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What age were you... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| nikolic993 Diglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 3780 days ago 106 posts - 205 votes  Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian | Message 49 of 61 25 July 2014 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I was 3 years old when I first "came in contact" with English. My aunt bought me the animated film "Muzzy in Gonoland" made by the BBC, and I remember watching it non-stop.
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| Inquis Tetraglot Newbie Poland Joined 4133 days ago 1 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, German, Italian Studies: French, Russian | Message 50 of 61 03 August 2014 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I first came in contact with English when my parents sent me to a language school at the age of 6. I can say that I never really 'studied' English, nor did I pay much attention to it, until the age of 15. I took FCE exam and eventually passed on B, without actually any real work, beside attending classes twice a week. Personally, I didn't do any special work and such a word like' homework' didn't really exist in my idiolect. English was just kind of an adventure for me, something fun, meant to be joy. I loved the language as it appeared natural to me. When I passed my first Cambridge exam I decided to do the CAE next year, which required a hell lot of work and dedication. And I can proudly state that I received an A! :)
Then I stopped learning English 'the hard way' and started doing it the way I loved and liked it: books, films, games, foreign friends, etc. My exposure to German, however, began a bit later, at the age of 10. I picked it up as a second foreign language in my normal, Polish school, prefered to learn it rather than Spanish, as I was told it'd be rather for useful. To be honest, I didn't really like the language, it seemed so bizarre and incomprehensible compared to English that I literally didn't take any pleasure in it. Beside, the atmosphere of learning languages like German and Russian are not very cheerful, thus I quickly became disaffected of the whole idea. I somehow struggled with it until high school, age of 16, when I realized that it's actually NOT THAT BAD. I decided to learn on my own simultaneously with the school's own teaching programme (I had a different German teacher and more willingful language group). I managed to improved my German quite well that I'm able to understand most of the things during my stays in Germany. I still encounter some problems with speaking tough, and even if my accent is considered to be a German-like (I'm quite good at picking them up), I sometimes run off words whilst speaking. It was also a language I chose as an appendix to my Matura exam (Polish national exams, similar to A-levels) and a second foreign language, beside English. My adventure with Russian began one year ago, the age of 17. I picked it up due to a trip to Saint Petersburg, but I abbandoned it for a while later on. I decided to polish my German. I hope to return to it some day, as it is a rely enjoyable language and Russian people are, despite some minor freuds between our governments, lovely people. Than came Italian, which I picked up literally... two months ago. It was due to an cultural exchange I had in the last class of high school with an Italian group of students. I lived for a week in an Italian-speaking family, of whom only one person (which was my exchange partner) had any actual knowledge of English. I knew only, maybe, 20 words in Italian, and mainly ones like 'ciao' and 'grazie'. After my final exam I decided to return to Italy as I really enjoyed the family in which I stayed and I picked the language up a month before I set off. That was literally two months ago and now, after some major trip to Italy, having used only Italian (and English and German seldomly), i managed to reach a level of, let's say, B1, maybe B2 eventually. I wish to continue learning Italian and achieve an advanced fluency by the end of September. I hope I will succeed, so... please, wish me luck! Now, being 18 years old, almost 19, I can boast about knowing four languages, of which two are fluent (Polish and English), and two on somehow-comunicative standard. I also picked up some basic of French and Russian, as I stated, but these 'projects' await future times. But here, German and Italian come first. Cheers to all languages' lovers! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Enrico Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 3745 days ago 162 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Italian, Spanish, French | Message 51 of 61 31 August 2014 at 3:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I was around 5 or 6 yeas old when a friend of my father from US sent us something like picture dictionary for
children and subscription of magazines where in several years I emphasised unfamiliar words with a marker and looked them up in a dictionary :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| theyweed Senior Member Poland Joined 3812 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English | Message 52 of 61 08 September 2014 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
It's inspiring you've started your language journey so early and have become fluent in 2 and communicative in another 2. As far as I'm concerned I first ecountered English at age of 10 in my grade school. The learning process wasn't very efficient (I also had English in middle school and high school). The whole process took me somewhere around wobbly B2 level. Then, when I turned 16 I was taught some German in high school. In fact it wasn't much as the teacher was atrocious and so was the methodology. My interest in chinese began at age of 19. I'd applied for a course, abandoned the language for one year and eventually started it again (it was also the first time I'd tried self studying) Few months ago (3-4) I decided to give German a second chance and also undertake french. I use assimil and some content of MT to learn them. Edited by theyweed on 10 September 2014 at 10:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cwcowellshah Newbie United States Joined 4379 days ago 34 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 53 of 61 22 September 2014 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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42 when I started Swedish.
Would love to figure out how to do an immersion study in Sweden, but the responsibilities that come along with parenthood make that hard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 54 of 61 23 September 2014 at 10:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I was probably 7 or something when I first started learning English, but that's not a
foreign language in Sweden. I was 12 or so when I first started studying French in school, but I didn't learn anything. So I was 21, I think, when I first started learning a foreign language, Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hellev Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4615 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: French, Spanish | Message 55 of 61 30 October 2014 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was 10 when I started learning English in school. At 13 I started french, and at 16 russian. I had classes in
latin and greek too, but sadly I've forgotten most of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4658 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 56 of 61 31 October 2014 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had a Spanish class in high school many moons ago but I did not start studying the language until February of this year. I was 45 at the time and it has been the best decision I have made in a Loooooooong time. I am thankful to the HTLAL community for their help. If this site where not here, I can honestly say Spanish would have just continued as a "Something I should do" type of thing in my life.
Again, thanks to everyone who contributes to this site. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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