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How you learned your native language

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
Siberiano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6497 days ago

465 posts - 696 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Serbian

 
 Message 1 of 17
29 March 2010 at 2:17pm | IP Logged 
Tell others how hard was it for you to learn your native language, when you were young.

Some anecdotes from my childhood:

1. Rolled "R" is a hard sound and kids learn it the last. I remember at the age of 4 I had a book with a poem by Mayakovsky, "Про моря и про маяк", and read it aloud, pronouncing "L" instead of "R" or omitting it. I already understood that pronounced it wrong and that some words sounded the same, but couldn't help. In few months I mastered the letter, but sadly don't remember that moment.

Granny said my cousin was so excited when learned to roll "R"s that she started to put it instead of "L". "Granny, rook, what a bright right!"

2. Instead of a cassette recorder we had vinyl record player, and a ton of child records with fairy tales and music. Me and my sister put them all the time we plaid in our room (if we didn't put a disk, a radio was on :). I remembered those fairy tales by heart, even though at that time some words escaped me - especially in songs: at the age of 4 I understood only half of the texts if not less. Only growing up, at 7-8 y.o. I started understanding most of the text.

3. In one fairy tale there was a sentence: "so he thought a little, and then...". I guess I was 4 when I asked mom what "think" means. She explained, but the meaning still wasn't quite clear :)

4. At the age of 5 there was a time I didn't read those books with poems, nor other so once my dad said: "Come on, you mush have forgotten all the letters". I said "no, I didn't". I had an opened atlas of Asia on the floor near me. "Read this name" he said. "Mmm.. Shillipines" said I feeling that something was wrong (I confused Ф with Ш).

5. A lot of words didn't make sense or I misheard them as others. When at the age of 3 or 4 I put plastic letters into words on a board and showed it to mom, she told me to leave spaces between the words. "Spaces" in Russian sounded like a name of a fairy tale character, so I thought what it had to do with the letters, but was too shy to ask. :)

So, if you tell something to a kid and he nods, it doesn't mean he understands. :)

Edited by Siberiano on 29 March 2010 at 6:44pm

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brian91
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5448 days ago

335 posts - 437 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 2 of 17
29 March 2010 at 3:20pm | IP Logged 
I only remember reading Postman Pat books with my mother and having some difficulty with them. Haha, I'm okay
now though, just struggling with German.
1 person has voted this message useful



datsunking1
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5589 days ago

1014 posts - 1533 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French

 
 Message 3 of 17
29 March 2010 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
I used to screw up words like "read" "read" and "red"

Same with eight, and ate. I still get some grammar wrong "I'm good" should technically be "I'm well" and little things like that :)
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GREGORG4000
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5527 days ago

307 posts - 479 votes 
Speaks: English*, Finnish
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French

 
 Message 4 of 17
29 March 2010 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
I read lotsa British literature at a young age, so some of my spelling and grammar is really inconsistent. For example, I always "put my period outside of the quotes instead of inside".
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Astrophel
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5736 days ago

157 posts - 345 votes 
Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee

 
 Message 5 of 17
29 March 2010 at 6:38pm | IP Logged 
I didn't learn to write the letter "s" for about two years. It's so small and curvy that I had a really hard time with it! I just made a zigzag (in either direction, with any amount of strokes) instead. :)
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Owen
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5360 days ago

10 posts - 10 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Russian

 
 Message 6 of 17
29 March 2010 at 7:32pm | IP Logged 
Now that you mention it, I used to have trouble with the letter "f". I used to write it as a backwards question mark with a line through it and a tail going off to the left from the bottom of the letter.


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Quabazaa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5613 days ago

414 posts - 543 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 7 of 17
29 March 2010 at 8:22pm | IP Logged 
I took a lot longer than other kids to speak, to the point where my parents began to wonder if I had something wrong with me! Apparently I was as shy then as I am now, because I only spoke 5 separate words total up until the point I just started speaking in full sentences with no in between stage! (I almost made my mum choke on her coffee by telling her to "look mum, there's a builder at the door!" when she hadn't seen him. All words I had never used before in my whole life.)

I also refused to learn to read as a child. (Anyone see a theme here? haha)
Although my mum is actually a language (including English) teacher, I kept telling her "You're not my teacher! So don't teach me to read!" and it was apparently for this reason I didn't want to learn from her before going to school :P
I remember having trouble when I first got to school XD But when I finally stopped being so stubborn I started reading at a crazy rate and never stopped :)

Although then I learnt various words from books which I didn't know how to pronounce (though I thought I did) which sometimes caused me embarrassment! Eg I thought "subtle" and (a word pronounced and maybe written) "suttle" were actually two different words!
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The Real CZ
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5653 days ago

1069 posts - 1495 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 8 of 17
30 March 2010 at 12:14am | IP Logged 
I still screw up "sks" and "sts" sometimes. When I say something like "blasts", sometimes it will sound like it's supposed to, other times as "blast," and the remaining times as "blass"(skipping the t.)




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