Well, my mothertongue is German and English my second language (and the only one I speak fairly well). I know some words and phrases in italian, spanish, russian and french, but not remotely near enough to actually "speaking" or "understanding".
I've had English classes from the age of 8 (only 1 hour a week at the beginning) until 18 always liked it, but never had to urge to actually "use" it in my everyday life.
That changed about 5 years ago, when I started to read books and watch films in English as well as participate in online forums like this one and never stopped since.
Yeah, it's all because of Jane Austen.
ETA: I also give private English lessons and my first advice/homework to my students is to translate and try to understand the lyrics of their favourite songs instead of just singing along in some sort of pseudo-english.
This way I started to get some better insight into English myself, apart from all the boring homework for school.
ETA2:
Quote:
Originally Posted by GraceKrispy
sometimes I find myself struggling for words in my native tongue (English) because the Hawaiian words pop up much quicker.
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The same thing happened to me too, during particularly heavy bouts of English-reading.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilbo1967
The below is a road sign in English and Welsh (as is the law in Wales). Unfortunately, the council e-mailed the English text to their interpreter and got an out-of-office reply in Welsh. Not being Welsh speakers they went ahead and used it anyway. The Welsh says something like, "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated"!
Glad we're paying for that!
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