didn't pass, but only by 20 points!
(110 max points. I needed only 90 to enter. I got 70).

by **Crazy4Brit** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:58 pm

JimJim wrote:
This seems like the perfect opportunity to once again post this classic youtube video...

The Italian Man Who Went to Malta

I'm not like that fortunately! :lol:

by **stevyy** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:04 pm

Crazy4Brit wrote:
JimJim wrote:
This seems like the perfect opportunity to once again post this classic youtube video...

The Italian Man Who Went to Malta
I'm not like that fortunately!

lol, i think in real life english speakers are more empathetic to the pronunciation problems of foreigners.

by **jpguy** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 5:52 pm

ANH wrote:I tried reading a Spanish book once. I couldn't read it either.
LI actually went to school for a year in Mexico City, and it was the most awkward thing.
We had to study different subject as practice for some uni exam.
I excelled in Math and history, etc..... The hardest parts were Spanish.
I looked the part, but my accent was horrible. Half of the time, I didn't know what I was reading (when reading out loud), etc....The worst was when the teacher would poke fun at my reading skills. I'm not sure if he knew I was a foreigner (although, it was pretty clear I wasn't from there) or if he thought I was just stupid.
Just a complete and total stress-feat. I would dread entering the stupid classroom.

I didn't do too bad on the test.
I didn't pass, but only by 20 points!
(110 max points. I needed only 90 to enter. I got 70).

so you English is your primary languate and you went into a school with spanish speakers only? that;s weird (if that is the case) , may you correct me... spanish is really difficult indeed, extremely hard when it comes to verbs but is really beautiful as well

by **ANH** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:11 pm

Yeah, but they only offered classes in Spanish. So, I was screwed.

by **jpguy** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 7:18 pm

Did you even pass that year? Or you skipped and called it quits? I would find it really weird if I was lost in translation at school... lol :S

by **YesMC** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:07 pm

English is not my first language and everyday I learn something here. Thank You guys.

by **Timmy94** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:23 pm

English is my 2nd language and I learn it for 8 years now (school).
I think it's one of the easiest languages to learn as there's e.g. no conjugation (except from "be") and no female/male/neuter words like in other languages (in Germany, a chair is male while a school is female, in English it's always "a" or "the" which makes it very easy).
In contrast to German, English also hasn't capitalization (only the start of record and proper names are written in capitals) and in contrast to French (my 3rd language), there are no accents.

I'm also going to take English major next grade, which is not the easy English (vocabulary, grammar and short stories) anymore but also reading novels and writing essays.

Of course I don't know every word and need to look some words up but I think English is fun and today it's important to speak many languages to discuss with other people all around the world (globalisation).

I somehow noticed that in the USA / Great-Britain and in France, the native language is very important and that many people (not all!) are lazy with speaking other languages.
In Germany, it's compulsory to have at least English in school (and in grammar school at least 2 foreign languages) and than you really can speak it.
I used to have an exchange with a French guy 2 years ago and his English/German was so bad for learning the languages already for several years.
It seems like in other countries, it's enough to speak just one language and in Germany, the motto is "the more the better

".

by **nekoo3372** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:29 pm

AlexZ wrote:I don't like this thread.

there is no reason to not like this, it´s actually a right place to post when you are not sure about your english and where people understand that you are not native speaker.

by **jonasmileynlt** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:43 pm

I'm very impressed with the non-native English speakers on this forum! Most of the time I can't even tell that English isn't your first language!

I'm curious, how many years of English you all have taken in school... Also does/did you school have an English immersion program (where classes were taught only in English)?

I took 5 years of Spanish but am already starting to forget it.

by **nekoo3372** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:50 pm

jonasmileynlt wrote:I'm curious, how many years of English you all have taken in school... Also does/did you school have an English immersion program (where classes were taught only in English)?

1) this is my 13th year, but I was learning like 8 years .. then I was just sitting in class and listening other people learning

the same is now, I re-joined the school again and teacher told "why ae you here in this lesson" and I just said "cause then you would have only 2 students and I am trying to support my friend"

2) when you have a foreign school here, then you have all classes taught only in english. But most of the time the school have only "english lesson". I am talking about basic and secondary schools only.

by **Crazy4Brit** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:58 pm

jonasmileynlt wrote:I'm very impressed with the non-native English speakers on this forum! Most of the time I can't even tell that English isn't your first language!

I'm curious, how many years of English you all have taken in school... Also does/did you school have an English immersion program (where classes were taught only in English)?

We are exceptions: don't think that everyone who studies English at school can speak/write it like the non English speaking members of this forum. We are music-addicted so we have always been into English language. The non-native English speakers students you see here are probably the best of their classes/courses in English.

For example it's so easy for me to take reeaaally high marks in English (subject) at school as all my classmates know it just to comunicate, not even to discuss properly with someone else in English.

by **Crazy4Brit** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:00 pm

Timmy94 wrote: in Germany, the motto is "the more the better ".

"Melius abundare quam Deficere" it's an old latin phrase!

by **ThomyX** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:05 pm

jonasmileynlt wrote:I'm curious, how many years of English you all have taken in school... Also does/did you school have an English immersion program (where classes were taught only in English)?

I've been learning English for 10 years now, with 2 or 3 lessons a week. I'm still not impressed with my skills, though!

by **Crazy4Brit** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:07 pm

I've been studying English for 9 years, 3 hours per week.

by **jonasmileynlt** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:16 pm

@nekoo3372
I see. You're from the Czech Republic right?

@Crazy4Brit
Without a doubt, many of you all are top students in your English classes!

Still, I'm guessing foreign language classes are much better in your public schools than they are here in the U.S. Foreign language is still not high on our priority list and it's quite sad. In my Spanish class, half the time we just cooked Latin American food or made arts and crafts :lol:

. The rest of the time the teacher tried to teach some grammar but none of the students could ever understand it. Last year I took a challenging course by myself where I read tons of Spanish literature (Don Quixote, Dos Palabras, La Muerte y La Brujula, etc.) and I felt like I was finally studying hard.

@ThomyX
Wow 10 years!! From what I've seen you write very well! Don't be so hard on yourself.

by **ThomyX** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:36 pm

jonasmileynlt wrote:@ThomyX
Wow 10 years!! From what I've seen you write very well! Don't be so hard on yourself.

Thank you! Well, my problem is that I've had some very bad teachers (the current one is good, though), that put the most effort into teaching words and vocabulary, but totally overlooked grammar. So basically, I've been using incorrect grammar for years and it was only two years ago when my class got a new teacher, who finally helped (and still helps) us realise what we've learned incorrectly and teaches us how to use those properly. I find it quite hard to get used to these 'new' rules after all those years, though.