What is your native language and how you learned english?

[eak]

Hi guys! What is the language that came whit you by default in the system and how do you learned english (and others)? any tips, tricks for an apprenticed can be very helpful.
Be nice and rock out!
:Spin:

 

[StefTD]

My native language is German, started to learn English at the age of 10 in school like almost every German, I am 26 now and still suck at it
The thing that helped me the most was trying to think in English, watching movies in English, listening to the US radio-programs we have here
and speak English whenever possible.

 

[SocialNumb]

/thread

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Spanish. I started learning English when I was about 10 as well, kept learning from games, internet, movies, music etc. Then I moved to Hungary for 4 years to study in an English language program, so I met people from all across the globe which helped me to develop my spoken English (with the help of my Swedish and British friends). Now I live in an area full of British expats, so I work as a medical interpreter for them. Basically I use English every day.

 

[eak]

The thing that helped me the most was trying to think in English.

Dude this tip is really brilliant! really works for me too! Thanks
:Spin:

Spanish. I started learning English when I was about 10 as well, kept learning from games, internet, movies, music etc. Then I moved to Hungary for 4 years to study in an English language program, so I met people from all across the globe which helped me to develop my spoken English (with the help of my Swedish and British friends). Now I live in an area full of British expats, so I work as a medical interpreter for them. Basically I use English every day.

Very inspiring history dude! I been listened that in other forum but in spanish! You are like doctor House but spanish and whit more distortion. Respect.

:Spin:

French. Started learning english at the same time but not at the same rate At 16 I was fluent and living 100% in english (had an english gf and we lived together).

Haha men, I had a little bit of healthy envy now! The GFs are the best teachers ever.

 

[Gujukal]

Swedish. I think i began learning English at age of 8 or something in school but i learned most of my English through games and movies/tv-series. The hardest part is to speak English, especially since I don't speak English very often. Sometimes it helps to just read and watch TV-series in English without any subtitle. Makes it easier to find the word when u r conversating, at least for me

 

[ArthurD]

Portuguese. Took english classes for about 8 years...

 

[indecizo]

reptilian, pretty sure all the dialog from rpg videogames taught me english when I was a kid

 

[Max Morton]

Russian (read the rest of the post imagining strong Russian accent and vodka smelling breath).
I was like 4 years old, Soviet Union was living out it's last days. My parents found a private teacher for me to study English basics, and I can't thank them enough. I didn't study it long enough to get good at it, but many years later, when I became obsessed with old video RPG games, it came so easy to me.
We also had lots of pirated VHS cassettes with poorly translated American movies, so you could ignore what the interpretor says and just try to understand the original text. It was pretty absurd, but after the crash of Soviet Empire, they have even translated porn

In my teenage years I listened nothing but British and American rock music. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, Creedence Clearwater Revival. So for me (and I think for the majority of rock music fans worldwide) English is the only real rock and metal language. Trying to understand lyrics, to sing along with it and to imitate it in some of my own first "songs" was an important part of my life.

Then, when Internet appeared in my life (somewhere around 1998-1999 I think), everything useful one could find in music, sound engineering and games was mostly in English. It was complicated to read lots and lots of English text with Internet slang and stuff like that back then, but I can't imagine my life without it now. Sure thing, "Ru-net" is a huge now, and you can live without knowing English, but it's very limiting.

 

[ArsMemoria]

What is your native language?

English

How you learned english?

Beavis and Butthead, South Park, and The Simpsons.

 

[storming heaven]

Turkish. Learned in high school and surely listening to music, watching TV/movies and reading in English helped. I also highly recommend you to speak in English, whenever you can. Otherwise, it would be like learning about audio production, getting plugins and hardware but not mixing a one damned song. Practice is everything.

 

[Ermz]

Bosnian.

Learned English just like I learned German - by moving to the country and being put into a class with people who spoke it.

 

[Ashgarth]

Spanish / Catalan

Started english lessons at school when I was 8, then at 12 started to take private lessons to get the first certificate.
That and lots of music, games, movies/series, forums, and talking with english/american people.

 

[FIXXXER]

Bosnian.

Learned English just like I learned German - by moving to the country and being put into a class with people who spoke it.

+1

 

[StefTD]

Just wanted to add - writing is pretty easy, speaking is the hard part, at least for me. I would love to speak English
more often, but I probably didn't speak English in over a year and had a meeting 2 days ago with a potential client
from the USA and I was fucking nervous.
It worked out better than I thought, I was able to understand everything without a big problem, I just had the feeling
that I sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger the whole time...

 

[meanmrmustad]

What is your native language?

English

How you learned english?

Beavis and Butthead, South Park, and The Simpsons.

Me too

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Bosnian.

Learned English just like I learned German - by moving to the country and being put into a class with people who spoke it.

After having read so much from your posts I'd never say you weren't native in English (ok, your name is obviously eastern european, but anyways...).

 

[Tokyurot]

Native finnish speaker here, born in Copenhagen, Denmark & moved to Finland at the age of 8. Danish abit rusty now.
Learned english mostly by watching movies a lot (VHS generation) and the schooling system.
Lived many years in Denmark, Finland & Thailand, now in Finland (Tampere) again.

Pretty good with english & thai, and get by with danish, swedish & german. No relatives in Finland at all, them being in
Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Stockholm), France (Paris) & Canada (Montreal).

But yeah, movies can be educational too, as long as the audio is with the original language.

Lately intertested in studying korean, already learned a lot from them movies

 

[The-Zeronaut]

Spanish native speaker here.
I studied English in high school but that only got me to an "average" level .
What really made me learn is the insane and shameful amount of Tv shows and movies i have watch in English in the last 7 or 8 years.
Also since January 2012 i have read more than 100 books in English >.<

 

[Nimvi]

read the rest of the post imagining strong Russian accent and vodka smelling breath

I've been reading the entire thread like that, and I must say it improved the quality of my night

Natively I speak Dutch - though most people from the Netherlands would probably not agree; Limburg isn't known for its clean accent.

I got into English because my father loved computers, and my brother and I had access to a Commodore 64 from a very young age (5 or 6?). We discovered an adventure game called "Maniac Mansion". It was one of those adventures that still had a load of interaction options and many items that were around just to distract you. The atmosphere enticed us right from the start, and so it forced us to learn English interactively as fast as we could.

They should play this stuff in schools...

After that, my brother and I became interested in programming on that same machine. My dad had learning books for that... which of course were in English.

Spoken English (on a higher level than "Hi Kate, how are you?") came much later. I've played MMOs quite intensively, and most of those with some form of Teamspeak running permanently. At some point it just became second nature.

The result is that my wife and I now switch from Dutch to German (that's her) to English in the middle of a conversation all the time and we barely even notice until other people are around. They must think we are weirdos. They probably wouldn't be far off...