How did you learn to English good?

[Perfection]

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<----

 

[Terxpahseyton]

At first I studied English for 6 years in school. Only provided me with extremely rudimentary skills though. I think the reason is the combination of the following four factors:
- Being a very unmotivated student in most subjects
- Belonging to the generation of younglings where the Internet only started to boom
- Low talent in learning foreign languages (or that is at least my theory, on the other hand many of my classmates weren't better than I)
- Bad teachers with lacking English skills (by me assumed reason for the skills: legacy of the GDR where Russian was the prime second language)

Then I went to the US of A for 10 months with one of those programs where you live with a host family. Before me my biggest brother went already and when he returned he would prefer to watch all English media without dubbing. While I as aware that my trip too should drastically improve my skills, I couldn't imagine to want to watch English-language media. I just couldn't imagine that it would ever feel as natural as German and hence would have to be hassle ruining the enjoyment of the media.

Was dead wrong of course. Dreamed in English, thought in English. English slowly but steadily sorta became my first language. Not that I every mastered it as well as my real first language, but for all intends and purposes other than proficiency it became just that. And when I returned speaking German felt so weird. What also was a weird experience was to suddenly understand all that BS they say in the songs. In some ways, ignorance was a real bliss in that department.
Since then I could further improve my English in some ways (OT helped a lot, so did TV shows or movies), in others it sadly got worse. The practice of actually speaking it and socially engaging with it misses a lot. Today I need some warming-up time to get into the flow again when I want to speak it. At first it feels awkward and clumsy, words don't come to me etc. But given enough time I can get fully fluent and comfortable again.

 

[H4run]

I think the only things that I need to be able to speak and write good English is to move to English speaking country, the things that I never did. Maybe Philippines or New Zealand will be interesting, in Philippines I can enroll a cheap English academic course, while in New Zealand maybe I can reside for doing my doctorate if I able to gain scholarship over there. Maybe I should start searching from now.

 

[Mouthwash]

I'm a native speaker, but my father apparently learned it from commercials when he first moved to the States (he was in his twenties, now he speaks fluently but with an accent and stunted grammar).

 

[cybrxkhan]

Actually, now that Mouthwash mentioned parents, I guess I could mention mine as well. My grandparents also learned to speak fluent English too, though I am not entirely aware of how that happened - I do know that they were typical of the upper-class, Western-educated intellectuals so it was probably a combination of schooling (particularly abroad or at international schools) and interacting with English-speaking folks often.

Anyways, for my mother, I'm less certain about. I do know when she came to America at ~13 years of age her English was heavily accented; however it does appear she knew a competent amount of English as it does not appear she had much difficulty adjusting to school (relatively speaking). It probably also helped that my grandma was formerly a principal of an English-speaking international school in Vietnam (and that my grandma also earned a college degree in America decades before). It appears that anyhow her English became less and less accented over the years simply due to exposure; the fact that my mom's side lived on the east coast of the US, where there were fewer Vietnamese, may have helped.

Anyhow, as to my father, he was first introduced to English by my grandfather (who, as hinted above, probably learned it as part of his schooling). My dad told me - quite fondly too - how one of the few times my grandfather, who was otherwise your typical strict and distant Confucian parent, would do anything with him father-son was when he taught him English. Most of this English-teaching (and French-teaching, apparently) happened while my grandfather was working in Japan as the spokesperson (or aide/assistant, I forgot) for the S. Vietnamese ambassador to Japan. I believe these lessons in English were reinforced due to the fact that my dad went to an English-speaking international school while he was in Japan, so he would have to use English more frequently than just during his lessons with my grandfather.

Thus when my dad went to America, at ~14 years of age he already had a decent command of the language, I'm assuming. He came a few years before the Fall of Saigon, when there were few Vietnamese in America, so this probably also helped when it came to learning English as he was forced to deal and speak with English-speaking Americans - from a wide variety of backgrounds, not to mention, including whites, blacks, hispanics, and non-Vietnamese Asians - on a frequent basis at work and school and other places in public. My dad also appeared to enjoy watching movies and tv and music and other pop culture like other kids of the day (he really liked Scooby Doo, and the Beatles, although I guess the latter were sort of getting out of fashion by then). He also read voraciously, particularly about religion and history, which also helped him understand English in contexts other than simple greeting and light conversation. Depiste all this he apparently still spoke with a heavy accent for a number of years (possibly until right before I was born), but managed to teach himself how to speak "properly". Lastly, while my dad lived on the West Coast, he tended to live in regions in less Vietnamese, not to mention during the crucial years - i.e. when he was young - there weren't that many Vietnamese in America as the Vietnam War hadn't ended yet.


So I suppose for my parents, particularly my father, it was a combination of coming from a background where they already had some theoretical familiarity with English, and then being able to apply it in practice when they were suddenly thrust into an English-speaking world.

 

[Borachio]

I think the only things that I need to be able to speak and write good English is to move to English speaking country, the things that I never did. Maybe Philippines or New Zealand will be interesting, in Philippines I can enroll a cheap English academic course, while in New Zealand maybe I can reside for doing my doctorate if I able to gain scholarship over there. Maybe I should start searching from now.

Certainly, to learn how to speak a foreign language competently, you need repeated interaction with native speakers.

But writing good English just takes exposure to a reasonable standard, and lots of practice. I'd say CFC is as good as anything for this. (Oh, and studying the grammar, etc., of the thing should help.)

 

[Yeekim]

We had English classes in school from 2nd grade and in high school, several classes were taught exclusively in English. Later came computer games, movies, forums and books in English.

 

[H4run]

Certainly, to learn how to speak a foreign language competently, you need repeated interaction with native speakers.

But writing good English just takes exposure to a reasonable standard, and lots of practice. I'd say CFC is as good as anything for this. (Oh, and studying the grammar, etc., of the thing should help.)

In the Turkish language course I have many friends from US and British, it is quite easy to understand them when I talk to them face to face, but when we were in a group and they start to talk with each other, I hardly understand what they are talking about, they change from talking to "mumbling like" conversation and the pronunciation of each words is really vague and unclear especially someone from Britain even though I like their accent. I found talking with non natives speaker is more understandable but yes it doesn't help my english, and now most of my close friends is non natives English speaker.

I never studied grammar, they do teach grammar since elementary school, but school to me and many of my friends backthen more like a playground than a place to study, I practically don't get any benefit or small benefit from school except for my social life, in every aspect including English. I really start to study good and get a good prestige in university. And they don't teach me English over there.

And yes one of the reason I came here is to learn English. But I guess I should be more active

 

[Akka]

School gave me some very (VERY) rough basics - I was utterly horrible at the time, not interested at all.
The defining factor allowing me to improve was actually video games. Then speaking over the Internet (through Diablo at first, then the Web) did the refining.

 

[Stapel]

Over 30 years ago, any Dutch school (for the record: 99% of Dutch schools are state schools) started teaching English in 4th grade (9-year olds). These days, most schools starter even sooner. Completely independent of the level of secundary education, one cannot get a school diploma, without passing a test on English language.

Apart from that, of all languages, with the exception Afrikaans, which is nothing but simplified Dutch with a strong English influence, Dutch is the closest to English (try to translate this for example: Goede morgen! Wat is jouw naam? Hoe laat is het?).

Yet, the only thing that really helped for me, was listening to loads of English shows and reading loads of English texts.

 

[Josu]

I had my first contact with English at primary school when I was about 10 years old. Since then I have English languaje subject each year until I was 18.
I think that the teaching method was rubish, probably good method for gramar, but awfull for listening and speaking. I never had a native teacher until I spent some months in Dublin when I was 23.
I attended private lessons at british council for 2 years (about 10 hours a week) because my job requires some Englilsh language knowledge. I have to chat everyday with native speakers.

I try to see some films and tv shows in English and read some books per year in English.

However, I think my English is getting worse, so I have the impresion that I have wasted my time and my money

 

[Phrossack]

I wish I'd been raised by immigrant parents in a non-Anglophone country that requires English to be taught in schools. I knew a German whose parents were Iranian. He was raised with Farsi and German, and had to learn English and another language (Spanish). We native speakers only have to learn English.

The result is that everyone speaks my language and keeps abreast of US events, but I can't possibly learn all their languages or understand all their cultures. There are too many.

 

[Borachio]

I'm not so sure we do keep abreast of US events, though. It's true that we've, mostly, all heard of Obama and that the US is vaguely in <--- that direction. But little beyond that makes its way through the fog, I think.

 

[Leifmk]

Started out by being a promising young nerd in rural Norway in the early 80s, when nerd literature (such as manuals for that first generation of mass-marketed home computers) was hard to come by in Norwegian so I more or less had to self-teach myself to read the stuff. Well, I say self-teach, but my mother was an English teacher so I had access to all the help I could want.

I also had access to my parents' stacks of old issues of Mad Magazine (which used to be really great back in the 60s and 70s, I'll have you know) and was ready to embark on the English-language shelves at the local library before I hit my teens. We had mandatory English classes at school starting... in fourth grade, I think; but I was always far ahead of the material taught in these classes.

Later (when I was 16/17) I spent a year immersed in an English-speaking country as a foreign exchange student and ever since then I've had the ability to switch into speaking it fluently and doing all my verbal thinking in English. I've also used written English more than written Norwegian thanks to most of the literature I've been interested in being available only in English (same goes for textbooks and such, once I entered college).

 

[Phrossack]

I'm not so sure we do keep abreast of US events, though. It's true that we've, mostly, all heard of Obama and that the US is vaguely in <--- that direction. But little beyond that makes its way through the fog, I think.

On the contrary- a lot of threads here concern the US, and there's a lot of non-American participation in those.

But anyway. I hate it when I hear non-native speakers speak excellent English. It just proves my inferiority. I ought to be able to speak three or four languages fluently, but I can barely manage just two. Ugh.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I like to English English.

Well I learned some at school, which gave me the grammar basics but not much chance to communicate with natives. Then I have recieved some degree of californication for about 1,5 years and later spend about the same in NY which both helped good deal. After that I spend 3 years in France without learning French, 2 years in Austria still getting by only with English and bunch of other countries like Norway, Scotland, Australia or NZ which all had more or less negative effect on my English. But nowdays I try to make up for it by reading, before it was movies, music and what not....

 

[Agent327]

How did you learn to English good?

Is that supposed to be an English sentence?

 

[Joecoolyo]

Is that supposed to be an English sentence?

It makes sense in Australian.

 

[Borachio]

Is that supposed to be an English sentence?

It's supposed to be a joke (I betcha!). I thought it was quite a good one. A little understated perhaps. But maybe the better for that.

 

[Agent327]

It makes sense in Australian.

Which isn't a language.