In which Pez wastes space on your friends list!

[pez]

I was just thinking how many people around here don't actually speak English as their first language. On my flist, I have Chinese (Mainland/HK, and I don't know if Taiwanese and Singaporeans like to call themselves Chinese), Filipino, Brazilian, Portugese, French, German, Norwegian, Finns (is that the right word?), Argentinian, Vietnamese, Indonesian... and others I can't think of right now because I lost some brains through my nose this morning. XD

I know we all mostly write in English because that's the language most understands around here. My question is, how come everyone's English is so good? Is it because you live/lived overseas? You learned it in school and keep practising online? You love reading English books?

Don't mind me, I'm just curious. XD Here, watch Roy dance.

Comments

[ikusatami.livejournal.com]

wow that's really a wide variety of people you have there.. xD

I improved my english with.. yes.. the internet mainly <XD, reading fanfics in english, even attempting to translate them.. and videogames. a lot of companies don't even bother translating the games in german. but right now I play them in english even if there is a german option *lol* (helps with the faqs on gamefaqs.com XD) and I read english books :D only a few but.. Harry Potter series of course ^_^" Howl's Moving Castle.. and.. maybe you know this series.. it's by Laura Joh Rowland (or whatever she is called) and it's about Sano Ichirou, something like a detective working for the Shogun, dealing with murders that occured around the shogun.. and stuff. *babble babble*

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

So it's more reading/writing than speaking/listening? Because I remember meeting up with friends from flist who have very good written English but weren't very confident with speaking it.

I've heard of all those! Tried HP, couldn't get into it (I must be a rare case). I like to read, too, but am not doing it as much as I should. I think the last time I really got into a (series of) book is George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire". :DDDD

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

I did study English at school for seven years, but that's not actually how it became good (it wasn't even my first foreign language and I only started at age 13). The main contributing factor for me was/is reading and more recently the internet, but I've also spent a total of two years living overseas, mostly speaking English even when the country I was in had a different main language.

I feel a little stuck in my English development, though. I would love for it to get better, to have someone correct my mistakes and improve especially my spoken English. I'm at a stage when this is hard work by myself because my speech and written patterns are ingrained so deeply and usually, I don't even see my mistakes any more.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same situation! Sometimes my mistakes (with spoken English) is because I speak too fast and not think first, but with written words, I'm so used to the way I write that I don't see my mistakes... probably the only way to get out of this is to read more and read more widely...

(In any case, I think your English > my English, even though I've spent so much time in an English country...)

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for specifics: Three years of English at school, followed by a vacation in Australia when I ran out of books to read and bought Jurassic Park and a couple of Grisham novels (back then, they weren't horrible yet). I then went back to school and found that those five or six books had dramatically improved my English, it appeared I had made a leap of some kind. I was fifteen at the time, and from then on, had my mother bring me books from the U.S./India, which were much cheaper than German books anyway, and by the time I went for my High School semester in Toledo, Ohio, a year later, reading English books was second nature and I've never stopped (to the point where I don't read any German books unless the original language is German). After my semester in the U.S., I had another two and a half years of English classes at school, and the went on to live in Spain/U.S./China for bits at the time over the next four years, mostly speaking English to room- and flatmates. Hence, my English only improved in proportion to how good the books I was reading were and how well the people I was talking to spoke English/American.

My spoken English is so much worse than my written English it makes me want to hide in shame. I like speaking English better than I do German because I feel more confident when speaking English, but I still have difficulties when choosing words (this seems to be a universal problem in the speech centre of my brain rather than connected to any particular language). Thus, my vocabulary is very limited because rather than wait for the perfect sentence to form in my head and look like an idiot because it takes me longer to speak than other people, I just start circumscribing what I want to say in the words that jump to mind fastest. Actually, when I put it like that, it makes me think I should see a speech therapist. >_>

[celen.livejournal.com]

Hee, for me, it's probably through fandom that I've learned most of my English words. I mean, it's hard not to learn anything when you read fics, watch anime, read manga, other English books and talk to friends in English, right? ;D But it's true that most people are better at writing that speaking, myself included. It's the lack of practise, of course - we don't have many exchange students or anyone here to talk to.

Of course, the school system in Finland is pretty good, too, so that's why we keep learning new things and grammar and all.

By the way, are you native speaker or from some other country and just live in UK? I realized I actually don't know. D:

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Ee! You're from Finland also! That makes two of you on my friends list :D (one day I should draw a pie-chart!)

It's surprising how far one can get even outside an English-speaking environment. I had no idea your native tongue isn't English, for one. XD I'm from Hong Kong, but I've lived in the UK for very many years now. My Chinese and English are equally bad, both sort of half way there. It's very frustrating!

[mushrooms.livejournal.com]

I call myself Chinese, yeah, but I'm not exactly the best in it. Conversant and stuff, but not GOOD. XDDD I've always and probably always will say English is my first language. =D

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

So do you mostly speak in Chinese or English? O_o

[sweetchycks.livejournal.com]

i am chinese but i was born in the states and had many non asian friends when i was growing up so my english was good but i still had to take english as second language just in case.

[factorielle.livejournal.com]

I learned english because at the time Internet was almost exclusively in english and I was craving Animorphs spoilers.

And then I had a kind-of fight with the at-the-time head of french!boiporn, and moved on to English fandom where she didn't make the rules. XD

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

dsjfhklsafhj XDDDD best reason ever!

............there was a head of boi!porn? XDDDDD

(nice icon ♥)

[grimmjow-jagger.livejournal.com]

As for me, I just lived in the states for quite some time and then kept studying English as a second language back here in Russia, first at school and then at a linguistic university.
But if it weren't for online rambling and reading books/watching movies in English I'd definately forget the language, since don't think our education system is efficient enough...

And I still make a hella lot of typos.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

...........I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU'RE RUSSIAN.

I have this impression that most Russians don't know much English... probably because they always comment in Russian in LJ news posts, and have their own fandom pages. I've also been asked if they could translate my fics into Russian, which led me to believe not many of them could read English........>_>"""""

[xiu]

English is my first language, and I still suck at it XD; I get too many words confused and growing up in a place where most of the people I know... actually don't speak English fluently, or at least with really thick accents and still insert random words from their first language left me kind of like... "Buh??". XD (Reason I tend to use random British spelling? I lived with an Australian woman for 3 years when I was learning to read/write XD)

But gathering from info above XD; The internet seems to have a lot to do with it, particularly when it comes to fandom. English-speaking fandoms tend to be larger than others and easier to find things in, IMO.

If you actually listen to me speak for longer than 10 minutes, I start going off with random German or Spanish (neither of which I speak fluently. XD)

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

XDDDDD "Buh?" is a good word, though!

There should totally be just one type of English, to make things easier. Everyone should just speak British English XD (coz that's the one I know :DDDDDDDD)

I'll... probably just stare at you blankly and nod. Chances are I wouldn't have realised you spoke German or Spanish, and just thought you used an English word I didn't know. XDDDD

[naru-naoe.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Personally, I'm not good with the internet. I tend to not proof read when faced with a comment box like this, or a forum on some other case. I'm more confident, coherent and correct (grammar wise) writing on paper or on MS Word (but typing in Word is cheating). ESL is as a whole pretty strict. So I can attribute my english to three things. School. Country. Home. Country because that's what the Department of Education is saying and is trying to forward. School because they gave me my grammar while I found my style. Home because it gave me my ground basics and even practice ground.

Reading books and fanfiction normally would have helped except I became half a geek in high school, the other half a push-over (No quality reading time there) and most fanfiction in FF.net weren't really exemplars of good grammar by then.

But I had a conversation with another author once whom I, while I was at least a little bit younger but I think very rude, commented errors in writing on. Believe me when I say it was meant to be constructive criticism. Glad to say she took it that way. She said most of what I said were stylistic arguments. Snipped it away as nothing much but noted it for further reference seeing that I may have been enforced stricter rules since I'm ESL and she wasn't.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

I had about a year of ESL class, but my teacher was crap!

Regarding the stylistic arguement... I suppose it's a bit like when people start saying "myself" and "yourself" needlessly, and "not to" when they mean "to not" - eg: it's better to not dwell on it vs it's better not to dwell on it. There are a lot of things that are said so often it's become acceptable, although when someone says to me, "yes, I'm fine, thanks. Yourself?" it still makes me want to smack them hard with an English textbook. ^^"

[naru-naoe.livejournal.com]

oh and completely off topic and out of place but I //really// love your work. Could I friend you? *bats eyelashes*

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

XD! Thanks! Sure~!

[mayezinha.livejournal.com]

Since my dad worked on the only nuclear plant in here, the company scouted lots of foreigners (mostly american) so the Creek was something like a suburb Hershey-like, and they a build a a school with a bicultural system. So we stayed on the Creek because of the opportunity of a free good education.
The first half of day was in english and after lunch in spanish, since elementary to middle school. I took highschool out the creek, but the english level is awful, I took translation on college but still, mostly my english is from my upbringing, and sometimes it's troublesome, because I think that everyone around manages it (since in the creek my schoolmates do so). For example, my mom hates when on cable the shows come out unsubbed, because she don't understand, but my sister and I can; but she gets mad when we don't understand and rants of how she got stucked on the creek for years and we didn't learn a thing at all.
The worst is that I understand it and sense when something is wrong (grammatically) but I can't explain why, so I'm useless to explain english homework to anybody XD.
Before internet I had sattelite dish so I watched a lot of tv, participate on workshops, UN models between American Schools, stuff like that.
I read it, kinda write it, but don't make me speak it, (last time I actively spoke it was an an exchange and I was 14) because I can't practice it, but I belive than my pronunciation is better than Penelope Cruz' XD

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

That is quite a special situation. I haven't met any Mexicans before so I have no idea what the general English level is over there.

Pronounciation seems to be everyone's enemy, I suppose because all of us here use English mostly in written form... and, I wouldn't say we're introverts, but most of us don't seem the very outgoing sort. XD

I didn't know what Penelope Cruz sounds like until I saw her on TV recently. They should've put subtitles on because I had no idea what she was saying. XD;;

[lechaco.livejournal.com]

I was born in China but my years abroad > years in China now so although Chinese is my mother tongue, English is now my dominant and best language. I'm amazed at the number of people you have on your flist who do not live in an English environment yet still can write such good English! So jealous! XD But I think reading/writing is a lot easier than speaking because you have time to process the meaning and structure. :( I find myself to be better at reading/writing than speaking in other foreign languages. The speaking has always been my weakest point across languages.

I wish my Chinese was better but I remained in elementary level. -_-; Also, I wish I learned proper English grammar. >_<;;; When you grow up in an English environment, you just absorb grammar rather than learn the structural rules. So yeah, I don't know proper grammar, I just regurgitate what "sounds/feels" right. lol :|

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

I know! So many people not in English speaking environment has better English than I do. It makes me feel fail. ^^"""" Speaking is my worst, too. Reading is easiest because that's the one thing I can do alone easiest.

It's exactly the same for me......

[maeran.livejournal.com]

*adds Korean to your list!* Mine isn't all that good. XD But I learned English through...

Sailor Moon!

...No, I'm not joking, either. The year I came to US (when I was 13), Sailor Moon was on Cartoon Network. I bought it hook, line, and sinker, despite the horrid dub voices. I must have watched each episode at least half a dozen times, or more. Um, a lot more.

It seems to have been effective, because when I transferred to another school a year later, I was immediately kicked out of ESL on the first day. Apparently I wasn't desperate enough to warrant help. XD

And! R.L. Stine as a new ESL textbook! It helped, really!

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

......no way. XD! Didn't it make you talk in a funny way?

[monitorscreen.livejournal.com]

For me, I learn mostly from reading and fandom; early schooling probably helps too.

I started reading Harry Potter in English because I didn't want to wait for the translation to publish. Then Lord of the Rings because I wanted to know all those songs and poems unmangled by translation. Then I just go on to more English fantasy fictions like Dragonlance, The Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time, because it is really difficult to sort out all those made-up terms after translation.
(For the record I still read a lot of books translated into Chinese, since that is faster.)

I first got into the English fandom of LOTR because the Chinese fandom I got into contact with sucks. After that I never return until very recently to the Chinese POT fandom. I think those years in the English fandom, particularly the HP years contribute most significantly to my English, especially in the vocabulary and style fronts - I had the honour to read the works of some really good writers. I learn more vocabs online because online dictionaries are more convenient; I hardly ever check with the dictionary when I read real books.

Then of course, the English syllabus in my primary school - which is actually pretty advance compared to the average in HK - lay the basis for all the above self-learning. Also, my pronunciations aren't too horrid because my English teacher back then taught us how to pronounce words according to their spellings. That is a pretty crude way to learn pronunciation though, so I still mispronounce from time to time ;-)

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Back in my days (haha), I think there were only 3 types of schools in HK... the typical Chinese type, the English-wannabe type (like St Paul's in Causeway Bay) and the foreign type (like King George V). It seems to still be the same, although I think people now have a more active approach towards English. Though from my experience with people, it doesn't matter which school you went to, just your enthusiasm... well, and your teacher. Kinda depends on how lucky you get? XD;

I've heard that HP has very good writers. Sometimes I think it's a shame I'm not into HP....

(Song of Ice and Fire! I'm still waiting for the next book to come out.....)

I'm not too fond of books translated into Chinese, but usually only because people's names become a bunch of long words which I usually don't bother trying to process, and just recognise the shapes and skim over as I read. So I'd finish a whole book not knowing the actual names of the characters. XD;;;;

[carsmash.livejournal.com]

Eh, just stumbled upon your lj XD

I'm from Singapore, but Singaporeans in general don't call themselves Chinese :D We have a Chinese majority, but the government pretty much stresses the fact that we are Not A Chinese Country (since the Malays were the original settlers, before the immigrants from China and India and Europe) and we must embrace ze multi-racialism 8D I'm Singaporean, but I'm not Chinese.

And the Ministry of Education pretty much makes it compulsory for all Singaporeans to take up two languages during their compulsory years of education (English, and their Mother Tongue), so most of us start learning English at an early age, and most of our subjects are taught in English since that's the language most relevant today and somewhat a common language between all the seperate races.

I love, love, love langauges *sparkly eyes* :-*

And would you mind if I friended you? XD

[ele5.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and so I'm also from Finland.

I don't know if my English actually qualifies as good, although if asked, I always state that it's fluent. :)

My first foreign language is German. We have a good school system, but actually the differences between the quality of my German and my English how quite clearly how it's not only the school that matters.

Technically, I studied German since 3rd grade and English since 5th and those were supposed to be equally comprehensive. However, English was a total pain for me. It wasn't logical, to pronounce it was difficult, and spelling was impossible, too. Besides, I was supposed to learn the same amount of English within 8 years as German within 10. That didn't make it any easier. If my totally honest, I suspect that actually the amount of English was bigger than the amount of German...

However, after my final exams of high/school I've hardly spoken German (a bit at chatona's in Germany, and a bit in a dormitory in Sydney, and written the slides for one presentation (because my supervisor thinks that everything looks more scientific when it's written in German), and as a result of that, I've forgotten huge chunks of my German. (And the parts that I remember are more passive vocabulary than active.)

Then English... Well, there are fandoms and writing fic. Secondly, I've lived in the Netherlands (and everybody there speaks brilliant English so that it was actually difficult to try to learn to speak Dutch when people changed into English as soon as their realized that the speaker made a mistake or pronounced wrong and therefore couldn't be native), which has improved my English hugely. Also the fact that within the past 3 years I've read lots of books, and only few of them in Finnish, and the rest in English.

Most of the professional texts are in English (some in French or German or Russian or something similar), and I'm supposed to be able to write scientific articles in English...

So, all in all, there's basically no other possibility but to learn to speak and write English somewhat fluently. Sometimes I envy horribly those people who are native English speakers. Most of the time I'm happy that my first language is so small that there's no hope of coping with it and the Finland has two official languages (Finnish and Swedish) so that I am supposed to speak both of those and in addition to that, those are both so small that one can't even cope with those alone. :D Actually, to survive the comprehensive school in continental Finland, one needs to speak at least three languages (peculiarly, in Ahvenanmaa one doesn't have to be able to speak Finnish).

Sorry about rambling... :/ I seem to be a great fan of explaining languages and school system from Finnish point of view.