foreign languages and native english speakers.

[Guest loppez]

i just wonder, do native english speakers learn foreign languages at (should i use "at" or "in"?) school? it is kinda rare to find one of them, who can use more than one language.

 

 

this thread is not some kind of trolling. i just would like to know because in other countries you have about 3 hours english lessons (or different language) per week. it is not a lot but at last one foreign language is needed to go to college, pass some examps in high school etc.

[desi 53]

I'm a native English speaker, but I learned a foreign language just by listening to my parents/grandmother speak. I'm fluent enough where I can hold a conversation, but English is my first language. Guess that goes with being a second generation immigrant. As far as learning languages in school, a good number of high schools here in the United States require you to get a year or two of a foreign language of your choice (usually Spanish or French). AFAIK, if you don't do that in high school, you have to do it at most of the better colleges at least. It's not enough where you're fluent enough in the other language to hold a lot of detailed conversations, so you won't really find many people that are bilingual (unless you have a special case like mine). I took like 4 years of Spanish in high school and I just know how to hold very basic conversations. It's not something I really dedicated myself in, and I just kinda took it to get credits and whatnot.

Edited September 18, 2013 by desi
typo

[SaruDa 11]

Yeah, one or two years are required in high school(one year at my old high school). Unfortunately, one year isn't enough to really pick up a whole lot when you're learning at the pace they teach public high schools here. I took one year of Japanese in high school, and along with some self study I was able to skip 1 semester of Japanese when I got to college.

 

Oh and I'm in the US.

[Guest loppez]

one or two years? that's not a lot but i think nobody gives a damn. english is so popular you don't have to learn more. i can understand it.

 

in my country you have to learn foreign language from the beginning (primary school) but level of teaching is various. it reminds me one of my school. for 2 years the same english lessons - fruits and vegetables

 

anyway thanks for your posts guys.

[PandaeMang 10]

I'm required to take 3 or 4 years of foreign language class. English is my first language, and i learned french seeing as how it's my familys first language and by growing up and hearing them talk it all over the house.

 

I live in the US as well.

[boukyaku 10]

At least in the USA school system, you have the choice of learning a foreign language starting in middle school. Two years is required for graduation depending on the school and to apply to a university.

 

I think English became a popular universal second language after WWII.

[Dan. 11]

I'm in the U.S. too, and it's like desi and saruda said. My high school actually required 3 years of a foreign language (you're in high school for 4), but most schools near me only required 1 or 2 years. My high school taught Spanish, French, and Italian, and the other high school in town taught Spanish, French, and German. We also had Spanish and French in middle school that was required for the three years you were there.

 

I actually liked Spanish class and I was good at it so I was able to start high school Spanish at the second level and ended up getting college credit for Spanish when I graduated high school by doing an advanced class. I could have real conversations in Spanish at the time, but since I haven't used it a lot since then, I've forgotten a lot of it.

 

One problem with language learning is that at most high schools in the U.S. there are no levels for the classes. Most people saw foreign language classes as an annoyance because they was required so they didn't take them seriously and knew almost nothing even after 3 years of it. You could take General, Academic, Honors, or AP Math classes, but there was only one level of each language class, so the people who were serious about learning were with the people who were only there because they had to be. Even among those who wanted to learn, it was difficult for the teacher to teach when people were at different levels of knowledge and learned at different speeds.

[Rauthaz 10]

In Scotland (different teaching system from the rest of the UK) it is mandatory you start learning French or German for 1 year in primary school and have to do 4 more years in high school, then you have an option of carrying it on to a higher level. But most people including me weren't interested and dropped the subject as soon as possible.

[Dubs 13]

Can agree with this ^, From Year 7 which is starting Secondary school ( Not sure what that is in the U.S ) it's mandatory for you to take at least 1 language course up until Year 9 where you choose what you'll take for your GCSE's ( Courses from Year 9 to the end of Year 11 ).. apparently some schools teach different languages here, but the only option in my school was french or nothing although my mates french teacher was actually married to a Japanese woman and they actually had fluent Japanese conversations over the phone sometimes :L

 

UK Educational system is so complicated ;(

[Gerard the Lone Wolf 10]

I'm not a native English speaker, but in Malaysia they do teach the English language as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary school. Since the country is multi-racial and the population ratio is about even, knowing the four main languages of this country is the best way to go. So, right now I know Malay, Javanese, English, and a bit of Chinese and Tamil languages (writing something in these two languages is still a bitch) which is enough to hold decent conversations. Currently learning Japanese Language in a slowpoke pace.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Gerard the Lone Wolf

[Ryu 15]

My first languages are Spanish and Guarani and I speak English and Portuguese well enough to stablish a decent conversation and currently can understand japanese conversations to a certain degree thanks to all the VN/anime stuff.

 

IMO the best to learn a foreign language is to listen to it.

 

That's how I learned English (Thanks to all the games, movies and music.) and portuguese (I live one the border between my Paraguay and Brazil so there are a shitload of brazilians here and it's pretty much inevitable to learn it here.)

 

On school I didn't learn shit, all the teaches taught us was the basics like greetings, goodbyes, how are you and shit.

 

So that's pretty much it, listen, listen and LISTEN and you should get ahold of a new language in no time.

[ChexGuy 13]

Native English speaker - parents tried to get me to learn Mandarin early on, took lessons on and off for the better part of my life but I'm still not fluent in it at all. My middle/high school required at least 4 years of one Asian language out of three, so I didn't have a language class in senior year.

[ret 12]

What Ryu said, basically.

 

Reading/writing portuguese is easy, but listening to it is another thing entirely, though. If you know spanish, you know +60% of portuguese.

I started learning english pretty early on - the sooner you get to learn a second language, the easier you can become a polyglot.

 

What I was taught in school was pretty much worthless (again, as Ryu said - perhaps not too much for those who never worked with English before, though), and I've used games, music, movies and books as my main material for indirectly learning. Having conversations helps a lot, too. For the record, English is taught pretty much for the whole duration of school.

 

I've had some japanese books around, but they were aimed at basic stuff for traveling and stuff. Still helpful, though. I'm in no way making a serious attempt to learn it (too lazy...) but I started getting the hang of things simply by listening and reading. I don't have any plans on overcoming the kanji wall anytime soon, at the very least.

 

Listening is indeed a great tool in understanding languages. I find it effective to try and "think" with the languages as well. Try mentally applying terms or concepts you learn in order to make it "flow". As for writing, a graphics tablet can help a lot if you want to learn to write japanese.

[Anger 10]

Danish is my native language, but already early in school we start on english ( and in southern part of country where im from) we get Gernman aswell. since i live so close to german border (throws rock the the fence) german comes rather naturaly.

 

been trying my luck on japanese, but thats a hell of a hard nut to crack. just not all thats got the talents for languages.

[iLoveTsundere 10]

Im portuguese , and i can speak english (obviously) , french , spanish , some rudimentary german , a good deal of norwegian (as i am part norwegian myself) and am currently learning japanese.

 

Pretty much english was learned through TV and i also spent some time living in the US , french was learned in part through school and a few months i spent in France , spanish i had to pretty much learn it because my gf is spanish , german just a few bits and pieces i picked up in TV , norwegian because of the reason i already specified , and started learning jap a year ago roughly , not just to read untranslated VNS (granted , learning jap just to read 10-20 good untranslated VNs is overkill) but because i plan to stay for long periods of time in japan later on.

Edited September 19, 2013 by iLoveTsundere

[killerinsidee 14]

When I was going to primary school, we were "forced" to learn German for some fucking reason and just when I was about to go to high school (last year of primary school) they added a choice between German and English. In high school they didn't let me take English because I didn't take any classes in primary school orz. So I actually didn't attend a single day of English classes in school, oddly enough.

 

What Ryu said is true, just listen and read. Fuck school, you won't learn any languages at school. Not to mention that the way of studying languages in school is not very productive, especially if you don't have good reason to learn it or don't give a shit about that language in the first place.

[Gerard the Lone Wolf 10]

Fuck school, you won't learn any languages at school. Not to mention that the way of studying languages in school is not very productive, especially if you don't have good reason to learn it or don't give a shit about that language in the first place.

Pretty much the truth.

[SaruDa 11]

a good deal of norwegian (as i am part norwegian myself) and am currently learning japanese.

Lol, you're more connected to your roots than most people I know. I've got a little bit of blood from probably almost every European country, and a bit of Native American too. I don't know anything but English though.

[OneManArmy 82]

I've absolutely no idea how the rest of Germany handles languages (each Bundesland/state has its own school system) but I had english lessons since elementary school. I wasn't even allowed to drop English in higher classes which means that I was pretty much forced to learn it. Later on I had to choose a second foreign language. Russian or French, I took the latter one. Mainly because I was too lazy to learn the Russian alphabet. After four years of pain I finally dropped French.

 

This means that I had 12 years of English lessons in school and guess what? At the end I wasn't even able to hold a decent conversation because in school you're only doing stupid tasks in books instead of talking or writing with native speakers. School is maybe good for learning the basics but it's definitely not able to teach you a language. I learned English through forums and conversation over Skype.

[Dubs 13]

Russian or French, I took the latter one. Mainly because I was too lazy to learn the Russian alphabet.

 

Russian is such an aggressive and extensive language to learn, I'm not sure why anyone would want to learn it unless they were planning on moving there or were interested in a job which involved them being close to/ needing to deal with Russian speaker >.>

[iLoveTsundere 10]

Russian is such an aggressive and extensive language to learn, I'm not sure why anyone would want to learn it unless they were planning on moving there or were interested in a job which involved them being close to/ needing to deal with Russian speaker >.>

 

learn russian just to read the original Metro books. OBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKIRUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

[Alfadios 11]

Well like OneManArmy I`m German,too,but I started learning English after Elementary School,but was also forced to learn through whole 9 years, at 7th grade I got to choose between Latin and french and well I choose Latin,because I thought it was easier to learn...well a mistake on my part so after 11th grade I dropped it(with still getting my little Latinum). But I also think that learning a language from school only is near impossible,you need to hear and speak it to actually learn to hold fluent conversations and such...well that`s how I learned it anyways....(and thourh watching english series/reading english books..yeah).

[Dubs 13]

learn russian just to read the original Metro books. OBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKIRUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

 

From playing a fair bit of Dota 2 from time to time, I've come to the conclusion that when playing an online game where you'll come across russians all you need to know are these words..

 

http://i.qkme.me/3u1ew4.jpg

 

On Topic: ProTip; If you get the chance to learn another language, take it as you'll never know when knowing how to speak that language could come in handy, Especially with the way the worlds going at the moment.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Dubs

[SaruDa 11]

From playing a fair bit of Dota 2 from time to time, I've come to the conclusion that when playing an online game where you'll come across russians all you need to know are these words..

 

http://i.qkme.me/3u1ew4.jpg

 

On Topic: ProTip; If you get the chance to learn another language, take it as you'll never know when knowing how to speak that language could come in handy, Especially with the way the worlds going at the moment.

 

I know. 40 years ago Japanese would have been bad ass to know, but these days it's worthless ;_;

[Otamegane 10]

Here with my sub-developed country you learn nothing of a second language at school. That only if you are on a public school, if you on private ones, you might get the chance, but it is not that good anyways. I am a native Spanish speaker, I can read, listend and understand English, and my speaking is sort of lame IMO. Japanese... I can at least tell what some Japanese guys said to me, but answering was kind of difficult.

 

Pretty much as everyone said, my opinion is that school is not actually a really good place to learn. Better go to internet, or listen to stuff. Hell my japanese teacher (A Japanese comiket security guard sent to teach his language to... my people) learned Spanish from that