agentzero

I'm in final year of college so finishing that up and getting my degree is something that I strive for in 2016. That is a very tough goal though, and I'm very aware of that, but I also know myself and know that I'll work hard on it. After that I'll be looking into a program to go to Asia and teach there for a few months before coming back and starting work on my Master's. It all depends on me finishing up all exams at the right time though.

I'll share the experience of my ex-girlfriend who was able to go to France and live and work there for few months while she was in college studying French. Before going she was very nervous and almost didn't even apply, but I pushed her (wrong move for our relationship, but a good one for her) and she eventually went. At first she was tentative even though she could understand people around her just fine, but she had trouble speaking. Working with kids helped her a lot and she was able to start speaking and she agrees that she couldn't have mastered French as well as she has if she hadn't gone to France and spent few months there.

I'm a web dev, so I spend the entirety of my day typing and it feels refreshing when I have the chance to just sit down and write. That has a huge downside, in my opinion at least, and that's spell check. My English is pretty good, but there are still words that I struggle with to spell correctly and it helps me a lot when I can use the spell check.

Yup. I was on holiday in Spain in 2010 or so and there were three beautiful Russian girls in room next to ours (we basically shared the balcony) and we started talking, but only one knew English (she spent like a year in London or something) and me and this one girl sorta fell for each other even though she hasn't spoken a word of English to me. It's one of those vacation romances where everything is great. Sex was really good and I can't figure out was it because we could only communicate with our bodies or something else.

Since I only speak two languages (Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrian are way too similar to Serbian so it would be kinda cheating to say I speak those as well), I would love to get three extra languages I could speak I would leave Serbian on the list because it's my native and all my friends and family speak it. English of course, since I've spent my entire life learning it. Then, I would add Spanish since a huge part of the world speaks it, French because I already know a little and German since my mother lives and Germany and is constantly pushing me to go there haha

Wow, I never heard of charlie horse, such an odd one. I'm so glad I was able to learn that one, I was beginning to get way too over confident in my English. One I'd like to add is to kick the bucket which means somebody died. Like, James kicked the bucket - James died. Never understood that why is that one used though.

Yup, I just wrote it like to make it seem like I spoke with a Dusty Rhodes accent haha Yeah, I think it's definitely a full time job to speak that many languages. I'm sure there are people who have a job as a translator who have to speak that many, but I imagine even they can run into some problems sometimes. 58 is just beyond ridiculous to me.

Ha! I wish that was true. Every time I speak a language that isn't mine I feel like a different person, I'm sure a lot of people have experienced that. English especially. I don't feel like myself when I speak, in a good way, if that makes any sense. Also, any time I try to learn a new language, the first thing I do is try to get the alphabet right and learn how to correctly pronounce letters in words and sentences, maybe that's why I have easier time starting to speak?

When I was a kid, I was the best as far as English went in my school. By far. This is not bragging, it's just a fact. And with such knowledge, I believed I was a native speaker. Boy, was I in for a treat when I tried to write down the lyrics from one of Eminem's songs. I grew a lot both as a person and as an English speaker then. I'd say it definitely helped approach the language from a new perspective and it most certainly helped me improve the knowledge I already had, even if it was just a quick shot in the arm of knowledge and not something substantial.

I think there's no chance in heal he can speak 58 languages on the same level. Truth be told, I think somebody mistaken him being able to say "hello" in 58 different languages as someone who speaks them fluently. I've been studying English for a while and I'd say I almost speak it at a native level, but I've recently re-started learning Spanish and I'm having a lot of trouble. Of course, I might not be that talented to master two additional languages, but I think there has to a be a cap. I'd say it's hard to speak more than 15-20 languages on a same fluent level and even that's stretching it.

I remember writing "committee" my first time. I was shocked there were three instances of the same letter standing next to each other. One that always gets me is "disappointment", I'm really bummed I can't get that one right

When I'm talking to my friends, I'm horrible with grammar and sentence structure. It's important to me that they understand what I'm trying to say, I don't always have to be super punctual when talking to them, but I see your point. I don't use too many "text" short words like LOL and BTW or whatever, but I think they can be useful if used in moderation.

Seriously, if somebody came and started translating from English (or any other language for that matter) to Serbian using Google translate (haven't tried the Bing one so I can't say about that one), I'm pretty sure I'd be able to understand the gist of it. Even though Google translate isn't a perfect translator on a sentence level, I've never had issues when translating just a word. And if it creates the sentence based off of word by word translations, I don't think it would be that hard to understand. Of course, Serbian is different from Romanian.

Indeed. i really though I had a better grip on American accents though. From your list I only heard about Valley Girl and I thought that was more a way people mocked... Well, Valley girls. But, I've never heard of a Midwest accent or a Mid-Atlantic, maybe I'd recognize them when I heard them though.

I think it's possible for Chinese to overtake English (in fact, I'm pretty sure that based on people who speak it, Chinese already is the most spoken language), but I think it's unlikely that everyone will all of a sudden drop English and move onto Chinese. I think that for that to happen, English speaking countries need to be wiped out, or just economically destroyed with China remaining where they are now and I just don't see that happening. Even then it would take years and years and years for people to shift to Chinese. I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime.

Hm, I only tried learning Spanish and French aside from English and I came to this thread thinking about saying French because it really was a tough language for me to learn and in the end I didn't even learn it. But then I read about you guys talking about Chinese and Hungarian and I think I'll just go grab myself a corner and cower in shame haha

Hm, that's interesting, I didn't know about that difference between Spain's Spanish and the one spoken in Latin America. I was taught Spanish spoken in Span then I guess. And no, this is not a problem in Serbian, because in Serbian there is a hard "R", but like I said I have a speech impediment and can't pronounce it very "hard". I tend to roll it, if you know what I mean. My "R" actually sounds a lot like "R"s they have in French, but I just don't like saying hard "R" in general. Hey, maybe that's why I was drawn to English from the early age.

Really? That's so interesting. I knew there was a difference between Southern and Northern(?) accent in America, but I never knew there was such divide. I do know about Southern accent, and Bostonian, but I don't I know of any other accents you guys have. Unlike in Britain, where every village has their own.

Well first I have to ask why are you setting the limit at 9 letters? I mean, obviously the simplicity is the big appeal of the whole thing, but adding few more letters like S or D or R would add so much variety. They can still remain short words, just with different letters.

Haha, in that case, I agree. I have a speech impediment and I can't pronounce hard "R"s very well, so I'm not too fond of languages and words with them As far as Spanish goes, I like words which have that "th" sound like cabeza or Barcelona

Well, maybe she doesn't want to correct you all the time? I mean, you would have to change roles from two friends to a student and a teacher and maybe she doesn't want that? I liked helping my then-girlfriend with English, but only some basic conversation. I would definitely be uncomfortable if she asked to full on teach her the language from ground up. I like the saying "Different strokes for different folks". I feel like you can apply to almost any inter-human exchange.

This is a very weird thing to do. Weird as in vast majority of people wouldn't even think about something like this. Anyway, I feel like the simplicity is the point, but that still makes it hard to learn because every word is a different combination of the same 8 letters in two syllables. They all just look the same. To me it feels like you'd have to learn them all by heart and nobody would be able to logically remember a word if they forget. Granted, it's only 30 words total, but still.

This is how I'm able to speak English with American accent so this is quite good advice, however you can't always learn to speak purely by listening to others. You have troubles "r"s in French because you don't have a sound like that in English and despite hearing it many times (I assume) you still can't get it just right. Am I wrong?

I agree, unless it's some small decision like what I'll have for breakfast, I will weigh pros and cons, measure risk and reward and proceed that way, regardless of the language I'm thinking in or speaking my choice or decision process. However, I have never tried this and although I do consider it odd, I can't say if it works.

Gunslinger by Stephen King. I know it may sound a bit unconventional, or even odd, but this is the first book in English that I dared to read after about 5 years. My first attempt at reading book in English was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows and I pretty much understood what was going on, but most of the time I had to string together pieces of sentences to do so. I was really discouraged and a little timid, but Gunslinger opened my eyes to the whole new world of books where I don't have to wait for them to be translated (most of the books I'm interested aren't translated at all).