of people who dont speak english naturally, yet have the patience to learn such a difficult language. im always impressed and flattered by foreigners who speak incredible english with great grammar and sentence structure, especially when people like me who have trouble getting the rules straight when we already should know them. what makes learning english even more incredible is that there are over 1,000,000 words in the english language (most arent used anymore but they still can be). german comes in at a very distant second place with just over 300,000 words. and most english words have at least five other words that mean the exact same thing. random english words fact: there is no single word in english for "the back of the knee". anyways, its great to hear people speak english as their second language. so, kudos (slang for "congrats") to all you non english speaking people who have the incredible patience to learn something that does not come naturally to you. i do hope to learn german one day, because i have family in germany; and maybe even learn russian too. again, thanks to all aspiring linguists around the globe.
p.s. sorry if i use words that are big/fancy. i have a bad habit of doing that.
Thank you, I feel flattered as a foreigner and I think my decent english is due to watching a lot of television. Like talk shows and movies. Actually imo english is easier to learn than dutch or french etc. because most foreigners grow up with hearing english stuff around them. This almost never the case in England nor America. It's just the universal language, so there's less need to learn extra languages.
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I´ve learned as a second language due to my mother is teacher/translator English/French.
Remember when I was a kid watching the movies in English, even if I did not understood a single word.
I consider I speak quite well (much better than my writing skills)
shoemeistah said:
Thank you, I feel flattered as a foreigner and I think my decent english is due to watching a lot of television. Like talk shows and movies. Actually imo english is easier to learn than dutch or french etc. because most foreigners grow up with hearing english stuff around them. This almost never the case in England nor America. It's just the universal language, so there's less need to learn extra languages.
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Dude, there are absolutely no errors in your English. God I wish I was that linguistically skilled. English is that common in other countries? I never would have guessed that. By the way, I absolutely love Europeans. I think they are the most pleasant people to be around (at least I think they are). I've only been to Europe once, but my dream is to visit every country in Europe. There is just something so wonderful about Europe. Anyways, you Europeans keep being awesome!!!
For example my mother moved to the US from the Czech Republic in the 80's, she grew up around many other languages and now speaks 9 (I cant name em all if i tried). And All 3 of her children (myself included) speak English to her, English for her is a second language but we speak to each other easily and she even thinks in multiple languages now. I have a lot of respect for her
It's not just in Europe and the US where English is the 'universal' language! Don't forget us down under (eg. Australia and New Zealand). I never realised how hard English would have been to learn until I did French in Year 12, especially given that English technically my equal first language. I speak Cantonese at home, for those who are interested. It's a real shame that, in Australia, another language isn't something that it required to graduate from high school (college in British and American English?) though. It's amazing how some people can speak so many languages. I wish I had that ability... And or patience.
winmofreak said:
kudos (slang for "congrats") to all you non english speaking people who have the incredible patience to learn something that does not come naturally to you.
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Thank you. It's not so hard if you're using it for some 30+ years...
And you must remember that main language used in computers is english... so anyway I had to learn it better when I selected my profession... which originally was computer programming.
For me English in my 3. language. We have our own language in the Faroe Islands that is only spoken by some 60-70.000 people in the whole world. Our 2. language is Danish. But TV is the main reason that mostly everyone in the Faroe Islands speaks English quite good. My son is 3 years old now and has already started learning some English. All the cartoons he gets to watch are in English.
M_T_M said:
I had to learn English fast 'cause saying "Yo quiero job" only took me so far in this country
Thanks for the motivation and kind words anyway
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I'm not even going to touch that issue... BIG hot button issue... But yeah, you've got a good point, when you need to learn something in order to survive, you're going to learn it fast.
I was forced to learn Engrish, at gun point.
my mom wants to read some russian books since her english is not so good, however, i can't find an app that has russian language books. Adilko used to have russian books, but now it doesn't. can anyone recommend an app for that? Thanks
Actually I'd love that too. Too bad u can't import ebooks to Google books app.
I am not sure what to learn. I started learning French a while back, it was quite hard. Haven't officially given up but I've not studied it for over a year now... I still can understand very simple texts, but can hardly speak it, and man the dictation is a pain in the a$$! I'm not sure to continue French or start a new one, like German, or Italian?
What do you think?
Any practical reason, or just to challenge yourself?
In my case, living in southern California, USA, Spanish is almost a must. No other language would be of any use....well, maybe some Asian languages, but Spanish sound easier
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Well, you already have the advantage of being bilingual, so you could probably learn faster than someone like me. The little bit of Spanish I do know gets me by, but I'm just too embarrassed to speak it. I never feel like I'm saying it right.
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TheSkinnyDrummer said:
Any practical reason, or just to challenge yourself?
In my case, living in southern California, USA, Spanish is almost a must. No other language would be of any use....well, maybe some Asian languages, but Spanish sound easier
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Agreed, we have on our Country Spanish as 1st language and English 2nd. I've heard on other countries that spanish is a must, contrary to french.and Portuguese as 3 or 4 years ago.
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John McClane said:
Agreed, we have on our Country Spanish as 1st language and English 2nd. I've heard on other countries that spanish is a must, contrary to french.and Portuguese as 3 or 4 years ago.
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What is tricky for me though was being raised on the east coast. The Spanish they teach there is the Puerto Rico dialect. When I moved to California, I realized how different it is. So the 4 years I spent learning Spanish is almost of no use now. Ahh well.
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m1l4droid said:
Spanish is necessary for America but I don't see myself going there. I prefer Europe.
I'm thinking of these languages:
1. French, I know a little (very little, but still), It's a nice language, but quite hard.
2. German, I don't know why but I like it. Easier than French too.
3. Italian, I like it. Easier than French.
I'm not really into Spanish...
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My ancestry is German. I've been interested in learning it.
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French is a matter of getting the specifics down. It's kind of odd at first in that different endings on verbs are pronounced the same way, having to add consonance only if there's a vowel following certain words, using possessive adjectives that modify the thing they are possessing, not the owner. Just starting it but I love it.
I think Spanish will be my next language because I have a number of friends from South America. Going to learn German eventually because I must visit the home of the VW Audi Group someday.
I would ask to learn spanish.. or italian.. i love both of these languages..
Don't forget to hit 'THANKS' if I helped..
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John McClane said:
Agreed, we have on our Country Spanish as 1st language and English 2nd.
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The US is on its way to that. Lol
As a native german, learn german but i think italia is a nicer land because of the wheather
m1l4droid said:
1. French, I know a little (very little, but still), It's a nice language, but quite hard.
2. German, I don't know why but I like it. Easier than French too.
3. Italian, I like it. Easier than French.
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I feel like you should probably finish French, once you know one language the second one that is similiar (like French and Italian) is much easier. I know a fair bit of French and could pick up basic Italian (enough to get by) within a few days.
85gallon said:
The US is on its way to that. Lol
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San Diego is leading the charge.
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French...
It isn't that difficult
For a challenge though, try arabic...
Typed on a small touchscreen
Try Irish but I doubt they teach that over in the US. And no matter what they say, ITS NOT GØD DAMN GAELIC!
Its quite easy to learn apart from the verbs, they may be difficult
You are all fools. Chinese, learn Chinese. You won't regret it in 20 years when the whole west is named "The United States Of China".
Also, it's a HUGE plus to have chinese as a second or third language when you want to find a highly paid tech job in Singapore or whatever.
LordManhattan said:
You are all fools. Chinese, learn Chinese. You won't regret it in 20 years when the whole west is named "The United States Of China".
Also, it's a HUGE plus to have chinese as a second or third language when you want to find a highly paid tech job in Singapore or whatever.
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Now that's a good point
But those tech geeks won't be staying in the East for much longa!
I bet they're gonna make a device to telaport em to the WEST!
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If you want some challenge, try Portuguese. Verbs in English have 3 possible ways, and most of them applies to all the pronouns. In Portuguese, you have AT LEAST 9 different verbs times and one for each pronoun ( Me, you, he/she, we, them and he/she ( plural))
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You teach me some more arabic and I'll teach you french
Felimenta97 said:
If you want some challenge, try Portuguese. Verbs in English have 3 possible ways, and most of them applies to all the pronouns. In Portuguese, you have AT LEAST 9 different verbs times and one for each pronoun ( Me, you, he/she, we, them and he/she ( plural))
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All I need to know is "Where are the whores?" for when I go to Brazil!!
85gallon said:
All I need to know is "Where are the whores?" for when I go to Brazil!!
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that's all the Secret Service cares about apparently
I got mine yesterday...
Really enjoying it so far. The only problem I have (as you can see in the video) it want's to take everything from my account. If I ask it to show me a picture of the milky way, it looks through my Google Photo's, not Google image search.
I bought it last month from US, it's very funny. In Italy with italian language I can't use it, with english language yes.
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Hi there. Old software developer here. Proud father of 2, happy-non-married boyfriend and dog owner. Born in the Alps. Pascal Developer (yeah, I know, nothing to be proud of) and Windows & Linux Admin. Loves to play with micro controllers. Speaks german, italian, english, C, C++, C#, Pascal and broken Java. Enjoys web design HTML, PHP, Javascript and CSS. Maybe one time can give you guys something back from what I got from you (Especially since I got one of this crazy big screen Android Car Head Units). Stay save.
Welcome to the xda family.
Cheers.