How do you guys know English so well??

[jangoux]

It is funny to mention that German people have great English, because when I travelled to Germany around 18 years ago, my father (he's from Belgium and speaks French, English, portuguese and Spanish..and some italian) tried to speak in English to everybody and NOBODY would understand him - and he has great English, he lived in the US for around 15 years, studied at UCLA, etc..

Anyway...I always heard my father speaking many different languages, I picked some stuff up with time. He started buying me the US Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine and then It was an easy path. I also attended private english school for maybe 3 or 4 years (and I learned nothing there. To say I didn't learn anything useable, I learned to say 'Glad to meet you too' and thought it was funny because it remembered me 'Tomate', Tomato in portuguese). Then, when I was a teenager I started to read a shitload of stuff in English, started visiting internet forums and my english improved a lot to where it is today (which doesn't say much ehehe)

 

[Decimator]

Back in the day When I was in vocational school we had some exhange students visiting from Germany. I was choosed to host them for a couple days. We had zero problems understanding each other because everyone did speak good english. It was great. At the last day we went to have a "few" drinks to the bar. English is shitload more difficult when you are fucking wasted

I use a lot of English at work. I am frequently in contact with companies from Belgium, Sweden, Japan, China, India, Germany etc. and from this experience I can safely say that the Chinese have the worst English ever! Many times they use totally wrong words which makes everything hard to understand, especially on the phone. On the positive side they are very polite though They say "thank you" a lot

 

[narcossintese]

Studied for a few years when I was a kid, but the biggest factor were videogames, music, tv and internet.
To be honest, the main reason I´m on this board is to force myself to write in english. I can understand 100%, but can´t express myself very well.

 

[JeffTD]

BTW english grammary and dictionary is really really easy compared to what some of us have in our native tongues

We're always told that English is really hard to learn because it has so many rules that don't make sense and that have tons of exceptions, but I have to agree with this guy - the lack of genders makes things a LOT simpler. When I speak German, I slur just about ever adjective ending, because I can never remember gender of the word it's describing.

 

[pipaguapique]

yeah...to me learning english was very quickly...everything is way faster and specific.

for example:
"get it done!" while in other languages you would be like "bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla"

 

[GeertSamuel]

From the age of 10 we get the first English lessons, from the age of 12 we also need to follow French and German for 2 years atleast. After that you can choose to drop German and French, but English is something you need to keep following. I also have a diploma for French and German. But with both languages I completelly forgot how to write and properly speak it. I can make myself understandable in both, but it's easier for me to listen and follow. I even spend 1 month in Paris for an exchange which was needed for our graduation. It's incredible how quick you learn when you are forced to speak and listen in a foreign language.

 

[Ola Englund]

Guybrush was always a total pussy though, I bet you developed about twenty different ways to say "Oh no, I can't do that!"

I'm rubber, you're glue...

 

[LeSedna]

School + personnal use over internet, at first through a little online games like tony hawks, ad then internet.

 

[barricade]

I learned it from tv, games, internet and also school (in Slovenia the teach us 2 foreign languages from the 3rd grade on).

 

[vespiz]

+1 to everything said here. 99.9% of what I read is in English.

 

[Proggm]

Well... It's quite funny - my first serious approach to the english language was, if memory serves me right, 13 years ago when I started playing "Magic: The Gathering" (I guess you all know the card game). At the time, most card sets weren't translated into spanish, so I had no other chance but to learn english. This, combined with my periodical use of computers and the massive growth of the internet, made me learn it by heart very quickly. I have some friends in the USA that say that I speak like borat though

 

[Fabbio]

Yup, my experience as well. The Germans tended to have the best English, while the Italians, by far, had the worst.

How dare you!
We speak a very very good english as well...
For what you just asserted you have to be ashamed! Shame on you!

JUST JOKING; OF COURSE!

The main reason Italians suck at speaking and writing english is because we have a language with latin based grammar and we say what we write the same way. You english-american speaking people have some very strange rules of pronunciation and a saxon based grammar. And put adjectives in a weird way, before the nouns...

 

[kramer1309]

well basically all 12 years of school have english as a class, the medium of teaching is english throughout school/college and its pretty common place in regular life as well..

 

[::XeS::]

Everything but school here in Italy. From primary to high school they teach us the same fucking things.
So, after a trip in Sweden 3 years ago, where I recognized that also old gilrs know english very well...I dedided to improve my english skill.
I had no problem reading, writing and also thinking in english....but the tought thing is understand when someone talk to you and answer immediately.
So I started watching movie in english instead of the translated versions(I discovered that I like them so better in original language)...and very important, with english subtitles. With subtitles you start to understand the musicality of the words and the structure of the sentences that is often different from your own language (italian is very different from english, swedish is similar).
It's very important having subtitles, because at least the first times, without them you spend the 80% of the time trying to translate what you listen.

Anyway italian, spanish, french have the worst english because they are latin languages. German is anglo-saxon like english.
Swedish people speak very well because they learn it on school and they watch movie not traslated like us stupid italians, and moreover, the structure of the sentences are very similar.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

4 years of American and British TV shows >.<
internet
videogames
anime with English subtitles

but yeah mostly TV shows...
i started watching them with :
English audio and Spanish subtitles...when my listening skills got better i changed to
English audio and English subtitles...just to ensure i was understanding everything...and with time i realized
i wasnt looking to the subtitles anymore

there's just one little side effect ...NOW I CANT GO TO THE FUCKING CINEMA
i have to see EVERYTHING ON ITS ORIGINAL LANGUAGE
it makes me really nervous seeing the mouth of an actor/actress don't match the audio


off-topic: am i the only one who spends so much time listening and reading things in English
that have discover himself thinking in English?XDDD
seriously...lately there have been many times when im explaining something (in Spanish)
and i can only think of english terms for the matter XDD

 

[Metal Overload]

lol at malditos cristinos hahahahaha it's cristianos mejicano malhablado! jajajaja

Mira quien lo dice! jajaja se escribe Mexicanos, con X.

y si es Malditos Cristianos, yo personalmente diria "Malditos Cristianos de Mierda"

 

[::XeS::]

there's just one little side effect ...NOW I CANT GO TO THE FUCKING CINEMA
i have to see EVERYTHING ON ITS ORIGINAL LANGUAGE
it makes me really nervous seeing the mouth of an actor/actress don't match the audio


off-topic: am i the only one who spends so much time listening and reading things in English
that have discover himself thinking in English?XDDD
seriously...lately there have been many times when im explaining something (in Spanish)
and i can only think of english terms for the matter XDD

+10000000
I can't go to the cinema anymore because watching a translated movie sucks.
I mean...it's kinda ridicolous if you think. You watch movies with the best actor of the world, with another voice...and you lost the 80% of the interpretation and of the acting skills.
About the OT, I often discover myself thinking in english when I have to prepare a mail in italian...

 

[kaomao]

Yup, my experience as well. The Germans tended to have the best English, while the Italians, by far, had the worst.

totally true

 

[AboutBlank]

My english sucks cause my first foreign language was french ()

And then I was lucky enough to get a teacher who was stucked at weed...
Seriously, weedcookies @ prom.

 

[Sickan]

TV and Intarwebz.