Question for our non-native English speakers

Such as Thickshawty, and my friend DI for that matter.

HOW IN THE WORLD do you master such good English while living in your country? Is it all the internet? When I lived in Russia, all I could say was "Hello, my name is _______." When I came here, it took me a good year to begin understanding anything, and two-three years to become more or less fluent. The fact that I'm weird and liked to read old Catholic books as a teenager, helped me get a high score on my verbal SAT.

So, I'm dying to know. How do you do it?

 

Agreed.

I wish my Russian and Spanish was as good as their English.

 

Great point, Mosk.
I'm attempting to learn German....albeit with less dedication and fervor than I would like....
Ladies/men: Is it a conscious effort, or do your think you are naturally gifted at acquiring languages? Is immersion the best way and how do you achieve this without being "immersed" in another language?

It would be wonderful to be one of those people that just absorbs languages with ease.

 

I guess everyone learned at least one foreign language in school.For me it was english and french. And english is so easy to learn compared to other languages, I can't master french that well. I also know a bit of italian but that's just because it's somewhat similar to spanish. And I also know romanian, cause I lived there for a while when I was a kid and the language it's so close to italian and spanish.
I don't understand how there can be some ppl who can't even speak 1 foreign language:smt102

 

Really?

Come to the U.S.

You'd be suprised.

 

So what exactly do you learn in school?
Maybe it's just me but I think any civilized person should know at least one foreign language.

 

I guess you could say we're a bunch of uncivilized people.

It is almost a requirement for many students in the U.S. to take at least one foreign language class but whether or not they actually learn and retain the information is a whole different story.

 

English, or Spanish required for damn near every high school. Some schools have German. My high school had a German club, but not an actual class.

 

I took French in grade school. Spanish and German in high school and college.

I can really only converse is Spanish at this point and that is because my best friend is Venezuelan and her parents can only carry on a conversation in Spanish.

Not being able to use the languages you've learned daily really hurts on keeping up. I think if I was on a website where people were using slang and such I would have a hard time. I have to applaud Mosk, Di, TS, amazonka and police for being so awesome in their posts.

 

Me too. I always tell Dinara that i wish i could speak Russian half as good as she speaks english. The only thing about english that she still struggles with sometimes, is being able to decipher "meanings" of words. She'll know a word in Russian, but she won't know the identical word in english, so she always keeps a dictionary handy. I think in time, she'll be able to leave home without it.

Mosk, i'm not sure if she'll be able to answer for herself before she leaves to Ekaterinberg tomorrow to get her visa, but she'll be back on friday, and can hopefully answer then.

 

True. I had to take Spanish in high school, but i flunked miserably lol. I just couldn't retain the information, and put full sentences together. I wanna learn how to speak Russian for when i go back one day, but it's a difficult language to learn from what i hear. I think i'll try Rosetta Stone and see if that helps.

 

Supposedly that program works well.

Maybe I should look into it.

 

Yeah, i've heard such good things about it. Which language are you trying to learn L.A?

 

Atlhough Spanish would be the most useful language for me to learn, I never had a desire to learn it.

I'd like to learn French.

 

I heard that too about Rosetta Stone. It's kind of expensive but I noticed our library had it for checkout.

 

I took French in the 7 grade. But I can't carry a conversation with someone in French

 

Police. I think this is really a very easy thing to understand.
It's about necessity. If you don't need to learn another language, and you aren't fully committed, then it's very hard.

Of course, in Europe, you almost have to learn another language.
In Australia - who would I speak to? Everyone speaks English and if they don't, then it's their problem.

I learnt Mandarin, Japanese and a tiny tiny bit of French at school. I could, perhaps, pick up a little Japanese but nothing of the others.

I think this is the biggest failing of Australian Education - that we are not made to learn a foreign language to a conversational level.

 

Pretty fluent in French, hear it better than I speak it, can get by on my own in Paris or Montreal. My wife is Canadian and fluent in French, she speaks mostly French with our kids.

 

I speak spanish but have a very difficult time with french. I think it is because of their similarities.

 

yea i give props to TS and others who read/write/speak language good and propa and stuff