What is your Native Language?

[TheLastOne36]

Winner, I think your english is very good!

 

[GVBN]

Native language is Finnish

a. how/where did you learn English?

Learned grammar and basics in school, vocabulary by playing video games and using the internet

b. what level do you consider yourself?

Good at reading and writing. I've never had to use spoken English outside school until recently and it became clear that I can't speak good English in a real conversation

c. how long did it take you to reach the level you are at?

My entire life

d. why did you learn English?

So that I can play video games and post in this thread

 

[Mirc]

Lame, if it is a level. I am still making tons of mistakes, I tend to mix up tenses and use wrong prepositions in idioms and phrasal verbs. Pathetic, but unless I spend some time living in an English-speaking country, it's hardly ever going to get better.

I'd say your English is very, very good. I've almost never seen you make a mistake. Not that I remember, at least.

 

[aneeshm]

me:
native = English.
other = low Intermediate Spanish; beginner Thai, Hindi

आप हिन्दी बोलते हैं? Great! Sometimes it seems I'm the only one around.

For reference:
My mother tongue is Marathi. This is what I speak at home.
My second language is Hindi; it's what was spoken by my schoolmates.
My primary medium of education is English.

My history is a bit chequered: I'm a Marathi-speaker who grew up in a Hindi-speaking province, educated in English. Of course, the fact that all three are Indo-European languages with extremely similar grammatical structures tremendously; I find that I can seamlessly interleave the three and still quibble over the trivialities of the grammar of the resultant hodgepodge, and have the quibbling actually make sense. This trilingual state of affairs continued till I came to Maharashtra for my engineering education. Here, I speak Hindi only to those whose mother tongue it is. My education continues to be in English.

obviously if you are here you can 'speak' English. or, if you don't consider yourself a good speaker, at least you can write pretty well in English!

there do seem to be a good many people here from outside the realms of the (former) British Empire, and I'm just curious to learn how many here are not native English speakers.

the reason I'm curious, is because I am in fact an ESL/EFL teacher, and I'm currently taking some extra teaching classes, so I'm interested in this topic.

SUBTOPICS:

1. If you are a not a native English speaker:
a. how/where did you learn English?

In school, and through my own reading. I've had twelve years of English as a language/subject. My primary medium of education was (and continues to be) English, and the majority of literature I read is in English. Plus, of course, the gigantic influence of the internet.

b. what level do you consider yourself?

As far as English is concerned, the creme. Better than 99% of native speakers, at least.

Hindi: intermediate to good.
Marathi: good. Sadly, I never had the language as a formal subject at any time, and I don't consider my vocabulary sufficient. In the spoken form of the language, of course, I'm quite good; it is my mother tongue, after all.
Note that both the above languages use the same script, so I can read both effortlessly. I haven't written significantly in either, but I can do so if I am required to, as I have had ten years of Hindi, and a terrifying paper at their end.

c. how long did it take you to reach the level you are at?

I never consciously strove to "reach" any level of proficiency; it was simply a side-effect of my copious reading and general exposure to the language; the rest, I owe to the genetic lottery.

d. why did you learn English?

I didn't "choose", in any real sense. As I said, my medium of education was and is English. That was because an English-language education is a pre-requisite for success in anything in India (and in general the world, at least in my field of study), so my parents chose for me an English-medium school. I'm interested in reading in general, and my father always encouraged it (he is an excellent speaker himself), so I didn't "learn" it so much as I absorbed it.

and of course share anything else you feel is related to this topic.. but especially learning experiences!

The earliest experience I cannot remember, but was told that I had, was one in which my mother used to read out to me as I was learning to read. I think that may have played a great role.

 

[aneeshm]

Native English Speaker
2a Spanish, Mandarin
b Spanish=mid, Mandarin=low.
c Spanish learning from conversations, Class
d Spanish=I live in California, Mandarin for college and military

I also want to learn French, Russian, Sanskrit and Hindi

If you require any help insofar as Hindi (or the Devanagari script) is concerned, feel free to ask me. I myself have wanted to learn Sanskrit for some time, but am sadly facing a severe shortage of time.

 

[sophie]

2. If you are a native English speaker:
a. what other language(s) do you speak?
Spanish
French
Welsh(ish)
b. what level do you consider yourself?
Spanish: Advanced
French and Welsh: rudimentary
c. how long did it take you to reach the level you are at?
Spanish: 4 years
French: 1
Welsh: about 1
d. why did you learn another language?
I learned Spanish because I needed to take a language to graduate, and Spanish seemed the most practical given where I live.
French I took because I had an extra slot for a class my senior year, and I am fascinated by languages
Welsh I started learning because I'm of Welsh ancestry and I thought it'd be nice to learn the language of my forefathers (and I love learning and comparing languages).

 

[warpus]

Polish.

a. how/where did you learn English?

My dad taught English on the side in Poland, so I picked up a word or two there.. not much though. In Germany we had to take English classes - so for almost 2 years I learned very basic English stuff, like.. "This is my flat. Do you like my pullover?". It was pretty useless, really, I didn't learn much.

When I came to Canada I was enrolled in ESL classes but they didn't really teach me much either. I did most of my English learning by watching TV.

b. what level do you consider yourself?

Fluent, in the top 10% of English speakers.

c. how long did it take you to reach the level you are at?

That's hard to estimate... couple years?

d. why did you learn English?

Cause I moved to Canada and I had to.

 

[Verbose]

Swedish speaker.

a. how/where did you learn English?
Classes started in third grade, age 9, and contuned through 10 years of school, 3-4 classes a week. Otoh near English immersion wasn't very hard in Sweden. English is everywhere. Learned a lot from simply watching the telly. Subtitles are really, really helpful for language learing, and since you listen to the original voices, you pick up pronunciation and inflection. Reading skills mostly honed early on, from about age 11, on English language RPGs. Read my first nove, in English as 14, iirc the first of the Dragonlance novels.

b. what level do you consider yourself?
I can pass myself of as some kind of native to native English speakers for considerable periods of time. I write English at an academic level.

c. how long did it take you to reach the level you are at?
Um, until now? 30 years. It takes practice to maintain as well. Though admittedly I could pull it of at reasonably today's level at around 20 years of age.

d. why did you learn English?
It was compulsory. It was also useful, and finding stuff one was motivated to access, and could only do so in English, sure helped.

 

[scherbchen]

also why do you have to be so mean to me >.<

wasn't railing against you tbh, sorry if it came across like that. just know too many guys who are pretentious in the way I described.

 

[Kyriakos]

My native language is, in my view, far superior to english, the only other language i know.

I learned english by private tutoring, also in school, where i began learning german as well but gave up.

My level of english has gone down through the years.

 

[G-Man]

not[/U] a native English speaker:
a. how/where did you learn English?
b. what level do you consider yourself?
c. how long did it take you to reach the level you are at?
d. why did you learn English?

My native language is Hebrew.

a. I was supposed to learn it in school. However, my family moved when I was between the 3rd and 4th grades, and I moved to a school where English was already taught (whereas I knew nothing). The teacher didn't really care about helping me fit in and I ended up knowing very little English until somewhere around the 7th grade I started picking it up, mostly from TV, the internet and songs' lyrics. I still have very little respect for my English teachers - I don't remember learning anything from them.

b. I can speak pretty fluent (although I'm a bit "rusty" - I usually find that after long periods of time when I don't speak English I need a few hours to adjust to it), I read at about 2/3 of the speed I read in Hebrew. I do lack the more "formal" part of learning a language - I haven't got the slightest clue if what I'm saying is "present progressive" or "past simple" or anything of that sort.

c. I think I'm still improving with experience, but I'd say I got near where I am today during the period between the 7th and 10th grades - so about 4 years.

d. It's all around us, isn't it? Without it I wouldn't understand much of the culture I consume - TV, internet, music - as well as communicating with people. I've recently been to Corsica and I still simply can't understand how the people there can live in a modern country and not know even basic English (In one of the cities there none of the hotel receptionists knew the word "room"!!)

 

[TheLastOne36]

My native language is, in my view, far superior to english, the only other language i know.

I learned english by private tutoring, also in school, where i began learning german as well but gave up.

My level of english has gone down through the years.

Wish you could say the same about the alphabet don't you?

 

[Traitorfish]

My native language is, in my view, far superior to english, the only other language i know.

Superior in what sense? Clarity of communication? Adaptability? Aesthetic value? Language isn't the sort of thing people generally designate as "superior" or "inferior", so it's a somewhat confusing assertion.

 

[Kyriakos]

Although i am not familiar with the analogous depths of english, it seems to me that it is a much simpler language, whereas greek has many more complexities which allow for more accurate pinpointing of what one wants to say. For example most greek words form complex terms, giving them an undispitable meaning comming from those building blocks. Some examples:

Democratia (Democracy)

Comes from Demos (the people) and Kratos (power). So it means power of the people.

Oligarchia (Oligarchy)

Comes from Oligoi (few) and Arche (beginning, also means authority), so it means the authority by the few.

Geriatrike (Geriatrics)

Comes from geroi (old people) and iatrike (medicine)

These are just few examples which you should know as english words as well

 

[Lillefix]

Just because English has a completely bastardised vocabulary and is less inflected than any other European language, doesn't make it a bad language. Not that bad at least.

But seriously, the fact that it draws vocabulary from both Germanic and Latin roots gives it an unusually large vocabulary and makes it good stepping stone to other languages.

 

[sophie]

My native language is Hebrew.
I haven't got the slightest clue if what I'm saying is "present progressive" or "past simple" or anything of that sort.

That's ok, most native English speakers don't know that!

@Varwnos: Sure our language isn't quite like that, instead we have to learn the greek and latin roots to know that kind of stuff (something I picked up in 11th grade when we had to learn obscure words and know their roots)

 

[willemvanoranje]

native = Dutch
fluent, without an accent: German
fluent, with slight accent: English, Portuguese
well, with Portuguese accent (not Portuñol though): Spanish
low level: French
readable: Italian

1. If you are a not a native English speaker:
a. In the Netherlands we start with English in school at age 10. Everyone has at least 5 years of English I think, the higher tiers have a grand total of 8. Very important is that imported films and television programs are subtitled, so you already get used to the sound of it pretty soon. Furthermore trying to read the Civ II manual at age 11 or so helped me to develop some sense of English..

b. In pronounciation I will never be able to hide that I'm a foreigner, although I have a much better pronounciation than most Dutch. In reading and writing I can't really compare myself to native speakers, but I had perfect scores on them in the TOEFL (ok, not that high a standard) and I'm doing my Master in English.. so I'd say it's quite allright.

c. For the exact level I'd say yesterday, since it is never too late to learn. I think that in the last two years of high school (so, age 16) I already was at more or less the same level as I am now as far as fluency is considered (we could check 7 year old posts of mine on CFC ). Since then it is mainly my vocabulary that has massively expanded.

d. Well, for one it is compulsory in school, second it is to some extend inevitable since it is all around, and third because it is a lingua franca in most of the Western world. In so many jobs it is very important nowadays to know English, and by preference, know it well. Even if you are not in international business or anything, chances are that in order to keep up with new developments in your area, you at least need to be able to read English.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

English. In my school, I have to have Spanish (only forgin language taught). But when I'm a freshman in highschool next year, I'll be taking beginners Italian (Italy is where my ansestors are from).

 

[scherbchen]

well, English spelling is a b*tch to be fair....

 

[Godwynn]

well, English spelling is a b*tch to be fair....

We made spelling and pronunciation difficult on purpose to assist us in picking out them thar foreigners.