Jaxter

Yes, growing up in Canada, English has always been part of our education since the very beginning. We have mandatory English classes all the way up to post secondary school and a lot of the requirements to go to college or university here is to have a good grade in our English classes. I've grown up on writing essays and doing book studies and even though English is not my mother tongue, I do consider it my first language since it is my primary language I speak when I communicate.

I am totally guilty of this and it's almost a creature of habit now. Sometimes I'm scrolling up in a conversation I am having with a friend and i notice just how many "lol" I use in my sentences. Growing up in the instant messaging generation I have just been so used to it that it is now part of my every day vocabulary. Or when I do not know what to say or how to respond, "lol" seems to be the easiest thing to write. "Lmao" is another word that comes to mind that I seem to spam to my friends.

Are there any words or phrases you seem to use more than others on a daily basis? I know when I was doing presentations in school I said "Um" a lot. I know "Um" is not really a word but you get the point. I would try so hard to be aware of it but it sometimes just slips out!

The hardest part is being able to master it (speaking, writing, and reading). Some may be good at doing one but not the other. It is very hard to learn a new language and be completely proficient at every aspect of it.

I always wonder if people who are foreign think that I have an accent when I speak English. I'm Canadian and there is an obvious English accent when I think of people in other countries speaking it such as in Australia and in Britain. However, I do not think I have an accent when I speak at all. I wonder if Australians or British people for example think us Canadians/Americans carry an accent as well. Or better yet, if they themselves (Australians and the Brits) think they have an accent when speaking.

You just have to expose yourself to the language as much as possible. Through your friends who speak it, watching videos of people speaking that language, listening to music of that language. The longer you don't have any exposure to it, the harder it is to pick the language back up and be as fluent as you once were.

A lot of my friends pick up new languages by listening to their favourite foreign artists and it seems to work because I see first hand at how much they are picking up (verbally). It seems also like a fun way to learn a new language. Have you had any success on picking up a new language through music?

It will be whatever you have the most practice in so typically speaking will be the easiest and writing will be the hardest. I'm also basing this off of my own personal experience trying to pick up Chinese. Since I'm of Chinese descent, my parents talk to me in Chinese all the time so I am exposed to the verbal aspect of it daily which helps my speaking improve. I barely need to write in Chinese myself so since I have zero exposure to it writing is certainly the hardest one.

I love the Australian and British accents. They can read a phone book to me and make it sound appealing. It also has some sex appeal to it. I think I will need to make a visit to Australia and Great Britain very soon.