Is English your native tongue
- Thread starter FLIGHT50
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Barra333
Premium
- 6,539
- London, ON
- barra333
The bolded part is exactly why my girlfriend has been able to get a job - she works for an international company with no expectation to know any (or learn any) Dutch. I have a cousin who works for Albert Heijn and doesn't need to know Dutch. I am in science, so the language is English, even if 90% of the conversations that I am not directly involved in are in Dutch. I am absorbing a bit that way though.Our schools teach us English untill exam, you can't drop English class and movies etc aren't translated, just subtitles. Plus English these days is quite the standard in the EU I think, except in France.
And most classes on Dutch universities are given in English, one of the reasons I heard a Frenchman saying he disliked the idea to make English official...
Is it difficult to learn Dutch? Friends I know have problems with d or dt at the end of a word, or zij/zei. People from Denmark or that region seem to learn it quite easy, it's sounds a bit the same though it's nothing alike
It is reasonably difficult, in that I have to come to terms with gender in the grammar (de/het), and after that, you have dit/dat/deze/die. Some of the sentence structure is a bit all over the place to me as well, but it will come together I guess. Learning the variants of the verbs (eg hebben/heeft/heb/hebt etc.) is a bit of a memory exercise to begin with, but that will come with time as well.
With pronunciation, the gutteral 'g' (Groningen, gemeente etc) is probably the hardest one to get to roll off the tongue (or back of the throat) as an English speaker. Learning not to pronounce the 'n' at the end of words also takes concentration.
@kikie - yes, it is. Didn't move to the Netherlands expecting Masterchef Australia to be the first show to pop up on our TV though.
My KPN TV decoder is still all in Dutch, as I cant find the option to make it English to properly explore the other options.
- 4,464
- Azle, TX
- supermanfromazle
- SanjiHimura
Not necessarily. You are required, in Texas at least, to have at least one foreign language credit to your high school diploma. My high school only offered Spanish and French when I first entered high school as a freshman, and due to a political belief that I won't share at the current time, I chose French. Learned a nifty short cut for dealing with "rolling R's".Just curious. Spanish is mandatory @ school in the US????
- 3,221
- Maldives
- zedextreme8177
It is technically my second language, but I am better at English than the local one
I did study in Scotland from grades 1-3, and English has always been my highest scoring subject. I kinda miss the Scottish accent I had
Now I speak in a typical South-Asian type accent.
I did study in Scotland from grades 1-3, and English has always been my highest scoring subject. I kinda miss the Scottish accent I had
Now I speak in a typical South-Asian type accent.
- 5,301
- Tijuana, B.C.
- MRT_Cinnamon
In this order...
1. French... Mother's first language (Grandma's first language, and so on...), I barely speak it now but there are casual tapes with me speaking it decently... I need to remember this one (the pronunciations)
2. Spanish... because mexican
3. English... no need to tell something about this
4. Some weird kind of portuguese
1. French... Mother's first language (Grandma's first language, and so on...), I barely speak it now but there are casual tapes with me speaking it decently... I need to remember this one (the pronunciations)
2. Spanish... because mexican
3. English... no need to tell something about this
4. Some weird kind of portuguese
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
Here's one way to find out what your native tongue is: What do you think in?
I can't think in any language but English. But, then again, that's the only language this poor old brain of mine has being programmed in.
I can't think in any language but English. But, then again, that's the only language this poor old brain of mine has being programmed in.
Barra333
Premium
- 6,539
- London, ON
- barra333
Not necessarily. I had a conversation about this with some work colleagues recently - one Dutch and one German. They both said that if they are in an environment which is almost exclusively English speaking for a length of time, they start to think in English.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
I can't really wrap my mind around that - since I think only in English. Though, to be sure sometimes I do think in pretty pictures, and occasionally odd numbers.
- 1,541
- Mexico
- Yauma10
I find this interesting, because sometimes I find myself thinking in English (Spanish is my native and main tounge) and I also know someone who lived here in Mexico, then moved to USA and then back here, and even though he used Spanish for most of his life, using English as his main language made him think in English. (I know that because he often asks to translate some word from English to Spanish.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
I have asked this question of my friends when I was very, very young (mid-teens - yes, I was a pollster even then ) and remember being very surprised when one of my friends said he 'thought' (I'm talking about the natural and regular interior narration that one has in mind most of the time) in English. It was not his, or his family's, native tongue; in fact none of the rest of his family thought that way, and thought he was a bit of a traitor for thinking that way.
Unlike the rest of his family, he attended the same private school I went to - and he studied in English.
Anomalies, anomalies . . . everywhere . . .
) and remember being very surprised when one of my friends said he 'thought' (I'm talking about the natural and regular interior narration that one has in mind most of the time) in English. It was not his, or his family's, native tongue; in fact none of the rest of his family thought that way, and thought he was a bit of a traitor for thinking that way.Unlike the rest of his family, he attended the same private school I went to - and he studied in English.
Anomalies, anomalies . . . everywhere . . .
- 3,196
- Hong Kong
- Hybrid_Tifoso
No, English is not my mother tongue, but it is one of the two official languages in Hong Kong, with the other being Chinese.
There is a strange phenomenon with me, as I seem to be better in English than in Chinese, although I communicate with others in Chinese most of the time. At least that's what my academic results say. (I am always one of the top 20, if not top 10, students out of a total of 170-something students in English, but I am constantly failing in my Chinese exams, and I am probably one of the last 20 students in Chinese.)
English is taught as a major subject in every single school here. Furthermore, since the school I study in was founded when Hong Kong was still a colony of the British, English plays a very important role in the academics (300 out of a total of 1325 marks in exams, the English subject has the largest proportion in the total amount of marks, along with Chinese), and most of the lessons are taught in English, apart from Chinese-related subjects. That's why I learned to speak and write English.
How I managed to speak English fluently and score high marks in school exams, though, is a different matter. I would attribute that to the fact that I started watching English TV programmes without Chinese dubs, and I suddenly started to develop a liking for everything British (well, not literally everything) ~5 years ago. There also is my usual Internet-browsing habit, as the websites I frequent are usually in English, and the high standard of English here on GTP (thanks, @Jordan 👍). These, I believe, contributed to my fluency in English. Not exceptional, but certainly good enough to communicate with native speakers, at least with you guys.
Of course, there's still lots of room for improvement (such as speed, it took me an unreasonably long time to complete this post!), but I'm now more focused on improving my Chinese, as a pass in Chinese is essential if I want to study in a university. I have less than 3 years to do it, so I'll really have to work hard. Best of luck to the myself preparing for the most important exam ~3 years later.
Edit: In response to this question:
I think in English most of the time, or at least I talk to myself using English.
There is a strange phenomenon with me, as I seem to be better in English than in Chinese, although I communicate with others in Chinese most of the time. At least that's what my academic results say. (I am always one of the top 20, if not top 10, students out of a total of 170-something students in English, but I am constantly failing in my Chinese exams, and I am probably one of the last 20 students in Chinese.)
English is taught as a major subject in every single school here. Furthermore, since the school I study in was founded when Hong Kong was still a colony of the British, English plays a very important role in the academics (300 out of a total of 1325 marks in exams, the English subject has the largest proportion in the total amount of marks, along with Chinese), and most of the lessons are taught in English, apart from Chinese-related subjects. That's why I learned to speak and write English.
How I managed to speak English fluently and score high marks in school exams, though, is a different matter. I would attribute that to the fact that I started watching English TV programmes without Chinese dubs, and I suddenly started to develop a liking for everything British (well, not literally everything) ~5 years ago. There also is my usual Internet-browsing habit, as the websites I frequent are usually in English, and the high standard of English here on GTP (thanks, @Jordan 👍). These, I believe, contributed to my fluency in English. Not exceptional, but certainly good enough to communicate with native speakers, at least with you guys.
Of course, there's still lots of room for improvement (such as speed, it took me an unreasonably long time to complete this post!), but I'm now more focused on improving my Chinese, as a pass in Chinese is essential if I want to study in a university. I have less than 3 years to do it, so I'll really have to work hard. Best of luck to the myself preparing for the most important exam ~3 years later.
Edit: In response to this question:
I think in English most of the time, or at least I talk to myself using English.
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- 568
- Croatia
- Mustangmiha
- 3,207
No, it's not my first language.
Though I now speak English better than I do my native tongue, so in terms of usage and competence, it now is.
Though I now speak English better than I do my native tongue, so in terms of usage and competence, it now is.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
Speaking in a strange language coherently can be a lot harder than writing it.
I'm not personally sure how that works but I know many non native-English speakers who can read and write the language much better than they can speak it.
Obviously, because of the lack of prosody and verbal accentuation, written language could tend to be kyriolexic - which would result in idiomatic language been thrown out the window - but because of the universally accepted connotations that go with a particular denotation the sentence structure is easier to handle when reading or writing for those unfamiliar with the language.
To a person whose mother tongue was English saying (or even writing,) "That's old hat," would mean the obvious, but to one whose language wasn't would mean that that particular chapeau wasn't trendy anymore and can easily lead to WWIII.
I'm beginning to wonder if there are certain languages only meant to be read (pronounce that 'red') or written, and others only spoken.
I'm wondering all that in English, of course.
Wonder if I could wonder all that in Chinese. Or Arabic.
I'm not personally sure how that works but I know many non native-English speakers who can read and write the language much better than they can speak it.
Obviously, because of the lack of prosody and verbal accentuation, written language could tend to be kyriolexic - which would result in idiomatic language been thrown out the window - but because of the universally accepted connotations that go with a particular denotation the sentence structure is easier to handle when reading or writing for those unfamiliar with the language.
To a person whose mother tongue was English saying (or even writing,) "That's old hat," would mean the obvious, but to one whose language wasn't would mean that that particular chapeau wasn't trendy anymore and can easily lead to WWIII.
I'm beginning to wonder if there are certain languages only meant to be read (pronounce that 'red') or written, and others only spoken.
I'm wondering all that in English, of course.
Wonder if I could wonder all that in Chinese. Or Arabic.
- 6,944
- United Kingdom
English is my first language. Need to get better at other languages and become competently multilingual.
- 5,301
- Tijuana, B.C.
- MRT_Cinnamon
Time for an update and say that there have been no advance in my french, but I learned a little bit of german because I took a class, I'll take the next level this coming semester, and I forgot everything I knew of portuguese.In this order...
1. French... Mother's first language (Grandma's first language, and so on...), I barely speak it now but there are casual tapes with me speaking it decently... I need to remember this one (the pronunciations)
2. Spanish... because mexican
3. English... no need to tell something about this
4. Some weird kind of portuguese
- 13,292
- GTPlanet
- Street-King-07
- Quattro Saltire
Yes, even though I was born and bred in Scotland. I did do German in primary school and some in high school. I know absolutely no Gaelic though.
- 30,019
- Thailand
I'm wondering all that in English, of course.
Wonder if I could wonder all that in Chinese. Or Arabic.
In Chinese it would take you a whole day and a masters to wonder that in text, the language just doesn't allow for such elaborate musings in such a small block of text. The beauty of English is that we can ramble on with a seeming endless supply of words to describe and explain things.
As for the former point you brought up, I have found that many of the people I've studied Thai with have been able to get a better understanding of the language from learning the reading and writing side of it. It's a very literal language os knowing how to read helps massively with speaking, perhaps like it would with English.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
How you switch from jester to sage always baffles me - that was lucid, succinct and informative.
With close to two million words, and many more being added yearly, English seems to be a language that continually evolves, embracing new concepts the moment they appear.
Take the word 'knilb' for instance - according to the OED 'the opposite of 'blink'.
It is a new word, and, as with all new words, are approached differently by the extremists from both sides of the lexicological field. Some refuse to believe it is a word, others see the sense of it. Erin Mckean, Simon Winchester, Richard Lederer - these people make sense of this concept, yet there are others (not so qualified, though) who would fight tooth and nail that it isn't a legitimate word. Even the makers of Scrabble - who would accept words such as 'AA, AAL, AB, AG, AGA, AI, etc, etc - refuse to accept knilb as a word.
So what does knilb mean to even a native-English speaker?
A word denotes a concept, but if the concept cannot be understood by the reader then the word is useless.
Therefore, if one cannot grasp the concept, then even knowing how to spell or speak the word too, is practically useless.
It also stands to reason that the more concepts one can juggle in their heads, the more varied the results can be, and so can lead to new ideas, innovation, and complexities of thought that lead to progress and further enlightenment about ourselves.
Having being approached with this conundrum from both sides of the war I was compelled to give them some examples of how the word can be used in conveying succinctly a complex concept (although one that has existed ever since any organism had eyelids and way before we started making sounds or symbols to denote some concept.)
Here they are - see if you can make sense of these three example paras yanked out from some of my short stories:
1.
Sweating profusely, every bone in his body on fire with fatigue, he stumbled back into the campsite and flung himself down by a tree, eyes gratefully shut.
He felt like never opening them again.
And then the noise from the edge of the clearing; a soft shuffle.
A moment's thought and a quick knilb to check. In that momentary flash of sight he saw what stood there watching him. Sasquatch!
He kept his eyes shut. No more knilbs.
2.
With that first kiss his heart almost exploded. Eyes shut, he drank in her sweetness, the memory of a face blanketing his mind.
Then - a micro-second's knilb and the image of her eyes wide open, staring, changed that.
Why did she have her eyes open as they kissed, he wondered now, the consciousness of the kiss tainted.
Or was it that she had also knilbed at the same moment he did?
3.
He flung himself to the ground upon hearing the gunfire erupt ahead of him, seeing other bystanders fall, too, but riddled with bullets.
Supine on the ground, breathless, he listened to the gunfire continue sporadically for a minute then stop.
In the silenece he heard footseteps approaching, the thump of boots vibrating the ground. Absolutely still, feigning death, he risked a dangerous knilb. The boots were approaching him. He held his breath, now keeping his eyes firmly shut, holding his breath.
___
As for how that is going to be translated into ideograms or primitive brush-strokes just boggles my mind.
This is what I'm thinking, too - that some languages are more 'literal' in their structure, while others rely on many complex transmissions connotated with the concept. English is extremely literary, yet can be so obtuse that we may need to evolve telepathy soon. Developing empathy would be merely a kindergarten stage of this.
When I was watching the Chinese navy searching for the Malaysian airplane that went missing, I was fascinated by their technology and wondered how they put all their science into words. For instance if we were to discuss the observed coupling constant, e - the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon (137.03597 - or for you physicist-types 0.08542455) to me it would be a lot easier to discuss the concept in English than using ideograms. Or would it be easier with ideograms? After all, math is math wherever one goes - whether on Mars or Europa that constant is the same - how we translate it into everyday language is where the problem starts.
Well, two million English words is a beginning.
- 30,019
- Thailand
One of my strongly held beliefs is that mathematics is a universal constant. Our characters for values and operations are based on our Earthly understanding but to an extra terrestrial without knowledge of Earth and its ways the number two is still the number two. Add another two objects and that number becomes four, whether or not it is called 'four' is irrelevant.
In addition to having experienced both Chinese and Thai languages I can honestly say that much of a culture is reflected in a language. The way that you used 'knilb' would, in some languages, just not conform. Simply making up a word to suit a need is something that gives English great endurance where languages such as Latin have falteedr for the inability to keep with the times. It is in such a way that Chinese remains a very 'pure' language, resisting the temptation to incorporate foreign terms for ease of use; the electric brain (approx. translation), a name given to the computer comprised of already existing concepts.
The Thai language portrays the kind heartedness of the Thai people in that rude, informalities hardly exist and every sentence, even among close friends, is punctuated with 'Khrup' (m) or 'Kha' (f), a term which please, thank you, ok and yes all rolled into one. It can even be used as an acknowledgement like 'uh hu', all the while being very positive and kind in nature. Even informal Thai is very formal compared to English colloquialisms. While I would go as far as to say that many languages do reflect heavily on their cultures, English has the ability to reflect in any way the user feel to use it, hence, the most articulate language commonly used in the world today.
@photonrider, you really do make visiting these threads worthwhile. Your posts are always a pleasure and seem to bring out the deepest thoughts in me. 👍
It is funny you mention telepathy because I've always thought of it as the next step of interpersonal non-digital communication. You know how sometimes a moment cannot be explained (?), like an orgasm (pardon my crudeness but it's just an example) or the feeling I felt when the Eurofighter Typhoon flew low at an air show I visited a few years back; I cannot put in words how these feel, despite being pretty handy with English and a very imaginative person. Being able to communicate the feeling through telepathy would be the logical next step. It wouldn't surprise me if there are animals out there doing it already. The idea sounds far-fetched and I'm not much into the paranormal in that sense but for those situations it would be ideal.
On a similar note to the above my father and I have an odd ability to understand each other even when one or neither of us can be really coherent or make sense of what we want to say. I think the years of experiencing each other's dialogue, ways of thinking and use of language have lead to being able to communicate on a very advanced level. Nothing paranormal, just an intimate knowledge of a person and their behaviours that leads to almost knowing what they are saying before the words are finished forming.
In addition to having experienced both Chinese and Thai languages I can honestly say that much of a culture is reflected in a language. The way that you used 'knilb' would, in some languages, just not conform. Simply making up a word to suit a need is something that gives English great endurance where languages such as Latin have falteedr for the inability to keep with the times. It is in such a way that Chinese remains a very 'pure' language, resisting the temptation to incorporate foreign terms for ease of use; the electric brain (approx. translation), a name given to the computer comprised of already existing concepts.
The Thai language portrays the kind heartedness of the Thai people in that rude, informalities hardly exist and every sentence, even among close friends, is punctuated with 'Khrup' (m) or 'Kha' (f), a term which please, thank you, ok and yes all rolled into one. It can even be used as an acknowledgement like 'uh hu', all the while being very positive and kind in nature. Even informal Thai is very formal compared to English colloquialisms. While I would go as far as to say that many languages do reflect heavily on their cultures, English has the ability to reflect in any way the user feel to use it, hence, the most articulate language commonly used in the world today.
@photonrider, you really do make visiting these threads worthwhile. Your posts are always a pleasure and seem to bring out the deepest thoughts in me. 👍
It is funny you mention telepathy because I've always thought of it as the next step of interpersonal non-digital communication. You know how sometimes a moment cannot be explained (?), like an orgasm (pardon my crudeness but it's just an example) or the feeling I felt when the Eurofighter Typhoon flew low at an air show I visited a few years back; I cannot put in words how these feel, despite being pretty handy with English and a very imaginative person. Being able to communicate the feeling through telepathy would be the logical next step. It wouldn't surprise me if there are animals out there doing it already. The idea sounds far-fetched and I'm not much into the paranormal in that sense but for those situations it would be ideal.
On a similar note to the above my father and I have an odd ability to understand each other even when one or neither of us can be really coherent or make sense of what we want to say. I think the years of experiencing each other's dialogue, ways of thinking and use of language have lead to being able to communicate on a very advanced level. Nothing paranormal, just an intimate knowledge of a person and their behaviours that leads to almost knowing what they are saying before the words are finished forming.
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Say whaaat?Speaking in a strange language coherently can be a lot harder than writing it.
I'm not personally sure how that works but I know many non native-English speakers who can read and write the language much better than they can speak it.
Obviously, because of the lack of prosody and verbal accentuation, written language could tend to be kyriolexic - which would result in idiomatic language been thrown out the window - but because of the universally accepted connotations that go with a particular denotation the sentence structure is easier to handle when reading or writing for those unfamiliar with the language.
To a person whose mother tongue was English saying (or even writing,) "That's old hat," would mean the obvious, but to one whose language wasn't would mean that that particular chapeau wasn't trendy anymore and can easily lead to WWIII.
I'm beginning to wonder if there are certain languages only meant to be read (pronounce that 'red') or written, and others only spoken.
I'm wondering all that in English, of course.
Wonder if I could wonder all that in Chinese. Or Arabic.
This could well be the thread for non English "talkers" to write something in their own language without mods having to clean up posts, and threat with their banhammer.
Right?
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