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Learned a language without ever visiting | ||
Tags: Travel | Living abroad | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5339 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 9 of 19 14 April 2010 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I learned Spanish(fluently) by myself a year before going to Mexico.
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| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6079 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 19 14 April 2010 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I learned English without going to an English-speaking country (went to the States once
with my family but I was 10 and only talked to them) at least, but I don't even feel like it should count. When I think about it all I've done is some properly heavy immersion though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 11 of 19 14 April 2010 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Indeed. My parents don't speak English even. My father can read it a little, but that's about it. I only started learning it in grade 5. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 19 14 April 2010 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I know plenty of people here in Sweden who have a decent level of English (reading, understanding, speaking, writing) without ever having been abroad (and of course there are many who have been abroad but whose level is not so good).
I myself have only been to UK/Ireland for ~10 days at most (a handful of times the last 15 years). Of course English in popular media helps. My dad was born in 1943, had maybe three years of English in school (back then...), but has been actively interested in anglophone music and movies ever since. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 13 of 19 14 April 2010 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's honestly unbelievable. I hope my German will be as good as your English someday. :) It has given me new hope. I thought you were raised bilingually! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 14 of 19 14 April 2010 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're making me blush. I blame it on a lot of reading, not just books but also news, forum posts and text chat, and a lot of talking (voice-chat), which really helped my conversational fluency and my ability to understand colloquialisms and sayings. My estimate is that I must have spent about 3000 hours using English like that between the time I was at B2 level and the point where speaking English started to feel exactly the same as speaking my mother tongue (I'm wondering if English has in fact become a mother tongue, biologically). I did not actively review vocabulary or grammar at all during that time, though I received some corrections writing essays for school of course. What I'm trying to say is that 3000 hours is a lot of time, but it won't require any effort at all if you do what you like to do in your target language. Maybe look for more ways to add German to your life in order to speed up the process, or go the way Doviende does and log your hours if you want - I have no doubt that you will reach the same level in German within a few years if you keep at it. Edited by Sprachprofi on 14 April 2010 at 6:06pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| NativeLanguage Octoglot Groupie United States nativlang.com Joined 5338 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes Speaks: French, Spanish, English*, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Japanese, Mayan languages, Irish | Message 15 of 19 14 April 2010 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I learned Spanish without ever leaving the U.S., though I grew up in Southern California, so, I had the opportunity to be exposed to it. However, I didn't have any formal instruction in it and living in SoCal does not magically give you an ability to speak Spanish (no one else in my family speaks it).
I later studied Castilian dialect on my own and have passed as a native at college with a teacher that was from the area of Spain I claimed to be from (Side Note: It was a required course with materials identical to another course I had already taken, however, they would not waive the requirement so I forced myself to 'stay on my toes' by pretending I was a native of Spain from day 1 in the class). All of this was done without ever visiting Spain. I've also picked up French, Catalan, Portuguese, Greek and other languages to varying degrees of ability (from advanced to fluent) without going to any of those countries. I did, however, spend 6 weeks in France during college, but I was already fluent. This may get me classified as a 'non-normie', but, I don't think there's any magic to what I do. I compare various self-taught learning books, grab the one that seems the most complete and then spend a whole lot of time studying. More importantly, I'm not afraid to use the language at every opportunity (especially when it involves speaking with a native speaker). I will say that once you learn a solid base of languages (especially if they are in a similar language family) it does get easier to acquire a new language. This is made even simpler if you have a solid background in linguistics. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5533 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 16 of 19 14 April 2010 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm surprised this question even comes up. Sure.
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