Lin

Do you love reading? Do you think that only persons who love to read do well in English exams and challenges? I know a few people who do remarkably well in writing and speaking English, yet they are not avid readers. I love to read though. It's what accounts for my success with the language so far.

I have a few words that i just find amusing and flow out of my mouth real nice and easy....one of them is really....i just love that word

I think almost all words roll off my tongue naturally. I just have problems saying a few words that are somewhat convoluted. For example, methodological.  :cry:

I have been to places where i have heard young people speak english better than the americans and their accents sound real authentic, but they are continents away from america. When you ask them where they learnt how to speak like that, they will tell you that they watch a lot of tv and thats where they picked it all up from.

I can attest to this my friend. I myself am not a native American. Yet, I find it so easy to mi-mick Americans and even British citizens. It's really the television watching that I engaged in from my childhood, that has really contributed to this. Thank God for telecommunications technology and media.

I love traditional hard bound books and the thrill of going to bookstores to purchase them. I miss those days. I have never been a fan of ebooks.

I am a fan of eBooks in the sense that I can actually write and publish my own; earning from it at my disposal. Being a fairly good writer, I like the eBook idea. I tend to worry about using my tablet to read books though, when the traditional book would not require me using up any battery power. lol :grin:

I should say that while I've read many e-books of various types on my computers, I have resisted buying any form of e-reader so far, and in particular have resisted buying a Kindle, although I've bought many books and other products from amazon in the past and will do in the future. This is not (simply) an "anti-amazon" prejudice of mine, although like many people I worry about the effect they have had on traditional booksellers, and also their exploitation of tax loopholes.

Well, my take is simply that I if there are alternatives to anything that work out to be more cost-effective, why not use them? I don't have e-readers either. I think my windows 8 tablet is good enough to do the job.

Yea...so I still see people getting miracles and all of a sudden speaking.It happens regularly in my region. I am wondering though, have you heard any news concerning any new advancements in technology to enable dumb persons to express themselves through their brains being connected to a computer machine? It sounds weird, but I know scientists have to think weird in order to invent. lol  :grin:

Dialect is a subset of language that is particular to a specific region or social group.

Even though, a dialect is based on the main language, only a specific group of people speak that particular way. Those who speak a dialect, may have to alter their language, if they leave their region or social group, to be understood. So, while dialect is a language, it hasn't deviated enough to be considered it's own language.

I agree with most of what you said. Language is looked at as the aggregate, while dialect is simply one of the units in the language. It has it's own variations, but it is still a derivative.  :emo:

Field trips are always great in my opinion, the question is, where would the teachers take their students? If the teachers can find a community where natives are speaking that language and that is willing to receive students, great, but I think this is something rare to happen or difficult at least.

  Yea, it is difficult to garner the resources, but something has to be done. If it's even to get a small group of native speakers who live within your mother country, and ask them to gather themselves together at a particular meeting place where you would bring your students to interact with them. Yes, this again will require money for paying the speakers and transporting the students, etc. But it is worth it.

In my experience of language field trips, I find that the students very rarely engage in conversation in the target language. Sure they may be immersed to a degree and work out what some of the signs mean, but mostly students just talk amongst themselves in the native language as much as possible.

That is so....true. It's bad though. Students always seem to have to be prompted or coerced. I don't like this. What may work though, is hooking up the boys with native girl speakers, and the girls with native boy speakers. Attraction and chemistry will do the rest.

I am a firm believer that learning the street slang is important to being fluent in a new language. In my opinion, classroom studies only aren't enough. With this in mind, do you believe language teachers should take their students on mandatory field trips? (They'd be field trips into a community in which the subject begin taught is the native language of the residents.)

Definitely...compulsory....mandatory...have to do it. I firmly believe the above statement. In order for students to excel and remember what they learn, they have to interact and have hands-on experience in the field of study. Language is learnt through interaction, so...let the students interact on field trips with native speakers.

I know it's harder for adults to learn a foreign language, but it's even harder for them to loose that language once they have learnt it. It really depends on the depth of one's experience with the language over weeks, months, and years, and also on one's memory capacity. A mere accident can delete all of one's language knowledge.

I do believe however that once we've gotten a good grasp of a language, even after we haven't spoken it for a long while, we will recall the language once we go back into the environment where we interact with native speakers. 

Have you every met upon anything in particular that makes you frustrated when learning languages?  :frozen:For me, it is my inability to understand the spoken words in the particular foreign language (especially when it is spoken fast).

I find it much easier to read and understand, than to listen and understand. What about you?

Some say it's real. A mine shaft collapses burying some poor miner and luckily he survives. To get rescued, he projects images of the accident to a close friend or family member who then leads a rescue team to the place.

Um, that's just one example of telepathy in action.

Hmmm? So, is this a real language or something entirely different?

I have heard of these cases. I even practice telepathy (Lol)...only in meditation to God. I would say that it is a language since it involves symbols, modes and mediums of communicating in a way in which individuals understand each other.  :angel:

I think one of the advantages of learning a new language is that you can say almost anything you want in front of that other person, and that person will not understand what you are saying. Like you can speak your secrets aloud. For example, you can say how annoyed you are at this person to your friend that can understand the language that you speak, and the person you are annoyed at will never know what you said. Are you guilty of doing this?

They may never know that you are disrespecting them depending on how you do it, and the cleverness of your friends' responses to what you say. You can keep it as your little secret, but then again it's not nice to be insolent; for I wouldn't want someone to do the same thing to me.  :confused:

Confusion is sometimes caused by ignorance. But the confused doesn't necessarily have to worry himself; for what he doesn't know can't hurt him. It only helps you to have a little laugh and a little internal contentment for a moment. Then that's it. If you're brave enough, speak your mind understandably.

Pretty simple question. My mother language is Croatian, and my second is English. And I'm not sure what to think. I can communicate on both fairly well, but I suck with grammar (as in school for example).

But that's probably because I hate grammar (defining, nondefining, adjectives, nouns, blah, blah), and that's mostly because of my boring school teachers.

What about you?

I speak English as a native language, even though it really isn't; but my country tries to incorporate it as one in the school curriculum. I find that I grasp it easier than the Spanish I am currently studying; but this can only be due to the fact that I see and hear it around me everyday. I was taught that Spanish is a more simplistic language however, and I find that it isn't hard to grasp either.

As I talked about in my introduction post, I have a seven-year-old son that is enrolled in a Spanish Immersion Program at his school. What this means for him is that he spends half of his day in a classroom where they speak only Spanish and half of the day in a classroom where they speak English. I really do think that this is a great program because it gives the children the opportunity to learn more and be challenged more.

However, his being enrolled in Spanish Immersion has become an issue within the family because my husband's family doesn't feel like it is right to start a child learning a second language when they are very young because they really haven't had the opportunity to master their first language.

I know that everyone here is like me and learning second languages and beyond and therefore I thought this would be the perfect place to find out what other people think about a child learning a second language when they are very young.

I will point out that my son in a year and a half knows almost as much Spanish as I learned in school, taking classes from 7th through 10th grade and a little bit in college as well. He really is like a little sponge with it.

I believe you have answered your own question a bit. You said your son is really like a little sponge with it. There are just some individuals who are very proficient with learning languages, like myself. Some persons' brains are just made for it. What is even more, is that the earlier one begins to learn is the better one will be with the language as one proceeds in life. Therefore, your husband and his side of the family should not be complaining, but rather rejoicing. They've got a little treasure in their family and they should keep it. Good choice, and good job.

This is what urban dictionary has to say about the word and I agree.

Ok. Thanks for the brief etymology. Now I can see the connection. So, if I say that I have swag in Scotland, it's just relating to the way I walk. You know...I would really want to find out who was the first American to adapt this misinterpretation/catchphrase and spread it like wild fire?

It is one of the most over used and overrated word in the English dictionary. Everyone seems to use it, whether they know its actual meaning or not. In fact what does it mean? Swag as far as I knew, once upon a time, meant a bunch of flowers, or stolen sack of goods. Now it's used in and for everything.

What is the urban meaning of the word Swag now? Besides describing people who wear slouchy Tshirts and baggy pants. Do you use it a lot?

I don't use this word excessively, even though it seems to be on everybody's tongues nowadays. I didn't even know that it was in the dictionary. You just saved me the trouble of looking through the lexicon myself (thank you). So it actually means a bunch of flowers or stolen goods, and yet people are using it to mean that they've got "style"...? It just doesn't connect!

Are you a slow or fast reader? Do you practice reading out loud?

I read fast, but not as fast as some of my fellow comrades. I have some friends who would be like swinging their heads from left to right in a downward direction as they sweep through the pages of a novel. Some of them even finish reading 500 page  :nerd: novels in a single day. I think I can take about one day to finish a 200 page novel.

I can't say I've really had a personal experience of someone trying to disrespect me in their native tongue and I found out.

Yes, I do speak a little Spanish, but I've never been disrespected by any "Spaniards"...lol :grin:

Do you mind sharing your experiences?

I just came across some interesting articles about how English speakers misjudge tourists visiting their countries and label them as 'rude' when in fact, it's their limited knowledge of the language that makes them appear so. For example, according to one writer, asking direct questions makes you sound rude and would result in either getting no answer [to your question] or getting a retort that would knock you off your feet. Hmmm? Your thoughts on this?

I think people just have to try to be more open-minded and understanding. It's really human tendency to run ahead and judge a matter without looking into the facts. I guess that's why we have tour guides, because they know how to better deal with the tourists who may seemingly sound rude in asking questions, but are actually naive in speaking the native tongue of the country that they are visiting.  :wink:

What is most difficult for you in a foreign language- reading, writing, or speaking? For me it is definitely writing, especially as I progress in a language.  Very early on, while I am still getting used to new sounds and pronunciation, I sometimes find speaking harder, but that usually lasts a few months at most.

What is hardest for you and why?

Well, I believe I have no problem with the language I am learning...except that it's hard sometimes to recognize or pick out the particular words that a native speaker may be speaking. I can pretty much do anything in and with the language. But the pronunciations or accents of the natives give me a challenge.

How do you find the difference of learning a new language from your native language? Do you find it more interesting and easy to learn?

I find it more interesting because I love this new foreign language. There's an inborn passion to learn Spanish. So, I can't help it. No disrespect to my mother tongue of course. I love English. I read lots of novels to prep up on my English, but Spanish is the love of my life.  :grin:

I believe the best technique to be writing. Reading is also good when it comes down to expanding your general capacity of words, but it isn't as good as writing when it comes down to memorizing them. If you practice writing  and get your 'creations' checked at the end you could easily spot which words you often misspell. Once you know where to focus, the only thing you should do is pay attention when you write and/or pronounce that specific word.

You know...you make a good point here pal. Even with my native language, I still find that if I really want to improve on it, I have to do more writing. Believe me, it works. 

I believe writing causes you to think even deeper than how you would when reading. Well, at least that's the case with me.

I often hear some talk or music in foreign language and, though I never learned or spoke this language, still can tell what language it is. It's easy with popular languages, like French, Italian or German, most of people know the sound of them, but how about less known languages? Does it happen to you?

Can you see the difference between similar languages even if you don't know them?

I think you have good hearing and memory...me...on the other hand... :grin:

Well, if I hear Spanish, I'll recognize it, cause that's what I'm studying. I may recognize french as well; however, that's just about it.