is english your native language?

[Shaddock]

I realized that even the people from UK has english as their native language. as well as the people from the US. so I think most people here have english as their native language. for me as someone who hasn´t it as native language, it´s much harder to speak or write english I think. but I can speak german : D wow : P

do you speak other languages? (I mean really ruling it and not just a few words).

 

[Rodafina]

@Shaddock, I’ve been thinking about this since you posted a few days back - I’ve been trying to figure out a way to say that it is really cool that people are willing to speak English here because getting perspectives from people around the world is one of the best things about this place for me. As an OnlyEnglish speaker I appreciate the people making the effort to communicate about these sometimes complicated topics in English even if you are thinking in another language (is that how it works?).

As I write this, I realize I still haven’t quite figured out how to say it. I’ll just say that I appreciate hearing the perspectives from around the world.

EDIT: I have enough trouble communicating in my native language, so I have great respect for people that speak multiple languages.

 

[Crossbreed]

Is English my native language? Oui

I had two years of French in high school plus exposure to Amsilan [American Sign Language] since then, but I am fluent in neither.

 

[Shaddock]

@Shaddock, I’ve been thinking about this since you posted a few days back - I’ve been trying to figure out a way to say that it is really cool that people are willing to speak English here because getting perspectives from people around the world is one of the best things about this place for me. As an OnlyEnglish speaker I appreciate the people making the effort to communicate about these sometimes complicated topics in English even if you are thinking in another language (is that how it works?).

As I write this, I realize I still haven’t quite figured out how to say it. I’ll just say that I appreciate hearing the perspectives from around the world.

EDIT: I have enough trouble communicating in my native language, so I have great respect for people that speak multiple languages.

I think that too, that it is a great perspective to speak english, because you can have interchange with more people and many information origins like for example in wikipedia are written in english. sure the german sites are also good, but the english equivalents are mostly more detailed.

I can not really say how this works for me. I think I think in german and translate it into english, so that´s why some translations don´t work, because you can not translate everything 1 to 1. it makes fun to learn a bit better english.

I think speaking english like someone who speaks it as native language would be more useful in some cases, but speaking two languages is also cool. even my english is enough but not enough for professions for example.

I also have an online dictionary opened, where I can translate english words into german, but I try to learn this words for the future. in the beginning I auto-translated much, but atm I write most posts in english and not auto-translating them. only when I want to write german and then I´m too lazy to translate it on myself.

I think when from time to time you can understand a language automatically without translating it into your native language in your brain. for example I understand some english words and sentences, without translating them in my mind. I just understand them like they would be in german. but sometimes I have to translate it in my mind. I think this is conntected to the grade of your language skills.

fun fact: I heard that the different languages are partly saved in different parts of your brain. which is interesting. there were cases where people had an accident and they lost the ability a language, but could already speak the other language.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

As George Bernard Shaw opined, “The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common tongue.”

 

[Luca]

English is my first language but I am trying to learn others.
People always expect me to speak Spanish or Portuguese but I’m not very good at speaking either lol

 

[Knower of nothing]

Native language is dutch (technically flemish but dialect yadda yadda). Most of my introspective thought is done in english. I speak with friends in english. I write online in english. English english english. As proficient as you become at a foreign language, there's a passion missing. Telling someone how I feel in dutch feels 10 times as raw and vulnerable than it does in english, it's like one degree separation from expression which I would imagine means I am constantly running translations rather than truly speaking it. Despite that assumption, because I do most of my reading in english as well, my dutch vocabulary is poor by comparison. I'd have trouble translating even this post into my native tongue. The rawness instead has to be something in the fluent informality, the ability to warp and twist words while retaining perfect understandability that I can't have in english. English is clear formal speak only. Maybe I should just learn the scottish accent.

 

[Thinx]

I can only do Like on my tablet, to acknowledge others points in emoji language I only have one word.... I learned some Welsh in primary school as I lived in Wales then, and I still sometimes recall the words of songs or odd words like Bora da, Nostar, spelt wrongly no doubt, Good day, good night I think? Plus can count to 10.... French I got an O level pass in, but totally basic and limited in my use of it. Latin I gave up, so bad I was at it. I found with both French and Welsh, I learn best through hearing and speaking the language. The classroom learning put me off and was boring.

 

[Streetwise]

I realized that even the people from UK has english as their native language. as well as the people from the US. so I think most people here have english as their native language. for me as someone who hasn´t it as native language, it´s much harder to speak or write english I think. but I can speak german : D wow : P

do you speak other languages? (I mean really ruling it and not just a few words).

I speak northern english, use mam instead of mum, its common in the uk, there are many dialects, some have died completely ,the uk has welsh ,Scots Gaelic,cornish breton gaelic, the outer islands in the south use some french ,some scottish Gaelic is like norwegian ,i sign a small amount of B.S.L

 

[Forest Cat]

some scottish Gaelic is like norwegian

We might have been over there a long time ago.

 

[VictorR]

As an native English speaker, I always feel awkward that I've never had to learn another language for survival purposes, that when traveling, that it's quite likely the people I encounter speak far better English than I do in their language, which for some might be some gibberish.

Guten tag, nein sprachen Deustche. Sprachen sie Englisch?

(My German vocabulary probably has 50 words at most, which I'm probably not even pronouncing correctly. Sorry.)

 

[Metalhead]

English is my main language, although I do know how to read and write Japanese my speaking skills there are sorely lacking.

 

[SusanLR]

I speak nothing but English.
Being from southern Arizona, I did pick up a bit of Spanish.
Just enough to be helpful at stores or street vendors with a large Mexican
population. It seemed easy to learn.
It's been so long since I've used it for anything I don't remember much.

 

[Shaddock]

I speak nothing but English.

As an native English speaker, I always feel awkward that I've never had to learn another language for survival purposes

I thought that you maybe had to learn additional languages in school, like we in germany do.

I´m not sure and maybe it depends on the sort school, but in the gymnasium there were several options:

1. english -> latin -> nature science and technique (NWT in german) (the way I took)
2. english -> latin -> french
3. english -> latin -> spanish
4. english -> french -> NWT
5. english -> french -> latin
6. english -> french -> spanish

I hope that´s correct. NWT is for the one who don´t wanted to speak that much languages (I was like "why to speak different languages, when it´s the same words? that´s ineffective, everyone should speak the same language). : P now I see it different, but still too lazy to learn new languages.

so you could have learned 3 languages in school, more or less. to my time we learned english in the 5. class and until the end of school. means 8 or 9 years english I think. today you learn it in the 3. or 4. class (primary school). I read this in the internet.

I think in international schools you can learn more languages, but not in normal schools here.

I think we had latin in the 6. class until the 10. class. 5 years I think.

when you take spanish, you begin learning it in the 8. class. I don´t know how long you have that subject.

 

[Forest Cat]

I thought that you maybe had to learn additional languages in school, like we in germany do.

I´m not sure and maybe it depends on the sort school, but in the gymnasium there were several options:

1. english -> latin -> nature science and technique (NWT in german) (the way I took)
2. english -> latin -> french
3. english -> latin -> spanish
4. english -> french -> NWT
5. english -> french -> latin
6. english -> french -> spanish

In gymnasium here we have to choose between French, German and Spanish. After we have learned English. A lof of language. It's very similar to what you guys do over there in Germany. I picked German but I was so focused on sports that I didn't have time to learn it all unfortunately. At the school I went to we had 4 hours of gym everyday. That's 20 hours of gym a week. Sometimes a little more. Half the day was gymclass, the school was focused on sports. That takes its toll, exhausting. Sometimes you just don't have the energy to do the other things, like learning German.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

My native language is Spanish, but the way I use spanish natively was seen as academic or too direct or strange. So I learned to mask, but I am still targeted as "different" easily as soon as I start talking.

I have learned English as my second language, but the way I use it, with long sentences that have sub-structures is seen as weird, strange or innnecesarily complex.

So I wonder if the "native" word can apply to me properly.

 

[Shaddock]

I have learned English as my second language, but the way I use it, with long sentences that have sub-structures is seen as weird, strange or innnecesarily complex.

I like the way how you write. I also used complex "box-sentences" in german, which was recognized from a german teacher, who found that interesting. but today I don´t use these kind of sentences anymore and I don´t know how I really wrote or spoke in the past. I had some texts I wrote, but stupidly I ditched them.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Bad joke ahead.

Hey, you forgot to add C++ or Python to the poll

 

[AprilR]

English is not my native language, but i like to think i am fluent.
I know a bit of German and Japanese too but not enough to speak.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

English is my native language and I can speak and understand some Spanish, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Korean. I have the most comprehension of Spanish as I took classes in high school and can understand more Chinese and Taiwanese than I can speak because my family is from Taiwan and my Grandma didn’t speak English. I know some Korean thanks to my martial arts training but that’s limited to some terminology and numbers and saying thank you. I am pretty good at recognizing Chinese, Japanese, and Korean writing.