sidney

I can't forget what my former college classmate said when we were chatting. She said, "I'm not allowed to go out late at night, since my relatives here PAMPERS me." And "Pampers" happens to be the name of a diaper brand. I really can't forget that blunder until now.

I haven't encountered such questions yet, and I'm curious to see how I will fare in that kind of test. Even when I was in school, I did not come across that kind of test. I hope it's not that hard.

I got paid to write adult stories before (in person, not thru a website) and because of the nature of my "literary work", I used a lot of descriptive words and exaggerated the story a bit for a more flamboyant effect. You really have to be elaborate and descriptive when you write stories in general to engage and immerse the reader.

Over here in the Philippines, "musta" or "kamusta" can be used in formal or informal conversations. "Kamusta" means "How are you" in English.

I just decided to learn a foreign language out of curiosity. I immediately liked Rammstein's songs the 1st time I heard it, so I started to google the English interpretation of their songs. Rammstein is a German band, by the way.

My favorite foreign language word would be "C'est la vie", which means "That's life". It's quite common to use and very applicable and usable to casual conversations. The late 90's girl group B*Witched even released a song with the same title. That's how I discovered that word.

For me, I think that learning a new language becomes easier if you listen and particularly like a foreign song, because it tends to stick in your head because you sing along to it, so the meaning and pronunciation becomes easier to grasp and remember.

Learning a language thoroughly depends on many factors, like your commitment to learning it, time you're willing to invest, whether you're a fast or slow learner, and the method that you chose how to learn, whether thru a professional teacher or thru self-study. I think it may take around 2 years minimum and more to learn a new language.

Yes, I agree with you, because music makes it easier for you to memorize what a particular word meant, because you can sing along to it. I actually google the theme songs of the Japanese shows that I'm watching, and I accidentally learn a few words and phrases because of it.

I have been watching Japanese sentai series lately, and I have unconsciously learned 2 words from it, namely, "hai" which means "yes", and "konichiwa" which means "hello". Their accent seems rough, so sometimes you can't tell if they're angry or not, lol. But it is a great way to learn simple Japanese words, but of course not enough for the serious learner.

My favorite quote is "The pen is mightier than the sword" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I just learned that the quote originated from his play, I never knew that. I always though that the author of the quote was unknown, until I googled it.

I like the quote "You complete me." in the movie Jerry Maguire. It is the perfect thing to say to someone you love. Simple, yet very deep and meaningful.

Same here, I would also recommend learning French instead, because it's obviously more popular in Canada. Even their names are of French origin, so you can't go wrong with opting for French.

Latin is indeed an interesting language, but I have no interest in learning it in general. I'm sure there are lots of people all over the world who are interested in learning Latin anyway, so it's not an entirely dead language, it will still survive in this modern era. However, I would just like to know what certain Latin phrases mean, since it's sometimes used in horror movies when the character is chanting spells or driving away evil spirits.

For me, any language that has a character version, like Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Russian, Hebrew, etc. are the hardest ones to learn. Because not only do you have to learn the basics, but you also have to memorize what those complicated images mean. Compare that with English, Spanish or Tagalog and the simple ABC is a lot more easier to learn.

They mean the same, "perhaps" just sounds more formal and "maybe" sounds informal and fit for casual conversations. Here's an interesting link about the topic: http://www.englishgrammar.org/possibly/

Of course I think that a human teacher is by far the better choice when it comes to learning a new language. Nothing beats interacting with a fellow human that has a brain and can correct your mistakes if your serious about learning a new language. But if you're just a casual and curious language learner like me, then just studying using an app, book or researching about it on the net would suffice.

I don't agree with your teacher, because over here you can be trained on how to sound American by attending those call center training classes. You will be trained to speak English using an American accent, so I think mouth structure has nothing to do with it, it's more on immersion, environment, and attending special language or accent classes.

Same here, I also type or write other variations of the word I'm having difficulty spelling in, and when the word "looks" right, I know it is the right spelling. For example, I always tend to misspell the word "Michael" as "Micheal". Now at 1st glance the 2nd word looks odd, right?

I use "onwards" all the time, I guess you just don't encounter that word often. It doesn't sound odd at all to me, but the word "upward" does sound odd in my opinion.

Yeah you got a point, Tagalog is more specific to the language that is being discussed in the forum. Filipino just seems really broad to me, it encompasses all our dialects plus Tagalog. So it's ok for that section to be called as is.

I think this site can finally answer our question: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/100504/why-is-the-l-silent-when-pronouncing-salmon

My dad only knows 2 languages, but when he worked in the office where his office mates were mostly Visayan, he got to pick up Visayan words, and now he knows common Visayan words and sentences. I guess you should surround yourself with the people that you intend to learn their local dialect if that's possible, so that you can unconsciously pick up and immerse yourself to learn the language.

How about looking for a language buddy where you can practice learning English? Try several English chatrooms where you can try practicing conversing English with the people over there. Nothing beats being immersed and involved when trying to learn a new language.

I remember being slightly teased by my relatives and cousins when I say anything that has an "R" in it, and as a kid, I really don't know what's wrong with how I say it, and until now I still don't know, since I wasn't able to hear myself saying it, but I think my "R" has improved once I became a grade schooler, like around 9 or 10 years old. I didn't do anything special, but I think in your case you can try saying any "R" word repeatedly, like how the Mexicans and Spaniards say it. I noticed that they say the "R" in any word quite strongly and more emphasized.