Learning English and/or other languages

I decided to create a thread about learning English. I know that the big percentage of people here don't have to care about it, as they are native speakers, but I know of few no native speakers. For how long have you been learning English, guys? I've been learning English for 5 years I guess, but I think that my skills are pretty decent not to say mediocre. Although, I know a lot of words I never really put them to a good use when I speak. Also, I often happen to forget words, which results in a break in my sentence. Pronunciation is not a big deal. I had more trouble spelling that word than pronouncing it. Of course sometimes I pronounce words incorrectly, but I'm working on this.

And to think that I am one of the best in my class. People out here really don't like to learn languages. Speaking of other languages... I've been "learning" German for like 12 years, yet I cannot make a simple sentence. Yeah, "learning" at the school. I remember that I was pretty good at it, but then I started to learn English and completely forgot about German. Also, I'm not really keen on Deutsch. I prefer Russian.

What about you, pals?

I'm Australian and I find to difficult to speak English...no crap!

Powderfinger, you're such a kidder! :P

Honestly mate - I had a brain injury and it's difficult for me to speak and type... seriously!

English is one of the hardest languages to learn. One of the few languages on the planet that do things like have the same words spelled the same, but mean different things in context, as well as pronounced differently.

Tear - Tear a piece of paper.

Tear - A tear ran down my cheek.

Live - I live in America.

Live - I saw that band live in concert last year.

etc...

Then we do stuff like have different spellings for one general word that mean different things.

There - It's over there.

They're - They're over there!

Their - That's their food, but they're over there talking!

Your - Don't forget to bring your stuff.

You're - You're the reason we're late!

Then stuff like we're VS. were and I'll VS. Ill.

So on and so forth... I am sure other languages I am not familiar with do these or similar things as well, but English takes it to the extreme!

I know a little bit of Spanish, French, German, and Japanese, but I am not fluent in any of them..... I'm barley fluent in English! XD

They reckon Japanese is the most difficult, but you speak it....so, I'm a monkeys uncle

Mandarin Chinese/Cantonese would be the hardest of the Asian languages, but IIRC those are, for the most part, dead languages aside from some people who still speak it in their native lands and the few around the world that know it.

Japanese isn't all that hard really, if anything, writing in Japanese is waaaaay harder than speaking it. You have 3 forms of writing it, 2 of which are just a pain, but as are most written Asian languages.

I learn English at school but most of the vocabulary I learnt from films which I always watch with subtitles.English isn`t hard,I just find the grammar difficult.For instance,Lithuanian language doesn`t have a "perfect" tense,so it is difficult to use it when I dont even understand what tense it is.

Try to learn Polish, folks. Really hard language, possibly the hardest one with "normal" typing (I mean characters like in English, although there are some new ones like ćśóżź etc.). I speak Polish fluently, but I am from Poland, so I guess it is not a big achievement, is it?

Hey Mr. Minio I actually tried learning Polish about a year ago. Problem was I had no one to speak it with so remembering things and learning proper pronunciation was rather difficult with no one to teach. So I gave up and switched to Spanish.

I've tried other languages and found Japanese the hardest. Like English with words that sound the same but are spelled differently, there, their, know, no etc etc... there are words in Japanese that are spelled the same, yet pronounced differently to mean a similar but different thing.
Ojisan means Uncle and Grandfather, but it depends on where you emphasise the word "Ojisan" is Uncle, "Ojisan" is Grandfather.
The same as Omasan... it means Aunt and Grandmother depending on where you emphasise the phonetics.

English is a funny one really though, it's so relaxed that there's thousands of slang terms that we take for granted that are not understood by non-speakers.

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I've been learning English since I was a kid by just watching movies and series, which are all subtitled in Dutch. Besides English, I'm fluent in writing and speaking French and can make myself understandable in German and Spanish.

The other night at this Pub I was speaking to a Polish couple and I was mucking around with them - I said "John ll was a good Pope" and I also said "if someone said you Pollacks" They said to me, well, we really don't like that if someone says that.

Also, the Woman was hot..a bit of a stunner (good looking).

I've never been abroad, but I heard that a lot of people call us Pollacks. Well, a Pole in our language is "Polak" so I guess this is why.

The most of the vocabulary I know comes from games, movies and Internet. On the contrary, grammar is what I learned at the school. Unfortunately, I don't know any foreign language besides English.

I always call them Polish... Pollacks sounds weird... LOL

Im very good at the old engerlish grammer, there wear very good teachers at my skool.

I wouldn't call myself fluent, but I can speak Spanish well enough. I comprehend it best when I'm reading it, so I often turn on Spanish subtitles to keep brushed up on my skills. I have quite a few Spanish speaking friends and neighbors as well which is helpful for staying in practice.

I really want to learn German, but I keep putting it off.

You should watch Australia Films so you can speak like a Aussie! Live the dream...lol!

Recommend me some good ones, then. I only know about Walkabout, which is on my to watch list.