Beverly

Auf Wiedersehen = goodbye Bis Bald! = see you soon Bitte = please Schlaft nicht ein = don't fall asleep Wohnort = place of residence

you find comedy movies or tv shows that are dubbed to your mother tongue are completely NOT funny. I remember back when I was young and watched FRIENDS in Indo dub version and was laughing about it. after I watched the English version, I'd never go back to watch the Indo dub version. they are just so bad.so bad.

When I had to take drama class,our professor required us to pick an English novel and to write short review about it. I remember I was a bit worried because although I have read a lot of novels, I have never really picked up an English version of it. I remember I went to pick up the thinnest novel among the rack outside where you could rent the novels, and It was by Mary Higgins Clark. It was so easy to read for a suspense genre type of novel.

German for me. The masculine and feminine words just drive me nuts lol

I actually think English is already an universal language. Any country in Asia you visit, you'd be able to find someone who speaks English especially Singapore,it's their second language. In Indo, it's language that we have to study at school because it's one that is recognized in the world. It would be hard for me to not be able to speak English and go to another country with Indonesia language alone. Many people I met ,had no clue Indonesia even exist let alone the language itself.

Oh god this is too embarrassing to even tell anyone. So MacDonald is so popular anywhere including in Indo at same time, the reality tv show THE APPRENTICE started and it's something new .Indo doesn't quite have a reality tv show so that was a big hit for me and my siblings. and as you all know, the show host is Donald trump. After I went to U.S , I was telling my husband how it feels weird the McDonald here doesn't come with rice and along with that,I said 'You would think Donald Trump will add some rice as a side'. He was confused and was like 'Wait.what'. I was like 'Well he is so rich now with all the branches of McDonald in the whole world,pretty sure adding rice on a side isn't so hard' He was laughing so hard and I just found out after years later that DONALD trump does NOT own McDONALD. this whole time me and my siblings and some people I know in Indo thought he owns it because of the DONALD!

For me, English and German ,I'd vote Writing. I remember having to follow certain rules of grammar for the sentence to make sense. Speaking seems to be the easiest for me especially with the help of internet nowadays. For example, I may not be able to speak Mandarin fluently but I sing the songs fine. We grew up having 'Karaoke' party all the time with Mandarin songs. We also watch a lot of Chinese movies. I perfected my speaking by joining chat room back in the day and just tried to talk to people. My husband would try to correct me and told me how to pronounce certain word. Listening is tricky for me because each area has their own accent. It's harder for me to understand people from the South such as Texas. I also don't like the announcer in airport,their voice is echoing half of the time that I have to stop what I am doing and just sit there to try to listen carefully.

Walmart actually opened in Indo and failed .One of the reason was coz of the big demonstration in 1998,the store got looted so bad .But in my opinion ,It wouldn't do any good. In Indo, stores like Walmart doesn't stand alone. It's actually INSIDE a mall. You want to go to grocery shopping,at same time you also want to go to mall so you go the super center store in there. Same thing with most fast food restaurant in Indo,they all have to be in the mall or they won't generate much customers. People won't just drive to eat in Pizza Hut and drive somewhere else especially when they know there's another Pizza Hut in the mall! Our movie theaters are all in the mall as well. Heck,we even have an ice skating ring in the mall. Anything in Indo has to be about convenient.

If you just want to check one word or uses ,It's not bad. When you try to check a full sentence,it can turn into a hilarious translation. My friend tried to tell me something in Indo by using google translate to do the job and It just made me laugh .I know what she tried to tell me but the translation was so off ,it actually meant another thing. Sometimes I'd be like 'I have no clue what you are trying to say' and she'd be like 'Maybe your Indo is just not that good' lol

Indonesia uses the same written as English ,the most confusing part for me was the A E I . Indonesia A E I ,are a lot like the Hawaiian I'd say. Indonesia pronounce 'i' the same way English pronounces its 'e' .Another thing is the grammar. Indo doesn't quite have Grammar so that was a new thing for me when I first learnt English. As for my mother tongue ,the Chinese dialect really doesn't have any..written language? I dunno,since We grew up in Indo,we write in Indo. My parents write in Mandarin.

Non native English speaker. I had to read the play of 'Macbeth' and 'Hamlet' when I was in college. It's one of our drama class assignments. We had to watch the old Hamlet movie too. I remember a lot of the verses were hard to understand. Poetic I suppose . Wouldn't say it has helped me master English at all. I enjoyed Hamlet.

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” ― Marilyn Monroe

When I was in Indo,I had to speak three languages everyday not including English. My grandfather is very traditional,he doesn't want us to forget our root. So ,he requires us to speak Chinese in the household. However, our friends don't always speak our dialect so we'd speak Indo with them. My cousin grew up in another small town that spoke another Chinese dialect so,we either speak Indo with her or I'd just speak her Chinese dialect with her. I'd admit that sometimes I have brain fart in my head to all the word translations in my head especially when I call my siblings where we'd speak Chinese mix with Indo and my husband tried to talk to me in English in the background. I remember one time I was so angry at him, I actually shout out Chinese instead of English lol. I grew up with them so it helped.I was the only person among my siblings that speak 'Khek' as well mainly because I was very close to my cousin when she was little so,I picked up the language from her.

My ex bf taught in China for 6 months and all he was required to have was TEFL certificate which he actually earned online. They took care of all his expenses from visa, place to live, and some school or courses actually took you to sight seeing every weekend. I'd suggest to always apply online instead of going there right away and tried to hunt the job. It's harder. When you applied online and they accepted you,you'd have to sign a contract for at least a year to work for them. As I said,they'd take care of your work visa and provided a place to live. When my ex was teaching in EF (English First) ,He met someone who was in his early 20s and has been teaching English since he graduated high school. He has been to many places from Europe to Asia. He used teaching English abroad as a way to also travel while earning money.

Mandarin for sure. Some small town area though,speak their own dialect instead of Mandarin. Chinese has a lot of dialect. I grew up with two Chinese dialects that are called 'Tiong Hua' and 'Khek' (that's how we call it in my dialect,not sure what they call it in mainland China) . I also have friends who speak Hakka. My parents speak Mandarin fluently but never speak them with us because, for a while Indonesia banned Chinese being taught at school. My English Teacher told me,a lot of people from Thailand speak 'Tiong Hua' dialect so he was pretty happy when he visited there.

I'd say it depends on the language itself. Indonesia language has no grammar rule. "I go to school today" , " I go to school yesterday" . English though,is tricky with the grammar. I remember when I learnt it, I was struggling with the grammar mainly because my mother tongue doesn't quite have grammar itself or,I might just not notice it since I've spoken it since I was little. One thing I'd admit ,After grading papers for hours and teaching grammar for hours,I just wanted to break the rule a little bit here and there after I came home from the courses :shy: After I moved to U.S, I noticed that out of 16 tenses we were taught at school, majority of people here only practice about 3 and I'd be the first to admit my English grammar has gone down to toilet since I moved here. My husband doesn't quite follow grammar rule :grin:

It's not the teacher that inspired me ,it's the other student. My first English course was when I was 13 years old. Now mind you,I only knew couple words .This English course must really be desperate to get students that they just asked my dad which grade I was in and ,they put me in the grade that they THOUGHT I was SUPPOSED to be in. The result? My first day in class was terrible. I remember vividly that they had a test. In my first day. It was grammar test and I had no idea anything about it. Even though I was supposed to master it, I was in a public school with over 50 students in one class so my teacher really didn't care if we learnt the language at all. Here I was ,with my pen on my hand ,tried to ask this student next to me who was a lot older than me, to help me a little. to explain to me before the test started. She wouldn't. I was so angry that I made a goal to myself that one day,I'd be standing up there,teaching and I'd be a lot better than this student.

Not only you should start earlier, It's actually easier for children to learn more than one language at a time. If you plan to do it yourself, You can start with the simplest which would be alphabet and numbers. That is always a good one to start ,or you can put the kid in Bilingual playgroup school. Some of my kids in my class were as young as 3 years old. The parents wanted them to learn to socialize at the same time, introduced a little bit of English to them. That being said, Learning language for children can be quite boring so they lose interest pretty quick so, you'd want to find program that teach the language through songs and games.