Slothrop Newbie American Samoa Joined 4767 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Italian
| Message 1 of 6 09 May 2012 at 3:04am | IP Logged |
Hello!
It has been more than half a year since I registered in the forum, so it's time to
delurk and start posting. I'm not good at introductions, so I'll be brief. My knowledge
of English was constructed practically on the run, by way of reading Wikipedia
articles, online book and film reviews, papers on computer science and the like,
watching movies, TV series etc. (I've also had almost completely useless English
classes at high school), and of course being in contact with all sorts of cultural
products in English on a daily basis. Therefore I have a good reading comprehension (I
can read these and other forums and the type of texts I mentioned above with ease), but
huge gaps with regards to grammar (and certainly this post will be full of errors) and
non-technical vocabulary (the good reading comprehension disappears when I try to read
a novel, even a popular one like Harry Potter), in other words, I'm awful at producing
text or speaking in English (my pronunciation is awful too). Listening skills were also
bad, but they are slowly getting better. So my primary goal now is to fill these gaps
and, say, to properly learn the language.
Other than English, I'm also studying Esperanto (started just out of curiosity but it's
indeed addictive, maybe because of its easiness) and Spanish, though Spanish I'm not
studying right now (I've started a few months ago but then stopped until I feel my
English is good enough to consider dividing the time I can devote to language learning
between both of them - Esperanto poses no problem because I'm giving it very little
time). Languages I expect to study in the (not so) near future include French, Italian,
German and Hebrew. In the long (LONG) run, I'm really interested in Russian, Latin,
Greek, among others.
(Just to weigh my claim about my difficulty with English, I'll let you know that it
took me near 45 minutes to write this post, between googling, second guessing and
actually writing.)
And I said I would be brief, huh? But well, that's it. This is a fantastic place which
already have given me a lot of tips on resources, methods, and always good reading (the
logs, discussions...), and I hope I enjoy it even more now as an active member.
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6693 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 6 09 May 2012 at 4:04am | IP Logged |
Bem vindo (<--- mensagem breve)
Welcome to HTLAL
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espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5041 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani
| Message 3 of 6 09 May 2012 at 6:16am | IP Logged |
You're not exactly a "beginner" in English, as you so modestly put it in your profile. Congratulations on your English, and welcome to the forum!
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Slothrop Newbie American Samoa Joined 4767 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Italian
| Message 4 of 6 09 May 2012 at 2:44pm | IP Logged |
Thanks!
And yeah, I guess "beginner" may be a stretch, hehe. I'll fix that.
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Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5683 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish
| Message 5 of 6 09 May 2012 at 6:14pm | IP Logged |
I'm very impressed by your English, I must say. I like your list of target languages, too. Welcome to the forum! :)
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5252 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 6 of 6 10 May 2012 at 3:34am | IP Logged |
Bem-vindo ao forum, @Slothorp! If you live in a major Brazilian city it should be no problem to find gringos with whom to practice your English. A language exchange via the internet is also a good way to practice. If you can't read a novel, try an easy one that you know well in Portuguese and read the English translation. Try not to fall into the trap of studying multiple languages simultaneously before you've actually learned your first one. Your written English is very good. It won't take much time to get your spoken English up to speed. You just have to start speaking and listening. Listening and reading is a good way to develop good listening skills. Try librivox.org for free audio-books in English with text available. There are over 15,000 books in English on the site- read by native speakers. Don't be ashamed to start with something like "Snow White" ("Branca de Neve"). Boa sorte!
Edited by iguanamon on 10 May 2012 at 3:51am
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