Learned a language without ever visiting (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Learned a language without ever visiting
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19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

datsunking1
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5585 days ago
1014 posts - 1533 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French

Message 17 of 19

15 April 2010 at 12:33am | IP Logged

Sprachprofi wrote:

datsunking1 wrote:

Sprachprofi wrote:

datsunking1 wrote:

Sprachprofi,
wait English ISN'T your native language? like you were
not raised bilingually? :O

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.

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!

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.

I probably have less than half of that in my Spanish, and my speaking is sub-par in my opinion, I NEVER can speak with natives... I'm thinking about going through FSI as a good refresher of the basics and to bring speaking more easily. :)

Thank you for your kind words.

Edited by datsunking1 on 15 April 2010 at 12:34am
1 person has voted this message useful

ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6142 days ago
2150 posts - 3229 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

Message 18 of 19

17 April 2010 at 10:51pm | IP Logged

I've learned French and Portuguese to a very high level without having visited places speaking those languages (I visited France for a couple weeks when I was six, but didn't speak any French back then). Same with Italian; I've never been to Italy but can speak it to a basic fluency level.
1 person has voted this message useful

Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5334 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

Message 19 of 19

20 April 2010 at 12:05am | IP Logged

Like most people from Northern Europe, I mastered English without going there (assuming that a week's shopping in London with my mother at the age of 13 doesn't count).

We are generally exposed to English every day, as our films are mostly in the original language(mostly American), we listen to music in English, we read English books and use it on the internet. When I started out you didn't normally learn English until you were 11, but my mother started to teach me English from I was 9, made me read English novels from the age of 10 and the rest was a combination of school and the previously mentioned elements.

Now of course, they start at age 5, and even my 10-year old speaks English.

1 person has voted this message useful

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