agentzero

I wouldn't care if someone despises Serbian or English. I'm not saying I despise French people, I just think French language is very far away from being sophisticated. To my ears.

Haha, I love Cockney as well I'm pretty sure I like almost all native English accents, but one I really can't wrap my head around is Irish. I can't reproduce it (maybe that's why I dislike it), and I just don't see the appeal of it and certainly don't understand how someone can find it attractive.

I felt awkward just reading that. 'I love you' in English just kinda seems watered down now and it makes feel like there's no good enough phrase in English for when you truly have such strong feelings for someone.

Am I the only one on this forum who utterly despises French? For me, it's a very far cry from sophisticated, both in terms of sound and the way it's spoken. It actually feels low class to me, but then again, I am very much English guy (in terms of my love for the language and the culture) so maybe that plays a role too? Since I don't speak that many languages, I'll vote for English as the most attractive language that I know of. You're more than welcome to change my mind.

My preferred accents for speaking are Scottish and Scouse. I like Geordie as well I usually speak with a generic American accent, but I definitely have the most fun either Scouse or Scottish. As far as British being declared the most attractive, I'll just assume they mean posh London accent since that's the most common one in media and I have to say I don't really care for it. I love girls with New Zealand accent though. I also have a thing for southern accent and the whole southern belle thing.

Definitely. English is my second language now and although I'll probably won't claim that it's as good as my first, I feel just as comfortable speaking it as I do with my native. However, when I speak English, it's usually around people who I don't know or who I've just met so maybe that's the reason why I feel different when I speak it. I've been told this by my long time friends who claim I've had a "transformation" when I started speaking English and they feel like I'm a whole different (and unfortunately much more fun) person when I speak it.

I'm going to come off as a super braggy person right now, but I have never had a problem with accents. My native language is Serbian, which for those of you who don't know is similar to Russian in terms of pronunciation, but I've never had trouble with English accent. I can switch between different English accents as well, although I'm pretty sure people are here are impressed by that because they've no idea how a Scouse accent might sound. When it comes to other languages, it's the same. When I first learn a language, I focus on learning correct pronunciation of letters and combinations of letters in words and then move on to the actual words. That's one of the reasons why I can read pretty much perfect Spanish, but can speak a word of it. I remember a scene when I was in Spain and wanted to brag in front of my friends how I can read the menu on order for all of us. They all piled up and said what they wanted and I pretty much read the menu and added the numbers before each item and then got completely red faced when the waitress assumed I speak Spanish and said something and I had to bow my head and say, "English please."

I use word for word translation only if I cannot understand the meaning. It's always better (in my opinion at least) to translate the meaning of the sentence because in the end, isn't it better to have something read the way it was meant to be understood than having to decipher what the other person was trying to say?

Oh yes, absolutely. I have hard time imagining myself saying this without my voice raising in the end and almost yelling whatever comes next. Devil's advocate is another one I really like, even though it doesn't always have a positive connotation to it.

I like funny swears. There are few in my languages that when spoken to somebody who doesn't speak it may seem a bit absurd. One of those is "mars u picku materinu" which literally means that you're ordering somebody to march right back into their own mother (which isn't very nice), but my favorite variation is "da se nosis u tri picke materine" (that was my grandma's favorite) which literally means to go into back into three different mothers and that is just plain ridiculous when you think about it. I like learning these "funny" ones, but I don't like using them... Well, because they're kinda rude. I feel kinda dirty when I swear, in any language.

Yup. Both Spanish and French. Spanish I only wanted to learn because I was going to Barcelona for holiday and then few days before the trip somebody told me they speak Catalan there, and I just immediately got discouraged and quit almost on the spot. I had French in college and I actually did quite well with it, but after I finished my studies, I just couldn't force myself to explore it further.

I don't usually dream that often, so this might not be the best answer, but most of my dreams are in English. Could be that it's because on a daily basis I'm constantly speaking it and writing and then when I come home I put on an American or English TV show. What always bothered me about my dreams in English that I'm often put on the spot and I manage to spout such elegant and eloquent English that I absolutely cannot reproduce in real life in such a manner.

I'm pretty sure you understand Montenegrian as well It really depends on a country too, origins of a nation as well as their languages play a big role in this. Like you said, Croatian and Bosnian are pretty similar to Serbian, while Hungarian is a whole different ball game and that's because we have similar origins to Croatians and Bosnians, but are different from Hungarians.

No, which I don't consider to be all that odd. I mean, I haven't studied my language to its full extent and I honestly don't intend on writing any novels in it any time soon, so I reckon I don't even need to know all the words. Sure, it sounds nice and sophisticated when you blurt out a big word, but it also sounds pretentious and I would just rather be understood than eloquent.

Is this really true though? Wow, that's so weird, I always thought the opposite was true, but then again, I don't know that many people who often learn to speak a new language. I've always found it much more easier to speak a new language than to write it. I have a pretty decent knowledge of English and I still get so wound up with spelling that I literally have to google the word so I can get it right. I don't think I ever have trouble with pronunciation (had to google correct spelling for that one).

People can often underestimate importance of such things, I was one of those people. I learned English mainly through my teachers, but also through movies and TV and I though learning a third language on my own would be easy since "I have a gift for languages." Nope. Tried learning Spanish for a month (through Rosetta Stone, which I admit may not been the best method), then switched to French and had pretty much same experience. It wasn't until I got to college and had to learn a third language that I realized the importance of a teacher. Everything I couldn't understand, she was there to answer.

Red and yellow combination can come off as aggressive sometimes, but then again, this layout is better than the blue one which kinda felt like a default theme or something. I like this one better, but I still feel like the color scheme could be a little softer.

I had a professor in college who did this. She taught English and sometimes she would assign files as homework and we'd have to transcribe them. I had no problems with them, but a lot of other students complained a lot. Files weren't that big (~5min), but accents would vary and it's a lot harder when somebody is speaking with an Australian or Scottish accent compared to American. I actually managed to learn a lot this way. I usually got those accented files, and I've really liked them. Learned some quirks about the way other English speaking people speak English. Fun.

Many thanks to both of you! You've definitely given me some great advice to think about. Honestly, before your replies I don't think I was ever going to do it, I just had it in the back of my mind as a backup option. Somehow, a light bulb went off after I read what you said and now I think I'm seriously going to consider it. Again, thank you!

I'm sorry in advance if this question has already been asked, but recently a friend of mine approached me with this idea since I study English and am pretty good at it. I don't have any experience with something like this and honestly it's kinda frightening to me. How do you teach somebody whose language you don't speak a second language which isn't your native? Granted, I'd say my English is pretty okay, but still. Having to deal with Skype is another issue. So, does anyone have any experiences with this? Any advice?

Pretty much any job I ever applied to where the position required a portion of the interview to be in English. I can speak few accents of English (no idea where I picked that up, I've never even been in an English speaking country, or I don't really know different accents, just ways to imitate them enough for people to be fooled?) and American is one of them (my default actually, and also the one people consider a default accent around here (which is weird, but that's another topic)) and like to show off when I'm asked a question. It immediately gets me bonus points and interviewers have always been impressed.

American and British culture were widespread in my country when I started to learn English so of course I listened to their music as well. It used to be weird thinking in English and then talking and having to stop yourself before you end each sentence because you were headed for a nasty word. Learning language through music is fine, as long as you don't listen to too much hip hop

I have only tried learning French after learning English as a second language so I wouldn't know Seriously, French is hard. But also, I'm not sure if I was more dedicated to learning the language or having private lessons from my girlfriend who was going to college for it

I can see that, yeah. Keep watching with Italian subtitles then, and someday hopefully you'll realize you understand pretty much all of it. That's what happened to me. I kept insisting that I needed Serbian subtitles to watch stuff in English, then as an exercise I started forcing myself to switch to English subtitles and when I did that, I pretty much realized I'm almost at the point where I don't need them at all.

Interesting Deanery and Cersei are your favorite characters, yet your username is Tyrell and you have a picture of Margaery as your avatar I'm finishing book three and so far I'm not a fan of either. I kinda like Arya though. But, my favorite book character is from another book series. Roland Deschain (pronounced des-chain) is the main character of Stephen King's epic The Dark Tower.