sidney

No, not really. My teachers aren't that "inspiring" enough to make me learn a new language or develop a general interest in whatever they're teaching, lol.

I agree with what has been said, plus immersion to the people who naturally speak the language will accelerate the learning process. My dad learned a local dialect when he was already a middle aged guy, he was around 50 that time just because he was exposed to a lot of his office mates that spoke that dialect. So he eventually learned the basic words and phrases of that dialect.

I agree, if you just want to know the gist of a sentence, then Google Translate can decently do it. But don't count on it to be fluent. Nowadays, I just usually use Google Translate to understand the negative customer feedbacks that I read on Ebay.

My dad claims that he has roughly learned how to speak basic Visayan (a local dialect) just by listening to his officemates speak Visayan. So I guess that it's possible learn any language just by listening to other people talk. After all, you can learn and absorb new words thru constant repetition.

Yeah I tried that, but not really to intentionally learn a new language in general, it's just that I liked the beat and melody of the song to the point that I got curious to find out what the singer is saying, so I decided to try to translate the language in English. So if I hear a song that I like and it's not in English, then I will research the English translation of the song.

Yes that is interesting! Actually Tagalog speakers use two sets of words : tatay for father and nanay for mother (this is is equivalent to "dad" and "mom" and is more casual) OR ama for father and ina for mother. Ama and Ina are more formal. In fact the word "Ama" is used in the Filipino Catholic "Our Father" prayer.

You seem to be quite well-versed in Tagalog. Over here, we also use ""Mama" and "Papa" to refer to our parents, but I prefer to use "Mommy" and "Daddy".

I haven't been able to travel out of my country yet, but who knows, maybe one day I will be friends with a foreigner living in here because we both speak the same language. Presently I do have "foreigner" friends, but they grew up here even if their parents were from another country.

Usually, coined words are never translated and just adopted as is, like in the example of the word "selfie", especially if the country also speaks English as one of their languages. I think it would hard to find a literal word counterpart for coined words, but the meaning can easily be explained in one's local language.

Yes, I think it would be effective if the language had a correctly translated English subtitle. If you watch the movie over and over again and you pay close attention to the words in the subtitle and the correct pronunciation, then I'm sure you can eventually learn to speak fluent phrases taken from a movie.

Listening to foreign music also helps in learning a new language, and I think that it would be much easier to remember what the word or phrase meant, because you can simply repeat the song over and over again until you know the whole translation of the song by heart.

I only dream in 2 languages which are English in Tagalog. Mostly my dreams were in Tagalog, but I remember singing an English song in my dreams, and that's the only time that I dreamt in English. I usually speak Tagalog in my dreams.

Not really, but I wouldn't mind learning a new language if given the chance. I would prefer to learn Spanish since most countries speak it, and we were colonized by the Spaniards for 300 years, so it makes sense to learn the language.

I think what makes you decide to learn a language would be if you find that language particularly interesting, even if you don't plan to go to that country. But if you plan on going to that country, then of course choosing to learn it makes sense. You have to, because you're going to need the knowledge once you arrive in that particular country.

I speak 2 languages fluently, Tagalog and English. I would love to be fluent in Spanish in the future though, because as of now, I only know of a few Spanish words and phrases.

That's quite a new concept. I don't even know how to cook at all, so I don't think that it's possible for me to try out this one. But it's interesting idea though, it also aids you in getting more immersed to the culture of the language that you're learning.

No, I haven't done that yet, but I guess it would be indeed quite effective if I tried it. It would be weird talking to yourself though, especially when you're reciting some dialogues.

I agree, never pay first for a translation software, see first if it's good enough to do the job by using the trial version. Can't Google Translate suffice your translation needs though, to the point that you still need to purchase a translation software?

I suggest that you go for learning the translation of the words first, so that even if you're not fluent, you can communicate effectively and get the basic point across, which reminds me of how native Chinese people speak English, they use very brief but not fluent sentences, and you can still understand what they're trying to say even if it's grammatically wrong. Then when you're done learning most of the meaning of the words, then you can now move on to learning phrases.

I haven't been out of my country yet, so I have not forgotten any words or meanings of words in my native language. And even if I were to travel abroad, since I grew up here, it's impossible for me to forget any of the words in my native tongue. I think forgetting you own native language is only possible if you migrated to another country as a child, so you did not have enough time to be fully immersed in that particular language.

If I were the one being corrected, I wouldn't mind, because I would rather be corrected than make the same mistake again in the future. A close friend had to point out to me the correct pronunciation of a word, and I'm grateful for that. I did try to correct a former college classmate before, and it's not related to spelling, it's idiom related, because she mentioned "single flight" instead of "solo flight" in one of our casual conversations, and I told her that it's "solo", not "single", and she told me that both have the same point anyway, so "single flight" can slide. Okaay. Whatever floats your boat.

I always have trouble spelling English words that have repeating letters like "Mississippi" or "accommodating", for example. I always have to use Google to double check if I had spelled the word correctly.

I would have to agree that the "Indian-English" accent is not very pleasing to hear, and also the heavily accented "Asian-English" accent like the ones from China, Korea, Japan, etc.

I think that idioms aren't meant to be sarcastic, although I agree that a sentence can be well meaning or sarcastic depending on tone of your voice and how you say it. Like the other day, a friend of mine said "Good luck" to me in a sarcastic tone, because he thinks that I won't be able to do something right. So I guess the real essence or intent behind a sentence all boils down to the tone of the voice and how it was said.

I'm guilty of doing this every once in a while myself. If I'm perfectly honest, it's one of those words that should just be the same form since the pronunciation is identical. Unlike "read", being pronounced as "red" in the past tense. Some standards are just plain confusing.

But the word "read" means the same thing, the only alteration is that the past tense is pronounced differently. While the words "lose" and "loose" are 2 totally different words with equally different meanings.

No, that hasn't happened to me yet, but a classmate of mine way back in high school would test your English proficiency by writing misleading English words that are pronounced differently, like "saute". She asked me to read it while showing me the paper, and when I pronounced it correctly, she and my other classmate looked at each other and said, "That's correct". Okaay, so that's how teenagers gauge your English proficiency, lol.