What's it like learning English as a second language?

[DarkGabbz]

It's really easy if you speak alot of english alongside the english lessons in school.

 

[DKB]

People may not agree with me, but I feel as if English is one another language that speaking it is a lot harder then writing it. Lots of people claim that English is easy by writing it down. However, they can't speak English good even if their lives depended on it.

 

[BlueFox gui]

well, learn it is like learn any other language
i don't have it on school, so i'm learning by myself, and if you want to learn a new language i will give you an advice from self experience and experience from some others, if you really want to learn it, practice and with practice i mean talk to people who have english as their native language, write, talk and listen to them, when i joined gbatemp last year my english was horrible its still very bad but much better than before, after 2 months talking to people i improved a lot my english
but i still have a lot to learn

 

[MoonUsotsuki]

I learn it because I wanted to, I played a lot of games when I was young and back then the localization efforts were few, so i started to learn word by word and sentence by sentence. By the time I was on middle school I was already the most advanced student of my classroom in english. Currently I'm about to finish my bachelor's degree in psychology and they did ask for a certain english level to graduate, but is so basic that I just left it to the end. and even so many of my classmates did had problems approving it.
My first language is spanish and I think is as hard as english, or as easy, depending on how you see it.

 

[Seliph]

Really ? Is "Have to" learn in your school are Spanish and Mandarin? They said you have to ? A must ? Really ?

Yes, we have to learn one of the two languages.

 

[drenal]

Spoiler

View attachment 90080

Oh shit, is that a memedroid watermark I see? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[spotanjo3]

Yes, we have to learn one of the two languages.

Wow. I will refuse to learn those languages. America is English and not Spanish! I understand what you mean. They can't force people like that. What's wrong with many languages in school to learn ? No, America prefer Spanish over foreign languages thanks to too many Spanish people in America. Sighing

 

[Byokugen]

Oh shit, is that a memedroid watermark I see? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

You are correct my good sir

 

[drenal]

You are correct my good sir

What's your username on memedroid, mines drenal

 

[Byokugen]

What's your username on memedroid, mines drenal

Same as here :-)

 

[drenal]

Same as here :-)

cool

 

[Flirkyn]

I don't find english easy by default to learn. For me every language can be hard to learn depending of your native language or your motivation and method. But english is easiest to learn than a lot of language.

As a french guy, I had choose at primary school between english and german. Then it was a forced language since middle school.

I sucked at it. A lot. And I was always angry that a lot of game I wanted was only in english because of the lack of full localisation (and I'm still bothered by that tbh, even if it doesn't affect me directly). Or stopped me of playing some game I wanted.

Then, during my last year on middle school, my family gifted me PSP and Tales of Eternia for my birthday. The game was english only and I planned to hack my psp to make a patched iso in french. Unfortunately I never succed to install the patch. My only choice was to play on english, with a dictionary.
My english improved drastically :3
I had many trouble at first, like missunderstanding some word for a long time (like the word "both" that I understand "bof", wich is the equivalent of..."meh" on french ^^ change the meaning of some cutscene in some game xD). But I continue to play game and watch anime and today I have a pretty good level I think. At least at reading it.

I still have trouble with writing it (I make some grammar and spelling error, but I have the same issue with my native language), and I don't have the best accent. Also I have some trouble with oral english (especially fast one) and I don't like it when there isn't subtitle.

I still love my native language (and use it primaly when it's available, except for anime because it's easier to find it in english) but I have no problem using english as much and I like it almost as much as French. I still have trouble with the fact that a lot of japanese game are still english only in France (and other country), though I can understand for little compagny because it can be really expensive to translate. But I don't have any trouble playing it (except for western rpg strangely where it's bothering me a lot, or when it's old english). I can understand when poeple are having an hard time learning it.

Btw, I tried to learn japanese and economical english at university. Failled a lot at first one and and had also trouble at th second hehe

 

[kublai]

English is my first language and I still have trouble with it!

 

[anhminh]

Well, it not like almost half of Internet written in English or something.

That and 50% cable channels in my country are in English, including Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, HBO, Star Movie... it not that hard for an autism kid that spend all day watching TV and surfing Internet to learn English naturally.

 

[Quantumcat]

Any language is easy enough once you are immersed in it. School language hardly teaches you anything. I learned French at school and that's why I went to France on exchange but when I got there I quickly learned I knew absolutely nothing, despite having studied it for four years. I wished I'd gone to a Spanish-speaking country so I could talk to my grandmother and second cousins! But I learned pretty fast and was reasonably fluent in about three months. That seems to be the common story for English - learn very little at school but as soon as you move to an English-speaking country, BAM you're fluent in no time. If course, it helps to do it when you're younger and your brain is more malleable.

 

[nxwing]

I learnt it when I was really young because I moved to Makaysia for a year so I pretty much was good at speaking and writing in Englsih since then. Only main problem I had was with the syllabication and only realized it just a week ago but made lots of rpogress since then on fixing it.

 

[Hanafuda]

All depends on what the native language is. If you're starting from French or a Nordic language it's less difficult than if your native language is Chinese.

I'd be down to learn Japanese just so I can read the physical copies of Jojo manga past part 4. The only options I have to learn in my school are Spanish and Mandarin.

I wouldn't say I've been working fulltime at it or anything, but I've been exposed to Japanese daily for most of the last 32 years and I'm still a functional illiterate. Decent on the spoken language - I can watch television, get my point across in general conversations. But I can't read for shit. Maybe 2nd grade level. Gaining literacy in Japanese (or Chinese) takes religious-level dedication if you don't start from age 3-4 like they do.

 

[hiten]

I watched a lot of Sesame Street when I was a kid, it included Indonesian subtitles when it was aired in my country.

I think it kinda helped me later when I started studying English in elementary school, I found it easier to understand the grammar.

 

[Lucifer666]

Compared to other languages like Spanish, and of course French and Arabic (which I consider being the two most difficult languages to learn out there), English is really a piece of cake.

I grew up as a trilingual kid (English, Arabic, French) and can concur – English is by far the easiest of the three. I find that, for the most part (with the exception of Finnish, Polish and the like), European languages tend to be quite formulaic in that once you've nailed one, the rest should be easy to grasp. French is one such case.

 

[gamefan5]

French speaker.
Learned English at an early age. It was ridiculously easy compared to french haha.