surrender2air

It depends how much you use it. I've been studying for about 6 years and I'm not fluent but if I spent that 6 year period in China I'd be fluent for sure. I lived in Taiwan for about 10 months and when I left I was very confident in my ability but now that I'm back in the states I don't have many opportunities to practice Chinese so I've gotten worse.

I'm going to write this to help others learn and to make sure I know it so if I make mistakes please correct them!

1)  再也不 - Never again

我再也不要喝那麼多酒了.

I'm never drinking this much again.

我再也不要去那裡.

I'm never going there again.

2) 一点也不 - Not in the least

你一點也不可愛.

You're not in the least bit cute.

魚肉一點也不好吃.

Fish is not in the least bit good.

3) 一点都不 - Not at all

你們一點都不聰明

None of you are smart at all.

海鮮一點都不好吃

Seafood is not good at all.

4) 一点也没 - Not in the least, past tense

我一點也沒緊張.

I wasn't the least bit nervous.

我一點也沒困惑.

I wasn't even a little confused.

5) 一点都没 - Not at all, past tense

今天我一點都沒吃.

I didn't eat at all today.

媽媽一點都沒生氣.

Mom wasn't angry at all.

So, if I made any mistakes please correct them, if you have anything to add please add it, and if you'd like to practice then post some sample sentences here!

I don't know about 'useful' but it would definitely be interesting. You could become proficient in a dead or dying language but find that you never really use it at all.

recommend/reccommend

definitely/definately

As communication becomes easier maybe regional differences will become less common but there will always be many languages

I'll always be traveling and studying languages. Hopefully I'll be an old man fluent in many tongues.

It's funny if they do it well but the accent alone isn't enough. They need good jokes!

I've tried but they talk too fast.

The goofiness is a bit difficult to deal with but if you can get passed that the videos will be really useful.

I have a friend who went through every Rosetta Stone level and came out far from fluent. If you're gonna use it, make sure it's not your only source of learning.

If I could I'd move to England and stay there until I have an accent.

It's gonna be tough but doable. Watch movies and TV shows. Read books. Study a lot. Stay patient and interested, it'll pay off. If possible, try to find an exchange partner and/or save up to go to Japan for at least a months worth of practice. Maybe you could find a language program to do.

我用過但是沒什麼可說的.

A lot of the TV shows are kind of goofy but they do help a lot.

Hello, if possible let's make this a KTV thread. If you don't know, KTV is karaoke which is incredibly popular all over Asia. If you search for Chinese songs on youtube you'll almost always find a KTV version with easily readable lyrics. I've found this great for reading and listening practice as well as finding new music.

I'll start:

Crowd Lu (盧廣仲) - 100種生活

I like watching movies and TV shows for listening practice. I've watched a few Taiwan dramas and plenty of movies from Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. Does anyone have good suggestions?

I taught for a year in Taiwan. It was great being able to interact with so many interesting students and coworkers. However, the companies over there see foreign teachers as easily replaceable. Because of this, no matter how hard you work they rarely show any appreciation.

I know two people who speak so many languages they sometimes forget how many they know.

One of them was in the military so he learned Tagalog when he was stationed in the Philippines and Chamorro when he was stationed in Guam. However, growing up he spoke Russian at home and he had a good friend from Turkey who taught him Turkish. Whenever they hung out, they spoke Turkish together and the friend's family helped out. In addition those, he learned Spanish from working in a restaurant with many Mexican coworkers. Then with his knowledge of Spanish he studied Portuguese, Italian, and French on his own. If I remember correctly he learned German in college and from there studied Swedish and Norwegian. Sometimes people will be speaking a language that he doesn't know, like Dutch, and he'll understand.

The other guy I know is an old British man who studied at Oxford. He's well versed in Greek, both modern and ancient, Latin, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. When he was 70 he started learning Japanese and by now he speaks it quite well.

Romaji helps at first but when you get better at hiragana, katakana, and kanji you should try not to rely on romaji.

Yes, all the time. Sometimes a word will be on the tip of my tongue but I just can't think of it. It's nothing to be ashamed of though.

In Taiwan a lot of the slang comes from Taiwanese so I assume it's similar in different mainland regions and the other dialects. I like to try to be familiar with slang so I can have an easier time understanding people. It's difficult though. Slang is always changing.

It depends what you want to use it for. If you want to use English for a job, you should be pretty fluent. If you want to go to school in America you should at least be able to recognize your grammar mistakes so you can avoid them on papers. However, if you just want to learn English to get around then grammar doesn't matter so much.

I personally think the world should come together and declare Korean as the universal language. It would be equally as hard for anyone to learn. After liberating the North Koreans from Kim Jong Un we can hire all of them to be our Korean teachers.

I'm only half joking.

Spanish because of the verb conjugations. I can never remember them so I only really sound good in the present tense.

I had students in Taiwan that practiced English by playing games. It took a lot of translating (and patience) but it paid off.