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Ghent

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Agree, Oliver. In fact, I've learned a lot more by myself, and staying motivated by reading, hearing, watching subjects that are interesting to me in english, than in high school.

In fact, now I'm able to read whole books in normal speed. The only times I struggle while reading is when some technical shit is thrown down. For example, I'm not able to comprehend a scientific text about... whatever... physics. But, overall, I've been able to read by now a few books in english. The last one I'm reading right now is the Keith Richards' biography. And there, sometimes, Keef uses some kind of gang I don't get, but, overall, all ok.

One thing that surprised me was that, even without being able to say when, I just started to understand spoken english like by magic. I can see interviews, reviews, chats... understanding the 98% of what's been said.

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28 minutes ago, Ghost said:

Agree, Oliver. In fact, I've learned a lot more by myself, and staying motivated by reading, hearing, watching subjects that are interesting to me in english, than in high school.

In fact, now I'm able to read whole books in normal speed. The only times I struggle while reading is when some technical shit is thrown down. For example, I'm not able to comprehend a scientific text about... whatever... physics. But, overall, I've been able to read by now a few books in english. The last one I'm reading right now is the Keith Richards' biography. And there, sometimes, Keef uses some kind of gang I don't get, but, overall, all ok.

One thing that surprised me was that, even without being able to say when, I just started to understand spoken english like by magic. I can see interviews, reviews, chats... understanding the 98% of what's been said.

Your English is really good from what I see you type on here. Better than many people who have learned it as a first language. I remember when you first started posting it was shaky and then just like that, you got it, so I see what you mean when you say it "clicked" that is cool!

 

Also, that Keith Richards book, I read that too, and please don't think you are deficient in English by reading that, Keith talks and writes in ways that few understand. :wink:

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37 minutes ago, Ghost said:

Agree, Oliver. In fact, I've learned a lot more by myself, and staying motivated by reading, hearing, watching subjects that are interesting to me in english, than in high school.

I learned more by myself, staying motivated and reading than I did in a University..

You can't reach real world experience and tactics in a school.

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I would say my english is decent, hahaha, not more (I'm sure if you put me in the middle of London, I'd freak out, lol). But thank you. And yep, that's the word: click. I don't know why, nor when, but it clicked on my brain, and suddenly it all was getting easier. Funny thing is that I would never imagined that I'd be able to speak it to the point to be able to have a conversation, and I do it when I interview some bands. It uses to end up as a conversation, which is amazing. Anyway, I'm always trying to improve it!

Also, I speak another language, catalan, which as some of you may know, is a co-offical language here in Spain -along with euskera-, but only spoken in some regions. It has some points in common with Spanish, French and even Italian.

Yeah, Keith has his own language, hahaha .

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I would say it depends entirely on the curriculum and who taught you in high school.  By our third year of French in High School we were reading full novels in French and understanding it fantastically.  We took our French club trip to France our senior year, and most of us were able to converse with locals there very well.  And my French courses in college were a breeze that I aced.  So I'm gonna disagree with the assertion that High School foreign languages are of little help.  Just depends on who's teaching you and how they're teaching you.

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Just now, M!ke said:

I would say it depends entirely on the curriculum and who taught you in high school.  By our third year of French in High School we were reading full novels in French and understanding it fantastically.  We took our French club trip to France our senior year, and most of us were able to converse with locals there very well.  And my French courses in college were a breeze that I aced.  So I'm gonna disagree with the assertion that High School foreign languages are of little help.  Just depends on who's teaching you and how they're teaching you.

Yeah which is why it's so dumb.. teacher to teacher, professor to professor varies greatly.

I had one friend who's class was speaking and presenting in near fluent German by their third month and going on trips to German sausage houses...All the while our class was watching stupid videos of our teacher skiing in the Alps and what I mainly took from the class is Germany has fizzy cola gummies.

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High School foreign language classes probably work just fine if the student actually gives a shit. But in most cases only the super nerds try. The rest slack off and skate by with C's not knowing anything.

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Ghent is right, if you apply yourself it would be fine, but most didn't.

Man I had great times in my Spanish 1 freshman year, the teacher, Mrs Starkman was insane. Some chick gave a guy a handjob in the back of the class and she found out so she had our desks arranged where half the class faced the other so she could watch everyone, but then when she turned her back to the chalk board one side of the class just tossed shit and the other side, it was like paper wars. She ended up moving the desks back.

She always had these weird stories come up right in the middle of class like one minute she'd be teaching us, the next minute she'd be talking about how some guy beat her up and she sued him and put him in jail.

 

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Our English professor in high school was a very old woman, out of touch with reality, and our first two years were all about the grammar. She was crazy but I can't thank her enough because once you know the grammar, the big part of the job is done. If you're motivated, then you have to stay focused, read a lot, watch TV shows and movies to improve your vocabulary and learn new idioms, never give up. The big mistake is thinking "I want to say that, but how can I say it?" You know it clicked when you start thinking in that language and you don't care about the translation of what you want to say because it kinda comes natural.. It seems like a long way but it's usually quicker and it's worth it. 

 

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Honestly, I've never had or met a "normal" foreign language teacher. One of ours in my high school retired to mexico with a young boy after becoming almost unbearably crabby. The guy who replaced him went awol after too many DUIs. Another wore the same clothes every day and cried randomly. All of those were Spanish teachers. The French teacher was a slumlord who would have random men stop by and he would be gone for the entire period. Always super strange.

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23 minutes ago, Ghent said:

High School foreign language classes probably work just fine if the student actually gives a shit. But in most cases only the super nerds try. The rest slack off and skate by with C's not knowing anything.

Which is why I think it really helps that they made our high school French curriculum so fun, we were all learning but having a blast while doing it.  I'm not lying when I say most of my class had a strong handle on the language when all was said and done.  Though I was technically in the advanced class (you could enter Freshman year in high school in French 1 or French 2 if you took a year of French in Middle School), so its probably safe to say that all of us that stuck there through French 5 senior year, were indeed willing to learn the language.  Again though, it really did help that they taught us in such a way where we all enjoyed the class and looked forward to it every day we had it.

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I studied French for 8 years, from second grade to 9th grade. Never got completely fluent but I was able to carry on conversations, probably poorly but still. Then I went to Peru for two years and learned Spanish. At first it was hard because I kept wanting to speak French, but eventually I became fluent in the Spanish language and it completely took over whatever French I still knew and replaced it in my head. I seriously cannot speak French at all now. It was just replaced with Spanish in my head. Kind of sad that I can say I took 8 years of French and have nothing to show for it. Though it definitely helped me to learn Spanish faster, because there are so many similarities.

I hate the letter R in both languages though. The French R is easier for me to pronounce. I still can't roll my Rs for shit, which is the one thing I never got down in Spanish. Everyone always said "don't worry, it'll come naturally with time!" Well, it didn't. I can't roll my Rs to save my life. So, I was fluent in Spanish, but basically fluent with a speech impediment.

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I chose german in high school because i wanted to understand Rammstein. And when i was in berlin for a few weeks i challanged myself only to speak german. Went okay, sometimes i struggled but got better  

i had to learn danish in 7th grade until i graduated because iceland was ruled by them until 1944. Hated danish and still do. 

And we start to learn english in like 4th grade. so yeah

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