I know I know, I'm born and raised in the U.S so you guys are probably like, "Why are you making this thread?" I want to gather everybody on EC who had personal experiences learning English as a second language. Any stories out there? I was a pretty sheltered kid so I never spoke English until I entered kindergarten. The first languages I spoke were Hokkien and Teochew, both Chinese dialects which are only spoken widely in Singapore nowadays. I never made a connection with English. Even though I watched Sesame Street quite often as a child, the letters meant nothing to me. I ended up speaking a very basic level of it. Although I learned more vocabulary words, I struggled with a very strong Chinese-Vietnamese accent and I still stuck with the basic vocabulary words that made my English level remain at kindergarten level. I was also very introverted at the time, so I never communicated with anybody in English. It wasn't until my 4th grade teacher recommended high-level ESL classes for me to improve my vocabulary and accent because we did public speaking in 4th grade. When English words because to click into my head and I became more social, I practiced my English every day with friends and my sister. My Asian accent is pretty much gone, but it got replaced with a slight stuttering issue. Better than a weak vocabulary base.
English is my second language, too, although I speak/write it perfectly now (my first language is French). The only side effect I got from learning it was falling behind one year in school. Not the end of the world. I mostly identify as anglophone now, because it's the language I speak the most at school, at home, with my friends, and when I'm out and about.
My first language is italian and I'm learning english as a second language. I'm able to understand english texts with the dictionary and to write and to think in english. But I can't speak well and, worse, I can't understand an american while talking. But listen to a british person talking is more simple
Oh, well, because a british speaks more careful than an american, who is usually to "eat" the words For example, I can't say "water" in the same way the americans do. It impossible for me. But I'm able to say it like a british, because the "t" has a strong song
The stuttering is just you trying to translate it. I live in an area full of immigrants who have or are trying to learn English. The majority of them start out with heavy accent and not so much stuttering, but a lot that know the language, but still practice another one at home or with friends stutter a bit when trying to recall words. It happens a lot with Canadian Politicians trying to speak French. They say "le-le-le-le" a lot or " uh uh uh uh". My mother grew up learning English as a second language, I couldn't tell now at all, and most people would find it hard to believe. One thing I do notice about her speech is she pauses between compound words. Like download; down load, or snowman, snow man. Her first language was Macedonian, which doesn't have compound words, so I guess that always stuck in her mind and was never able to shake it. One of my good friends, is from Venezuela, Couldn't speak English at all when I first met him in Grade 4, now when I see him it is very strange to hear his accent basically gone and him speaking almost better English than me. His accent only disappeared when he left home; because he stopped using Spanish altogether after that.
I actually learned Spanish first and then English (both were learned at an early age because my parents know both and wanted me to be completely bilingual). At first I struggled, but, thanks to their methods I never really code-switched, mixed the languages or fell for false cognates. My parents believed that being fluent in both languages would be extremely beneficial for jobs in Texas. I later took French in middle school and, while I never got as fluent as Spanish, it did sort of mess with my accent and speech rate. When I speak in English, I will have moments where I have a slight southern accent, to a more neutral accent and, in between, I've been told the way I go from word to word has the key characteristics of Spanish speech delivery. So, in essence, to quote the show Happy Endings, someone would probably tell me, "you're like Anne Hathaway's accents: all over the place." :roflmao:. But, I've been lucky in the sense that learning English as a Second Language (even if only by a little bit of time) did present some challenges, but I was never bullied or had issues with it. I am somewhat self-conscious in public because my accent can change mid speech, but I'm caring less and less. It's who I am. Also, interestingly, in Spanish, I have a strong "American" accent and my Spanish is "proper" so I can be perceived as "snobby" or "elitist" if dealing with people whose Spanish reflects a more "working class" or immigrant (i.e. tending to code-switch and use false cognates that are minefields for those trying to learn English later in life) background. I always wonder how I would have sounded if I never learned Spanish (and French, since both happened before I had my voice change of puberty). I probably would have had a completely different voice :lol:. But, in essence, I actually feel I have two mother tongues (English and Spanish) because I can independently think and form trains of thought in both. Though I will say most of my formal education has been in English, so I can think of higher order material better in English because the technical training and jargon is present only in English.
