Flopster

I started learning as soon as I moved to England. At that time I was around 3-4 years old (I actually don't remember it well!), although I did have some prior knowledge on "chatty" English, I didn't know most words and learned throughout my life in school.

Most internet words like "lol", "rofl" and "lmao", when said in real life, make me cringe so hard I turn into a pretzel! It just doesn't seem right using them out of an environment where speed is necessary. If you are going to talk say the whole phrase or I'll think you don't know the language!

Oh, but I thought that combining two sentences together is actually one of the uses of the semi-colon? I don't use them much either, which is why I got curious about how to use them properly. Thank you very much for your help!  :grin:

It's not always "combining two sentences" - it's combining two 'clauses', like this:

"There was a big dog outside. The cat meowed" - These are two independent clauses. So you can combine them with a semicolon.

"There was a big dog outside: the cat meowed" - You've combined the two sentences and gotten rid of the 'pause' between them (the full stop).

I prefer dictionaries that give you examples on how to use the word (so usually they'll have a sentence with the word being used), sometimes they may also have it so that there are synonyms of the word next to it. I think these are the most helpful ones as usually I know exactly what the word is in English.

[list type=decimal]

[*]Chinese

[*]Japanese

[*]French

[*]Italian

[*]German

I really want to learn Chinese or Japanese because in the future, hopefully, I want to be able to move over there and live in either Hong Kong or Tokyo!

Yes, I totally agree! Now that gesture typing (like on Android phones), speech-to-text, and generally how people are now typing faster (as computers are extremely popular) there isn't any need to take shortcuts. In my opinion it just makes you look slightly stupid and make you stand out a bit too much.

Yes all the time! It's less "Oh no I've officially forgotten this word and I need to learn how to use it all over again!" and more "Oh, what was that word....ah yes that was it!". Usually I just need a small prompt from another person but sometimes I'll just 'skip' the word until I remember it.

I also use Duolingo and its mobile app because the "gamified" aspect of learning language is so enticing for me. The community of language learners that use Duolingo are also very helpful in dissecting each sentence or quiz item and so you begin to build a more real-world based idea of the language. 

:grin:

Same here! It makes learning a new language fun. Admittedly it does not go extremely deep into a language but that's why I always either get a text book, or find some sort of document online that can assist me alongside Duolingo.

Speaking has always been my weakest point. I've always had confidence issues so whenever I try to talk to someone I always end up stuttering even though I know exactly what I want to say! Also as soon as I know what I'm going to say I need to rehearse it multiple times before I know I'm going to get it right and not look stupid.

As most people have said, incorrect grammar is a complete turn off. As soon as you see something with incorrect grammar, it sticks into the back of your head and just makes you think, "seriously?". Grammar makes everything sound coherent and makes it clear to the listener than you obviously do know the language.