Tyrell

Me. It's actually one of the main reasons I enjoy reading books. It just.. takes you to different places, and it's simply the kind of experience that I really enjoy. I love imagination. It's especially great because for me, it's not only limited to reading. Whenever I write stories, my mind just goes crazy. It's the reason why I find writing really easy. For me, stopping is much harder than continuing the story. Of course there's a certain point on the story where it's just impossible to continue, but other than that I really just write as much as I can.

The traditional way: Reading, writing and listening. I prefer a quiet environment when I study, but in my environment I know it's impossible so most of the time I just deal with it and try to study anyway. For the place, I usually just lay on my bed. I believe you've got to t be relaxed to study effectively, and that's what I did.

I know that feeling. But making a mistake is fine! Sometimes I'm not sure how to pronounce a few English words, but it doesn't stop me from communicating. If you have to make a mistake, then make it. Take a risk. If they fix your pronunciation, then good, At least now you know. They won't judge you or anything like that. It's not your native language. It would be very rude if they did.

I'd say it's impossible. It's the language you grew up in and used for some if not most of your life; you're bound to remember it forever. You'll lose your fluency, you'll forget a few words, you'll forget what some words meant and you'll mess up the accent - but you will never forget the language completely.

That's very possible! I haven't actually been actively thinking about this thread or anything like that, but I'm sure the concept of dreaming in a new language has popped up at least a few times in my mind. That, or it just stays at the back of my mind until I sleep. And yes, exactly! It's such a shame that we can't recall everything. It is said that we actually dream up to 8 times (or sometimes more, I forgot the exact figure) a night, but you only remember the eighth dream - basically the last one. And yes, it's terrible. I actually DID remember a few more Spanish 'words', but I couldn't really point them out. I kind of knew them, but at the same time, I don't, you know? I have no idea how they meant or how to spell them. So I just forgot about them completely minutes after I wake up.

It happens everywhere, but I think Americans have it worse than most of us. Sometimes the grammar and the spelling are just absolutely tragic, and it's just like, do you even English? I'm Indonesian, and most Indonesians don't really make grammar and spelling mistakes.. spelling is a possibility (I don't really talk to people from my country online), but definitely not grammar. That's mostly because we don't really have grammar though. There's no he/she, boyfriend/girlfriend and all that jazz. Gender is irrelevant here. And you really can't make grammatical mistakes even if you wanted to - or at least I think so, unless I'm forgetting something.

Alright, follow up. I take this back. Last night, I dreamed in Spanish - and it wasn't even the first time. The only thing that I remember saying was "Qué pasa!". I also saw a bunch of Spanish words that I don't even think I've ever seen before. In fact, I don't even know if they're actual Spanish words or something that my brain made up - but I'm pretty certain that they are Spanish, or at the very least, it sounds like it. I can't really remember the words anymore, but I was up for like three minutes and I remembered all the words and I remember feeling certain that they were Spanish words. Then I fell back asleep.. I wanted to write them down on my phone (I have a dream journal where I keep everything I dream about), but I just felt too weak and I looked at the clock, it was still really early, so I couldn't get myself to do it and fell back asleep. It's really interesting and creepy at the same time, because I've never had a dream like this before. I feel like ever since I read this thread I just keep dreaming in Spanish. You might notice that I mentioned that it wasn't the first time that I dreamed in Spanish. I've dreamt in Spanish at least three times in the past five days. And it's getting a bit creepy because I have no idea what most of the words meant. I wasn't even talking to other people in the dream, I was just talking to myself in Spanish or saying my thought out loud.. in Spanish.

Very young. I've always been interested in learning languages (particularly English) and I was usually always pretty good at it. It's probably got something to do that I was already raised speaking multiple languages to begin with (most which are traditional languages - Sundanese and Javanese, for example). I'd love to speak even more languages. I'm currently learning Spanish (I know, I've mentioned it like a billion times already I'm just really excited about it, sorry) and when I become good at it, I think I'm gonna try German. It seems really exciting!

I think Spanish and Portuguese are among the easiest to learn for English speakers. I'm currently learning Spanish and I think it's not that hard. And I can tell you that there are a lot of Spanish words that are similar to English words - which makes learning much more fun and even easier. Plus if you live in the US or countries with a lot of Spanish people in general (which isn't too far fetched considering Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world), you'll have even more opportunities to learn by talking to them. It's much easier than say, learning Japanese and finding a Japanese person to talk to.

I don't think being bad at drawing will necessarily affect you if you learn Japanese. As said by the poster above, as long as you follow the strokes correctly you should be fine. I'm pretty horrible at drawing myself and I've learned Chinese, Japanese and Korean - granted, I'm not fluent at them (at all), but writing was always the least of my worries. I go through them with ease. You just really have to follow the instructions. It's not bad at all, I mean it's not like you're required to draw manga. Just (mostly) simple letters.

Indonesian: Kebohongan dan fitnah! Was gonna translate it to a few more languages but I see you've all got them covered. Bless that English translation by the way, I had no idea what 'Kłamstwa i pomówienia' meant.

I try to focus on what other people write, and then I slightly mimic them. That's pretty much how I learn languages, I read and mimic people's way of wording, speaking, etc. Sounds kinda lame but that's just the way I am, I guess. And as mentioned multiple times before, reading and writing helps tremendously too - I've written a few of my own novels (well most are unfinished, but a novel is a novel) and I also spend most of my free time reading books.

Well, you can always go and find out. I mean it can't hurt, can't it? There's no way, or at least none that I can think of, to tell which Spanish they're using, because all subtitles are different. Open Subtitles is a great way to start by the way, I always go there for my subtitle needs. I think it's the most popular subtitle website out there, so you can check it out if you want.

I just let them really. I hate it when people correct me, like what are you, my teacher? I get it, your grammar is better than mine. We all make mistakes, get over it. So yes I always get all offended and defensive whenever someone fix my grammar/spelling mistakes. It's quite silly, but I feel like people who fix other people's grammar and spelling all the time have some sort of superiority complex and I see the action itself as a condescending gesture.

I always text using full sentences + good punctuation, grammar & capitalization myself. I don't think I've used those 'shortcut' words like u and the like, I actually find them rather cringey. It bothers me when people do it, mostly because it makes me start questioning them, whether they actually want to talk to me or not. Because in my mind if they actually want to talk to me then they'll put their effort into their replies, not just write a bunch of shortened words that sounds like animal sounds when you read them out loud.

I'm sorry, I'm not getting what you're saying at all. You're suggesting that we write all the words in a certain language that we know (I'm assuming with the meaning)? I feel like this isn't very realistic since it's impossible to remember all the words that you know. It's not necessarily always because you don't understand what the words means, but rather because some words slip to the back of your mind and you often don't remember it until you need to actually use it. That aside, there's thousands of words in every language, so unless you're a complete beginner who knows less than 250 words this would take hours if not days. Learners who are intermediate at the language will find it very hard to benefit from this. Sorry if I misunderstood anything.

Google Translate has definitely gotten better through the years, but I wouldn't rely on it. It's a great tool if you're trying to translate a single word or two, but not when you're trying to translate an entire article. It just.. doesn't work. Maybe in a few years, who knows, but definitely not now. Sure, it'll translates maybe most of the article nicely, but the rest are a mess and you just end up with more work because you have to correct them all. So yeah no, I wouldn't rely or recommend it at all.

My mother tongue is Indonesian. We do rely very heavily on slangs, we don't go by the book unless we're writing an essay for college or a job application. If you learn the language online or from a book, you're not going to understand half the things we say. Another thing about the language is that it never had a pure form to begin with, meaning we borrow a lot of words from other languages. Malay (I guess?), Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Arabic, and probably many more. We also don't care about genders. No 'he', 'she', 'his', 'her', 'girlfriend','boyfriend' and all that jazz. One word to replace them all, one word to rule them all: 'Dia'. Makes learning so much easier. We can also be quite interesting when it comes to spelling - there's new spelling, and then there's old spelling. Most older citizens use the old spelling, and their names are usually also in old spelling . But generally people use the new spelling, since it's the correct one nowadays. For example, our capital city is Jakarta. If you went to school here in the 60's, you would spell the capital city's name as Djakarta, but now if you spell it like that you're going to be marked wrong.

I think I'm slightly more fluent in English than in my mother tongue, and I don't think I've ever dreamed in English. I'm not completely sure though, I barely remember my dreams and I try to focus on symbols and objects rather than the language spoken in the dream. But I'm pretty sure I rarely talk in dream unless I'm screaming or shouting.

It's great and all, but I was actually hoping for has, have and the likes. I think that's where my problem is. I can't remember exactly so I'm not too sure, which is weird. I know I'm struggling with something though. Anyway, I agree with what Wanda said. I think this is written for native English speakers. I've always found it ironic that the native English speakers keep making these basic grammatical mistakes most of us non-Native English speakers seem to never struggle with.

Satisfaction? Oh yes, definitely. I love being able to help people. Plus you also get to lowkey flaunt your multilingual skills, which is pretty great too, ha! Unfortunately for me though, I don't think I'd be able to do it well. I can translate from my native language to English with no problem, but not the other way around. I always find it hard to translate English back to my own language. I know what the English words meant, I just can't translate it. Talk about irony.

Hmm, I'm not sure if curly hair is really associated with being Indonesian though. But maybe your Indonesian ancestor has curly hair, so that's great! My Dutch is.. well, not very good, to be honest. I mean I know some words here and there, and there are probably words that I've been saying that is actually Dutch but I just don't realize it. But if I was to speak to a Dutch person, I'd most likely recognize at least a few words! I can't make a sentence though, I just know what the words mean haha. And even then I probably can't spell them right since the spelling is almost always different.

Yeah Duolingo isn't exactly a top pick for anyone.. it's just something you do when you're bored. It won't exactly teach you anything, not up to the point where you're fluent, at least. Which is a shame, because Duolingo really has the potential! The interface is great, I like the features and pretty much everything else is on point.. except the content itself. If only they got better people to come up with the ideas for the content. I'm sick of translating "Yo soy un pingüino." and saying pretty much everyone drink milk. Seriously. Like in every single level they make everyone drink milk. The dog, your dog, my cat, your cat, the boy, the girl.. everyone is beben leche. It's so repetitive.

Ah, well I suppose I should give some of those languages a 0! I want to add a few more languages and give them a 0 but that won't exactly benefit me so I'll skip on that (being a jack of all trades suck to be honest). And oh my, really? I actually didn't know that! There are a lot of people here who claim Dutch ancestry (they're usually very attractive, upper class people) but I didn't know it's like that in Netherlands as well. That's very interesting though!

Interesting. I have a friend from German, and she told me the exact opposite. She told me that not understanding German is not a problem at all and that I could literally move there right now and have no problem because everyone can speak English there (to be fair, I have every reason to trust her, the four German people I know speaks perfect English), that I'd learn German as I go. Seems like it's not the case at all. To be honest though, I think you really have to understand the language the people if the country you're moving to speaks. I feel like it's incredibly necessary and just overall better.