Sure is. I know bits of other languages but none enough to say I'm fluent. I'm like this with everything. I know a bit about most things, but not enough to be good at any of them.
I've always thought your written English is pretty much flawless. It was a surprise that it's not the first language you learnt. Which language do you dream in?
I dream in pictures =) and think in English, I learnt English when I was 5 so I don't have an accent, its so much easier to learn when you're small. If I ever have a kid, I'm going to talk to them in a multitude of languages!
One of our psychologists told me that the part of the brain which processes language develops from about 18 months and tapers off after age ten (because that's when we need to learn most). After that, it gets steadily harder to learn a new language.
Weird, isn't it, that most school pupils learn a foreign language at school only after the age of 11. We should be teaching languages to primary school kids.
Is that the 'critical stage' the period where you can learn to communicate using language, backed up by case-studies of so called feral children?
I caught on with English in a year, I learnt French for five years and struggled, I kept mentally translating everything back into English whenever anyone spoke :/
I did five years of French too and learnt nearly all the French nouns using flashcards so I do associate the French word with the object without having to translate in my head. But numbers kill me. I always think in English and it's a grind to translate.
Oh, something interesting. One of the English soldiers in the First World War decided to stay on in France afterwards (I think he'd fallen in love). Some newspaper decided to interview him in the 1970's so they sent their journalist only to discover he'd "forgotten" how to speak English.
It could be possible, I have a friend who learnt English when he was 8, by the time he got to 17 he couldn't remember how to write the majority of the chinese chrachters. Okay maybe that was an extreme example, mandarin is an impossible language to master >.<
I'd love to try but I got put off by a colleague at work. He was born in Hong Kong and only speaks Cantonese but has been trying to learn Mandarin because that seems to be becoming more prevalent outside of China. He's having all kinds of problems and when he tried to explain the six tone sounds going down to four tone sounds, it fried my brain. I just don't think I could ever determine the difference in quick speech.
I speak mandarin, don't understand a word of Cantonese, might as well be two different languages :/ Learning to speak it is not too bad, we don't have different verb endings, we just use the infinitive, plus to speak in different tenses you just add a time frame and/or one word. Writing is a nightmate though, bleugh
its my second or rather third language..though there is none in my family to speak to me fluently in English.but as I'm deeply interested in it and have close association with it so can speak in much better way... here speaking English is one of the impressive and good things so PROUD TO KNOW IT...
My first language was Baby Gobbledygook..l was very good at it..it is the only language where drooling and blowing bubbles with your mouth or nose is allowed in public. I speak a few languages now, not all perfectly, but I get along. Travel is a great teacher.
Weird, isn't it, that most school pupils learn a foreign language at school only after the age of 11. We should be teaching languages to primary school kids.
I caught on with English in a year, I learnt French for five years and struggled, I kept mentally translating everything back into English whenever anyone spoke :/
Oh, something interesting. One of the English soldiers in the First World War decided to stay on in France afterwards (I think he'd fallen in love). Some newspaper decided to interview him in the 1970's so they sent their journalist only to discover he'd "forgotten" how to speak English.
Learning to speak it is not too bad, we don't have different verb endings, we just use the infinitive, plus to speak in different tenses you just add a time frame and/or one word. Writing is a nightmate though, bleugh
It not like I met many speakers of Serbian in the US.
2. Dutch.
3. English.
4. German.