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forkies · May 1, 2003, 02:55 AM

I am working toward my BA and plan on teaching English in Japan for a little while after I graduate. This board tends to be frequented by many different people from places all around the world. I have some questions for anyone that did not learn English as a first language:

Where did you grow up? Where do you live? What is the native language there?
Why did you decide to learn English? Did you study it in secondary school? college/university?
Are there any things that stick out in your mind about your experiences? any difficulties in particular? things you found interesting when comparing/contrasting English with your native language?

Thanks for anyone that responds to these honest, curious questions. Feel free to comment on any other thoughts this sparks. Take care!

iT4c0 · May 1, 2003, 03:39 AM

I grow up in taiwan. I moved to US 6 years ago. In Taiwan, English is a required subject since elemantry school (same for Japan). We see English everyday and everywhere but we don't speak them. However we use simiple words such as ok, bye, hi, thank you, sh*t, f*ck. 80% of kids in Taiwan (or Asia) go to cran school to study English after school. A lot of cran schools are looking for the native American teachers. They make big $$ there. I think it would be really cool to teach asian people the english slam words such as sucker, or whatever ( can't come up anything right now). In japan, they speak japanese and they think English speakers are VERY COOL. Have fun there in Japan, I am sure you will.

Dogma · May 1, 2003, 07:26 AM

Well, always knew english one is afraid, but so many people cannot speak english anymore, and try and tell me i don't. It's the difference between english and american english. Anyone coming to Scotland would be advised, we pretty much were the first peoples to speak english in its current form and have gradually made it different to the standard as well. We now speak what is called Scots. A bastardised version of english with little Gaelicisms in there. most of us have no problem with "proper" english, but to each other will be spouting out the odd "cheuchter", "Cachtibar", "Dunderheid" etc.

Anyway, english is sooo overated. French is much nicer language.

Slaing� Mhais!

designbc · May 1, 2003, 08:36 AM

I was born and raised in Cuba. Came to USA almost five years ago. I studied some English at school there in Cuba, but when I came to Florida, I couldn't understand a word when people spoke English, so I went back to school here for almost a year and every day watched TV with the Closed Captions On, so I could read what they were saying.
But here a there is a lot of latin population and you can do ok even if you don't speak English
A year later, I was hired by a company that sent me to Atlanta for a month and that was a real experience, because for first time I needed English to survive, nobody around who could speak Spanish. I learned the hard way and I think I graduated there
Now I speak what is known as "the official language of Miami": SPANGLISH.

Spliffdaddy · May 1, 2003, 08:46 AM

Welcome to America. Glad you could make it.

I'll admit that I watch Spanish-language TV shows with closed captioning turned on so I can understand what they're saying. Hasn't helped me at all...they simply talk too fast.

Powaqqatsi · May 1, 2003, 08:56 AM

Well, my native language is Dutch. My second language is French (almost as fluent as Dutch, I'm half French-speaking at home), my third language is English (where HAVE to learn it at highschool here and you learn a lot on TV). I also speak a littlebit of German (we have to learn this at school too, french also btw).And I also know a few words in Italian. And I'm just 17 years old.

Spheric Harlot · May 1, 2003, 05:32 PM

I was born in Tokyo, though my parents are German and that is technically my mother tongue.

Grew up in Hong Kong, Mannheim, and Kobe (went to an American middle/highschool there), though, so I turned out fluently bilingual, with a smattering of Japanese.

I dunno, does that even qualify?

nonhuman · May 1, 2003, 06:33 PM

Out of curiousity, are you planning on going with the JET program, or through some oher means? I'm thinking about appying for the JET program myself after I graduate (next year).

Judge_Fire · May 2, 2003, 04:14 AM

1: Born in Helsinki, Finland. Grew up here, too. Finnish, that freaky unrelated-to-nothing language is my first, swedish my second and english would be my third.

2: Decide? We got cable in Helsinki when I was a kid in the beginning of the eighties, so you can blame Space 1999, Starsky & Hutch reruns, Brady Bunch, Fantasy Island and all the other cultural gems from the US, as well as most of the cool BBC stuff, Dr. Who, Sapphire and Steel etc. for setting my brain up for the internet experience.

And movies, too, of course. There's no dubbing here, just subtitles, so the nordic countries get a very, very large dose of english daily. Expect people under 35 to have quite solid english. (Except if they're well paid race car drivers.)

Formal education started in the third year of school.

3: Well, after enough aural exposure, I kind of naturally drifted towards english language mags in my early teens (Thrasher, Guitar Player, Fangoria - yeah, I know, but National Geographic was cool, too!) and from there into reading novels. Translations and localizations always lose some of the original item's personality, so I prefer to read in the original language, if possible.

But I have to agree with some critics - english is the most irregular and a plain insane language when it comes to consistency in spelling and pronounciation. It creates a huge threshold for a lot people, who'd otherwise post (instead of just lurking) on boards like this.

J

Powaqqatsi · May 2, 2003, 05:01 AM

Originally posted by Judge_Fire:
There's no dubbing here, just subtitles

Yeah we have this too here, I don't understand it why people dub tv shows and films (like France, Italy, Germany etc.)

Judge_Fire · May 3, 2003, 07:22 AM

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Yeah we have this too here, I don't understand it why people dub tv shows and films (like France, Italy, Germany etc.)

One day voice recognition and speech synthesis can and will be used to translate the dubbed shows back into english! I can't wait

If its even half as fun as translating things back and forth with babelfish/sherlock etc...

J

malvolio · May 3, 2003, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by Judge_Fire:
1: Born in Helsinki, Finland. Grew up here, too. Finnish, that freaky unrelated-to-nothing language is my first, swedish my second and english would be my third.

But I have to agree with some critics - english is the most irregular and a plain insane language when it comes to consistency in spelling and pronounciation. It creates a huge threshold for a lot people, who'd otherwise post (instead of just lurking) on boards like this.

Well, Finnish is pretty closely related to Estonian, and distantly related to Hungarian, but they are not Indo-European languages.
I am an American of Finnish ancestry, and I am embarassed to admit that I can only speak a few simple phrases of Finnish (such as En ymm�rr�).
As a native English speaker, I would just like to express my admiration of anyone who has learned it. It is an incredibly screwed-up langauge!