seotut

English has also been a fundamental part of the education in my country. But that doesn't mean that people speak it perfectly, as with any subject. But that is not surprising. In order to be fully capable of taking part in this world, you need to be able to speak and understand English.

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid. Benjamin Franklin ------------------------- I don't know about this one. Remaining stupid doesn't require any effort at all, while leaving that ignorant state is very difficult. Humans are naturally ignorant, so I don't really agree with this one.

French must be the standard answer to this kind of questions.

I mostly watch documentaries, but have also seen a few movies in German. If you find yourself in a situation where you don't have a lot of natives to talk to, then the only option is movies and tv really. Using books alone you can't train your pronounciation.

I am planning to do just that in the future. I don't think the language will be the problem but rather integrating into the community, making friends, and fitting in. In that case, your language will improve very rapidly. But integration is often very difficult to achieve, it depends a lot on your personality, but also on the nature of your host country.

I've heard of plenty of people who say that are fluent in 5-6 languages but I seriously doubt that their level is actually at a point where the communicate easily and elegantly in all those languages. I've never actually met such a person to test my hypothesis. After all, I don't see the point of knowing so many languages. Obviously, English is a must, whoever you are on this Earth, it will improve your life, and give you better economical opportunities, thanks to the Internet. Then you may be passionate about a certain topic that's more developed in a certain country, like 19th century science papers are generally written in German, or German philosophy might be a reason to learn it. Or maybe you want to move to another country. But in that case, more than 4 languages are not providing a big benefit, not even an economical one. It's a situation of diminishing returns. And we have to consider the actual involvement required to maintain a working knowledge of more than 5 languages. I've personally seen myself slightly forgetting elements of my native language when not using it for extended periods of time. Sure those are particular domain-specific knowledge, but it does happen.

"Mastering a language" is kind of a fuzzy concept. There's no fixed set of skills that qualify as mastering a language. So sure, you can say that mastering actually means being able to take part in general conversations in that language, or being indistinguishable from a native speaker. In the case of the former, it might take less than a year, in the case of the latter it could take decades. But on the other hand, I don't find it very relevant to know how much time it took someone to master another language. Firstly, I don't think they actually studied it round-the-clock. You can always allocate more time to it, and you will get better at it faster. Generally the brain need to process the language, to hear all those new constructs and words, and it will unconsciously build those connections. That's why it's easiest when you just try to speak it, without worrying about whether you make mistakes or not.

I was about 7 when I started learning a second language, and I was just beginning school. But the actual learning happened later, and the accumulation of language skills and knowledge was significantly faster when I started reading books in that language. That's why I think that schools are almost useless in this respect. The only way to learn a language is to immerse yourself, and to start thinking in it.