Out of Pod Experience

in high school my options for languages were spanish, french and german. i've never really been interested in spanish...even though it is the most useful second language in the states. so i took french one year then dropped it. i hated the teacher. total *****. i switched to german for the rest of my time in high school.

i found german to be fairly difficult. i was shocked to find out that as a high school senior i was learning like 2nd grade german...and having a hard time with it at that. lol

Im from Norway and got..well..a 2 (highest is 6) in every english class i had at school. Wanted to learn german but was not allowed to take the class because of my bad grades in english

I first had to actually learn english when i started to play EVE, before that i had no need for it at all really.
My mother still can not speak, read or understand english (something my husband is secretly pleased with since it means he dont have to talk to her ).

French occupied a similar position in the medieval through early modern eras in Europe as English occupies in the world today.

I really don't know why anybody should feel ashamed that their language became paramount internationally. When France was the 3rd largest nation in the world by population and they didn't have to speak anyone else's languages, I'm sure the last thing they felt was shame.

I didn't take any languages in high school, but my university in the US required two years of a foreign language for my political science degree, and I studied German.

In the US, some high schools require foreign language study (of which most offer Spanish), some don't. Some universities don't require foreign language, and if they do it's usually only for liberal arts majors or, for example, you're a French studies major.

I don't really think the lack of knowledge of foreign language among Americans is a big deal - we're surrounded by two oceans, and have a Spanish-speaking nation to our south, and 7 million French speakers (equivalent to 2% of our population) to our north. It's not really the same as like Belgium or India, where you're maybe 50 miles at most from speakers of another language.

Our language is the most commonly spoken second language in the world, so it's less of a necessity to learn others. Unless you guilt trip or feel shame about it.

Well i will admit that my english appears better here on the forums then other times since it will show me when i spell something wrong, and google is a HUGE help to find the correct spelling
And i know i will most likely never loose my accent, but i have been told more then once that its nice to listen to so guess i should be happy about that.

Now i just have to learn the proper grammar

But thank you, i have been trying very hard to improve my english

I'll lose my regional accent and dialect when i talk on TS, because it's difficult even for other native speakers to understand if they're not from my area.

I almost speak BBC english on TS.

Also yes, grammar looks fine to me. It's usually a telltale sign of a non native speaker though, getting word order wrong. But I barely even notice it anymore, I speak to so many non native speakers

I assume people think that if they speak slowly, loudly and clearly it will all click, like speaking to a 4 year old using more than 3 syllable words. Its basically people panicking.

I can understand slowing down a bit...but some i have talked to really really slows down to the point were i feel like im about to fall asleep before they are done asking "How are you".
One thing i have a LOT of issues with is scottish. Some scottish accents are not to bad but others.. i sit there and try and guess when im supposed to say "aww" or "thats great or laugh based purely on their tone since i can not understand a word of what they are saying

Heh.

My mother tongue it's catalonian, which albeit offically recognized, it's not the State language.
Then i also speak Spanish, which is almost impossible to NOT learn even if it wasn't being taught at school.

I read and specially write Spanish better than Catalonian, as my parents never had a chance to learn to write Catalonian properly nor have an habit of reading Catalonian. I was taught Catalonian in school (right before the school system changed dramtically in favor of Catalonian) and i guess my Catalan vocabulary is smaller than my Spanish one, as i've read Spanish in a 50:1 ratio versus Catalan.

In general terms, i am bilingual, as i learned both Catalonian and Spanish simultaneously and unconsciously. English is a language I learned as a foreign one, and then practiced it a lot, specially with the Internet.

One of the tricky things with languages, it's that words shape the world. What does have a name and what doesn't, it's something that builds a way to see and think the world.

FAI, if your parents die, you're orphan, but there's no name for the parents who lost their children. Why?

We think the wrold and word our thoughts, and so words make the world. This is why we so much oppose attemtps to make artificial languages, or being told to use somebody else's way to think the world and name it...

BTW, one of the reasons of English's success, it's the ease to name new things.

Think of this: each time you ever said "compact disk", you were using a english name created by a Dutch company to christen their latest invention, made in cooperation with a Japanese company. Now let's say the CD had got a Dutch name... or a Japanese name... and then somebody said "no, let's call it Compact Disk!". "CD" would ahd swept away the other names, even if Compact Disk may be one of the most awful commercial names ever made...

As someone for whom english is not his native tongue, I am continually amazed how native english speakers manage to get "their/there/they´re" wrong.

And "definitely"!

Dutch person reporting in.

I learned English from watching English movies with Dutch subtitles on tv (when the picture was still black and white). At a certain point, when subtitles would cut out due to technical difficulties, I wouldn't notice any longer. I understand, read and write it proficiently enough, speaking it is sometimes a hassle because I live closer to the German border than the English one, haha.

Around the same time, I picked up German from watching German tv (they didn't do subtitles, and still don't, heh). So I can understand (and read) it perfectly and speak it reasonably. Writing it is pretty terrible, though.

I had those in school as well, ended with 9/10 for English and 7/10 for German, if I recall correctly.

I had a year of French as well, but I didn't like it one bit. Roman languages don't do it for me.

After I went of holiday to Norway a few years back, I wanted to learn Norwegian. It seems "learnable" because the structure of the sentences is not unlike Dutch. It's just how it sounds and how you pronounce things that throws me off everytime.