rossonomous

I think providing you know he's doing it for that reason and he's made it clear that he's doing it for that reason then that's a great approach to have.

Not a teacher as such, but my current boss is very strict on grammar and punctuation. He is very well-spoken and picks up on absolutely everything! When I need to send him an email, I must sit there for half an hour trying to decide if it's of an acceptable standard for him to read.

Very good question! I have started to learn Swedish because it sounds really interesting and unique when spoken. I am doing this in spare time after work and on weekends; so I would regard it as a hobby.

I find the hardest thing to be listening due to the fact that if someone speaks to quickly then I get lost. While learning new languages I like everything to be really slow and pronounced so it settles inside my brain easier. After that, writing is pretty difficult at any stage of learning a new language.

I have never really been too bothered about how correct my grammar is and this may well show in some of my forum posts. However, more recently I am starting to pick up on it a lot more because I am working with a lot of 'well-spoken' people. This may sound silly (or not), but I don't want them to generate a lesser opinion of me just because of the way I speak.

I have just started to learn Swedish. One of my new housemates is a native Swedish speaker and whenever I hear her talk I'm intrigued by it. The sound of it just seems really unique and interesting. Along with some online courses, she is going to help me learn.

I don't believe that I specifically have an accent, but that's because the way I talk is 'the norm' in my eyes. I think my housemate from Manchester has an accent, however she believes that how she speaks is normal. Technically, each person has an accent, it just depends how this is interpreted.

So I am now sharing a rented place with a few people and one of these includes a Swedish girl. Her native language is of course Swedish, but she speaks fluent English to a high standard. A few weeks ago I asked her if she would start to teach me some basic Swedish and she happily obliged. I am now following this up with some online lessons while getting her to explain different scenarios and word placement to me. I am also going to Sweden with her and a couple more friends in November, so I am really excited to try and put some of what I learn into good use. How have you guys come to the point of wanting to learn new languages? Through school? From a holiday experience? Friends that speak other languages? It would be interesting know how the choices come about with other people.

Someone posed the question to me once saying "Do you care more about your own grammar or what people think of you when you speak?". This question actually struck me as a really good one. I have recently started working at a company based in quite a wealthy part of London and a lot of the employees are very well spoken with excellent grammar and pronunciation. I am not from the same kind of area and my language is much more relaxed. I have been thinking about this a lot recently, how much do I really care what other think about the way I speak? The more I think about it, the more I seem to care. I am going out of my way to try and speak much more like my colleagues and I don't know whether I should or not? How important is what others think about the way you speak? Do they automatically judge you? Think lesser of you? What do you do when someone speaks in a certain way?

Yes, my native language is English. I've only just begun reading this forum and I'm already beginning to learn a more unique way of typing and using words. I have never really considered how important grammar is to myself personally, but more what other people think about my grammar.

Loving some of the quotes here! My favourite is one that I always remember my English teacher in Year 11 showing us. “If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.” -Doug Larson I'm a big fan of little quotes that make your mind boggle around for a short while.