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Second Language Comfort

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3


Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6704 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
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 Message 25 of 27
10 May 2011 at 2:12am | IP Logged 
I generally feel comfortable speaking, thinking and writing in English. And if the subject is language learning or African fauna then English may even feel more comfortable than my native Danish.
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dragon32
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4955 days ago

12 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 26 of 27
10 May 2011 at 4:30pm | IP Logged 
Interesting how several Scandanavians and Dutch people are saying that they are just as comfortable using English as their native tongue. I guess this has something to do with starting their English lessons at a very early age and being heavily exposed to the language through the media and education system as they grow up. Also, English plays a major role in university courses in these lands and is basically demanded by society as a way of getting on, much less so in the likes of Germany and France I would think.

I have spent a lot of time in Germany and can use the language in almost any situation over there. But I would never say that I'm as confident in German as what I would be in English. I never think in German unless I'm having a German conversation, even then it's considerably more work than speaking English...which comes naturally. Maybe the fact that I didn't learn any German until I was an adult makes it firmly a second language in my mind.


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mrwarper
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Spain
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Joined 5227 days ago

1493 posts - 2500 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 27 of 27
13 May 2011 at 2:34pm | IP Logged 
My only problem is vocabulary (or lack thereof), which of course ranges from almost nil in most recent languages to roughly equivalent to native-level, depending on the area. (I don't think I'll ever find an area that I can become proficient in, in a 'new' language, without 'upgrading' my older ones in the process. We'll see :)

As long as I can understand what is being said, and more importantly, I can say everything I want to say, using another language doesn't feel uncomfortable at all.

My Russian friends were quite shocked when they found out I actually could do some chit chat 'like he has been speaking Russian all of his life' :) The down side is I'm not really beyond the performing monkey level, so it's usually two short sentences and I have to revert back to Spanish. But it was great fun the first time :)

However, I deem noteworthy that feeling equally comfortable in any language, I still might need a few seconds to re-tune my ears if an unexpected language comes along.



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