How did you learn English/other languages

My first language was Cantonese actually since my parents moved to Australia from Hong Kong shortly before I was born, however due to illness when I was younger, I did not start to learn how to read or write in Chinese up until about three years ago, not because I was still ill then, but because my school started offering it in 2007. I'm not exactly sure how learnt English but I remember I only became fluent when I was around 8 or 9, I remember I had no idea that duck also meant 'crouch' until I was 7. I also learnt Japanese for about four years, but I've pretty much forgotten it all. At the moment, I've been watching quite a lot of French movies and the like, maybe I'll pick up a couple of phrases along the way.
 
I would have given you a +1 for that nice international tale but it seems I given you a +1 already and the system doesn't allow repeated +1s on the same person. oh well :p
 
Lived in the Americas for most of my childhood, then bi-lingual schools in Finland for seven years.. What keeps my language skills alive and colourful is watching (too much) English stand-up, writing overly cultivated blog posts and pestering my British relatives.

Also studied French for close to six years and got zilch to show for it. Perhaps a basis for the Latin languages and mid-European culture, but not by far good enough for speaking it.

I also claim to speak Swedish in job interviews. But it's a blatant lie.
 
English is my first language, but I'm decently fluent in French (Reading/Speaking). I took a few classes when I was very young (5-9) in England and went to summer school in France, but I picked up quite a bit at my bilingual school in Montreal (You either attend a French school or a French/English school - I went to the latter). I've spent about 8 years studying it, with at least 4 trips to France in that time.

The trips to France really helped me - I picked up the language FAST and I have a much greater speaking ability than my peers. I can also understand French movies, TV shows, etc, where my peers would have needed subtitles.

Though, many of my friends (including my two roommates) have English as a second language. They were brought over from China at a young age (probably 5-9 for most of them), and just picked up english at school while attending ESOL classes and hanging out with the children on the playground.
 
LeMans GTR said:
My first language was Cantonese actually since my parents moved to Australia from Hong Kong shortly before I was born, however due to illness when I was younger, I did not start to learn how to read or write in Chinese up until about three years ago, not because I was still ill then, but because my school started offering it in 2007. I'm not exactly sure how learnt English but I remember I only became fluent when I was around 8 or 9, I remember I had no idea that duck also meant 'crouch' until I was 7. I also learnt Japanese for about four years, but I've pretty much forgotten it all. At the moment, I've been watching quite a lot of French movies and the like, maybe I'll pick up a couple of phrases along the way.
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haha, interesting. i have a friend who was born in hong kong but moved to australia very shortly after she was born and has spoken english all her life. she lives her life like as if she was born in australia, and is only starting to pick up cantonese as of late, but it doesn't seem to work out for her and she really has a long way to go (personally speaking). i think japanese is actually quite a popular option in australia as well.
 
LP said:
:blink: So they taught you to slam your fist into boards and intestines while teaching you Japanese?
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Okay, so maybe a little bit exaggarated but all the moves are in Japanese so I know quite a bit when it comes to movement, since Black belts have to know all the technical names for it all.
 
My english came from the interwebz and the TV...without wishing to boast, I'm the best in english in our class. Yet people still don't believe me that I don't study for any of the tests...
 
Did 8 years of Jap at school - don't remember a thing.
Did 3 of French, remember most of it.

And yeah, native English speaker.
 
English : Tv.....wich explains a few things.

I also live near to the French language border, (yes that is actualy a border) so everyone around here can atleast make himself understandable in French , I actualy worked down there for a while, and used to go out there , nothing quite as good to get a hang for a language quickly.
 
English is mandatory here in school, but you only learn the very basic. I learned quite a lot from watching the fresh prine of belair :lol:

I also took one session of Italian in university, but quickly forgot everything as soon as the semester ended :(

I'm a native French speaker.
 
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mpicco said:
That's Cerveza, in Spain. Cerveja in Portugal.
Bi?re in French, Birra in Italian, Bier in German
Useful to know :p

I started learning english when I was 6 years old, in school, then in 7th grade started French which I dropped in 10th grade cos my throat couldn't take any more abuse :p
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I'm glad I'm not the only one, by the end of my French classes (mostly oral) I was hurting. I must be doing the R horribly wrong....

English native and took enough French that I could probably get by. No significant knowledge in any other languages.
 
French is compulsory in school in Ontario, so I used to be fairly good at that. I took French in high school in order to obtain my high school diploma. Of course, that was ten years ago. I still remember some of my French, like dates and numbers and important sayings like je ne pas parle fran?ais and ou es la toilette? I also took Korean school, since I am of Korean descent, but I didn't learn much, so my Korean is very basic. I also picked up some a few Japanese words here and there from the countless animes I've watched in the past.
 
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Quite literally streets of NY. Came to the states when I was 20. Took about a year to be comfortable with it and 2 after that to be fluent.
 
What is different from Iceland to other non English speaking countries is that we dont dub TV shows or movies unless it is animated or aimed at children.

That helps the learning of English. Schools start teaching English when we are 10-11 years old.
 
BTM5 said:
What is different from Iceland to other non English speaking countries is that we dont dub TV shows or movies unless it is animated or aimed at children.
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Same here, and for new 'kids' movies cinemas will usually have an early dubbed version and a later english one.
 
Here the french TV channel dub everything, but being in bilingual country means we have English channels also, plus being the neighbor of the biggest producer of English entertainment in the world doesn't hurt either.
 
jetsetter said:
Considering it is a long plane ride to get somewhere that does not speak either English or Spanish this should not be surprising.
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Right, I just would have chosen to learn those languages because I'd want to learn them, not because of state mandate.

RoamingGnome said:
Quite literally streets of NY. Came to the states when I was 20. Took about a year to be comfortable with it and 2 after that to be fluent.
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Where did you come from originally?
 
BTM5 said:
What is different from Iceland to other non English speaking countries is that we dont dub TV shows or movies unless it is animated or aimed at children.

That helps the learning of English. Schools start teaching English when we are 10-11 years old.
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same here in Norway, only childrens shows are dubbed.
 
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