thekernel

Chinese isn't as widespread globally as English and Spanish are. It's a language centralized, albeit very densely, to a certain global region. English is a language being taught in many places where it isn't native (I think Sweden, Iceland, and India teach English from a young age). Spanish has the potential to be a de facto global language, but it's more commonly spoken in countries that aren't considered first-world. English seems like a prime candidate.

"Pero" is used for a contrast when the first part of the sentence isn't negative. "Sino" is used for a contrast that starts negatively and is contradicted in the second half of the sentence.

"Daniel has free time, but doesn't know what to do with it"

In this instance, "but" is used to contradict the non-negative, which is where you would use "pero".

"She wasn't late, but rather she was punctual."

Translated into Spanish, you wouldn't use "pero" but you would be using "sino" instead, because the contradicted item is in the negative tense.

I had to give directions in Spanish once. Two older women were trying to get downtown via train. I stumbled through simple directions, I remember telling them "dobla y a la derecha" (up and to the right).

It's really funny, I somehow have always been able to do it, long before I learned any Spanish words. In class I remember so many people having trouble with it, and I couldn't understand why! Physically, it was so easy. Pronunciations in general have always been the easiest part about Spanish for me.

It couldn't hurt. If you are really trying to develop fluency in the language you need to use any tool available to you, and a dictionary is one of those tools. Of course, if you are trying to challenge yourself in conversation you should always try to understand the word before reaching for the direct translation.

"Cryptocurrency" is a relatively new term that is going to see a surge in popularity. It's a term describing virtual currencies that are encrypted for security. I feel like, as cryptocurrencies become more and more popular, we will be seeing the word a lot more.

Software for grammar/spelling/translations is only improving, but your best bet is to double-check with someone who would be able to spot errors. It's great to see how far the technology has come but it's quite far away from being completely automated.

As a native English speaker, it was interesting hearing all these sounds and pronunciations emulate real words. My mind kept trying to make sense of it! Very peculiar. I wonder, do videos like this exist for other languages?

Because of the advent of globalized communication, I believe society is trending towards a near-universal language. Languages are rapidly becoming extinct as everyone's knowledge of the world around them grows. I don't know about a new language, but English is a strong candidate to be globally adopted. All that being said, the structure and colloquialisms of the language will likely be drastically different in say, 100 years.

It's definitely helpful. You are simultaneously hearing proper pronunciations and reading the translations with context. Heck, if you were more advanced in your language learning, you could watch without subtitles and try to understand. Watching movies is a great way to assist your learning, though I wouldn't recommend it for acquiring basic knowledge.

Anyone from different regions will sound different. Think of how a Texan will speak compared to a Massachusettsan or a Californian. It's not that much different when you go to Canada; people from Vancouver sound like people from Seattle. Quebec is the lone exception because it is the biggest French niche in North America, but even then Louisiana houses a Cajun dialect that is remarkably similar.

Now, if you zoom out of the regions you will find bigger differences, like has been mentioned earlier with British English and Australian English. However, in those areas there are also regional dialects and accents from within (Cockney and Received Pronunciation in Britain). In this vein, you can put USA and Canada under the same continental umbrella of accents while looking at specific regions for differences.

"Set" is probably the most proportional homonym you can find in English. There are so many definitions and methods of using it.

"Hand" is another good one, with a couple of definitions beyond the physical body part.

I didn't realize an adverb could be important to a semicolon's usage; I figured you just needed two closely related ideas that a comma couldn't quite link. I hope that's proper use of the punctuation as I feel I can be quite liberal with the semicolon.

Learning in group settings like classrooms means the pace is dictated by the teacher, not the slowest learner. In this case, some people who don't learn as fast or study as hard will be left with gaps in their knowledge, which is unfortunate. However, the alternative is 1 on 1 learning, which while more effective is more restricting financially.

It depends how much I care. How much I care dictates the amount I study. In high school my apathy often outweighed the study material, but I do give an effort if I need to. I remember in my English final exam, we were supposed to write two essays and our best one will be graded. I wrote one, handed in my final, and left the school about 30 minutes earlier than any other students had. I ended up getting a decent score despite my haphazard preparation. However if my grades were to hang in the balance, I would probably feel some nerves beforehand.

It's hard enough remembering the vocabulary, but I wouldn't want to tabulate it for statistic's sake. Even learning a second language I would much rather integrate the words in a real-world setting than try to put a number on how many words I know.

Catchphrases, recurring colloquialisms, and slogans have all been around for a long time. When people are a part of the social pulse, it's no surprise that they make references. "Memes" in their current definition are the manifestation of the internet's prowess at exchanging information, such that people who have access to that kind of culture (like a movie quote or a line from a song) will be able to speak it, share it, and understand/identify with those who know it as well. It hasn't changed how we interact in this manner, if anything the internet is just the catalyst to this social phenomenon.

There are a few prime languages in this world that are used in business, and English is one of them. No, they don't have to learn it. But if they want to conduct business worldwide, learning English is a great place to start.

I think I have become desensitized to attention-grabbing headlines. I realized long ago that sensationalism is what sells, not stories. So, when I see the front page of magazines I don't feel curious in the slightest. However, I find I don't apply it to sports, as the stories are more glorified than fictionalized.

Immersion is a terrible place to start if you have 0 prior knowledge, for it would take a very long time to grasp common conversation. One should educate himself/herself at least a little bit, get some basics down before going to live in a country of a different language. It would expedite the learning process and save you a lot of time.

Oddly enough, I found learning Spanish to be the exact opposite of frustrating. Everything makes sense in Spanish. Accents only indicate emphasis, all the letters always sound the same...The only challenging part was understanding native speakers because of their natural speed with their mother tongue, but that's a challenge everyone faces with language learning.

I very much think in English. It's been a long time since Spanish has been part of my daily routine, so much so that I can barely construct simple sentences any more (let alone think in the language). Although, recently I've been watching a lot of Breaking Bad, and the Spanish dialogue does dredge up my ability to understand the language.

There isn't the requirement of structure technically. If you are writing a poem, it could be whatever you want in whatever way you want to say it. It doesn't have to rhyme, have a specific set of syllables, or only use metaphors or similes that make sense. That being said, there are many poem variants that do have structures and "rules" more or less (like a limerick for example).

It's amazing hearing people speak in their native languages. I thought Spanish would be very hard to learn because it sounded like everyone was going fast at first. When I started learning it, I found it to be fairly rhythmic; the enunciation has fairly simple rules and all the letters are pronounced phonetically. Within a short time it started making more and more sense.

As far as English goes, I don't think I'm a fast talker relative to other native speakers. I couldn't imagine how hard it is to learn for non-native speakers. There is so much slang and lack of absolute rules, and idioms/metaphors add another degree of difficulty. Living in Vancouver, there are a lot of people who learn English as their second language, and sometimes I do have to slow myself down or repeat myself to communicate with them.

There is probably a niche of non-blind people who know Braille that do work in translations and such. After all, it's quite necessary for that niche to exist. I would say it's practical in the field of translations and publications for the blind. I don't know about learning it for learning's sake though. It's a language for the disabled, which has a lot of different applications than other languages.