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List of things you cannot do with English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5213 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 17 of 60 25 March 2012 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Things you cannot do with English:
- read other languages - write other languages - speak other languages This list isn't exhaustive, but I think it covers most of it. 18 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4501 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 18 of 60 25 March 2012 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Instantly and intuitively enjoy all the excellent media out there that hasn't been
translated into English. Learning a language has already enriched my life beyond what words can say just because of the new experiences I can now access in music, television, and books. Some of it is so profoundly beautiful it literally brings tears to my eyes, like listening to Spinvis while walking through my neighborhood on a cold day. My life would be much the poorer without the presence of great artists like this. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4466 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 19 of 60 25 March 2012 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is what you cannot do with English:
talk to Italian and German tourists here in Croatia. 90% of tourists come from Germany, Austria and Italy, so local people have no real interest in English. Old people speak Italian and German, and not English. English is taught at school. But for local economy, German and Italian are much more important than English. We still need a visa to travel to the US. We can travel to Italy with just an ID card. In Croatia, English has no practical use. Most of us learned more English by watching Hollywood movies and sitcoms anyway. And the UK is not too keen on Croatia, so our relationship with this country is almost inexistent. English is more important for Mexicans than it is for us. I haven't spoken English in 5 years. I only use it in the written form. Edited by Medulin on 25 March 2012 at 3:58pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6070 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 20 of 60 25 March 2012 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
I am not sure about this. Many high-quality language-learning materials are aimed at people whose first language is English or who at least know English well. This does not mean they are always the best materials. For example, I have often found materials for learning Turkish aimed at German speakers to be superior to materials designed for English speakers. But if you want to learn some relatively obscure languages, you may have no choice but to learn them through English, whether or not English is your L1. The heavy load of Latin/Romance vocabulary in English gives English speakers some advantages with learning those languages. English is also, IMO, quite a phonetically rich language, and this is also potentially helpful with L2s. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Improbably Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4734 days ago 34 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English | Message 21 of 60 25 March 2012 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Things you cannot do with English:
- talk to the 5.5 billion people who don't speak English 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5666 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 22 of 60 26 March 2012 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of people in foreign countries don't speak English to a high level and therefore,
can't express themselves fully. If you want to get into a culture in a deeper level you need to speak their language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4854 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 23 of 60 26 March 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
It doesn't seem to be the truth. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4832 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 24 of 60 26 March 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was expecting a very different thread given the title! I thought this would be about things we could not do linguistically/semantically that are features of other languages. I would be curious for the answers on *that* topic.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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