Datheus Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 I was supposed to interview someone today for an English paper. My interviewee was a no-show. Now I'm between a rock and a hard place. I have to interview someone who did not learn English as their first language. This means that responses from multilinguals who speak English natively are unhelpful. If any of you lovely Swampies could help me out, I would appreciate it. Just post a reply with an answer to these questions. Feel free to toss in anything else about the subject you feel may be useful. Thanks! (Optional) What is your name? What country are you from? What language did you learn first? (Second?) (Third?) How old were you when you learned English? How many years have you been speaking English? Why did you choose to learn English? Have you ever been to a country where the spoken language is English (America, Canada, England)? When? Why? What was your experience there? Was it good? Bad? Why? What did you find to be the most difficult about interacting with people who spoke English natively? What did you find to be the easiest about interacting with people who spoke English natively? Have you ever encountered any sort of xenophobia outside of your own country due to your accent or manner of speaking English? What happened? Have you ever witnessed citizens in your home country acting xenophobic towards visiting English speakers? What happened? How many of your friends, family, and colleagues speak English? Do you ever converse in English with friends or family despite that you have a common native language? Compared to your native language, what aspect of English to you appreciate/like the most? Why? Compared to your native language, what aspect of English to you dislike the most? Why? Do you ever pick up on grammatical errors of native English speakers? Or do they pick up on your errors? Do you feel like any part of your native language made it easier to learn English? What part? (Cognates, similar grammatical structure, etc.) Do you feel like any part of your native language made it more difficult to learn English? What part? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightNinja Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 1.Daniel 2.Spain 3.Spanish, English 4.3 years when i started 5.Easy, but i wasn't too old to choose 6.No 7.- 8.- 9.- 10.No 11.No, they haven't 12.My brother and almost all of my friends 13.No i don't 14.I like it because it easy, with a word you can name many things and you don't have more than 3 words for each thing you want to name. Plus the verbs are pretty easy to learn. 15.I dislike the fact that it seem to poor in comparation in terms of words and expressions. 16.Yes and yes 17.No, its almost different but there are so many words that are written almost the same in english 18.Yes, the part of phrasal verbs because there aren't that much on spanish (at least i don't know if there are that much =P) Hope it helps . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datheus Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Yes, thank you very much! Anyone else, feel free to contribute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Windu Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Do people who learned English and their native language at the same time count? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datheus Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Sure, that works. It's close enough. I'd be interested to hear if you're interested in telling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Nine Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Now, I'm a native English speaker but I sent this to my mother and one of my friends and they were kind enough to fill it out. So here goes. ^^ Me mum Lea The Philippines Tagalog and Bisayan (Filipino Dialects) 18. Have been speaking English for 35 years now. Because I eventually wanted to immigrate to America. Yes, I live in the United States now because most of my family is here. It's been good, for the most part. The country is nice and I have a steady job. When I first started out, my pronunciation wasn't very good, so when speaking to native English speakers, I had to repeat myself constantly. Once you live in an area for a while, English becomes easier because everyone around you is speaking it. No, not really. I don't have much of an accent anymore when speaking English. No, people from the Philippines are usually very friendly towards English speakers. Most of us are bilingual, as it helps to know conversational English All of my friends, family and colleagues speak English, When I'm around close family, I speak in my native dialect because it's a little more comfortable than English. But even then, we usually intersperse random English words throughout our speech, so it's not as if it's our pure native language. English has an easier structure, and some things just sound better in English. It's so much easier to curse and tell people off in Tagalog. More often than not they pick up on mine. My son is especially fond of telling me when I mispronounce words. There were a few little things that helped, but it was mostly just memorization. Sometimes I think in Tagalog and it takes a while for me to translate it into English. Mi amiga Ariadne Ireland Irish Gaelic. I actually learned English at almost the exact same time, but according to my mother, I was fully fluent in Gaelic far before I was in English. I was about 6 or 7 when I learned English to the point where I considered myself fluent. I've been speaking it for just about 13 years now. Because my parents made me. Along with a few other languages as well. XD Yeah, we speak English here in Ireland, as well as in England and the United States. I've had good experiences no matter where I've been. My English was good enough even when I was younger that I was rarely corrected. My accent did make deciphering what I said kind of difficult though. I don't recall finding any difficulty conversing with English speakers, other than the aforementioned accent issue. People who speak English natively (at least the ones I've met) are usually pretty helpful with correcting my miscues. Not quite xenophobia, more of a mild curiosity and wonder. So no. Well, some of the people in my country certainly don't like the English. XD Pretty much all of them. My grandfather didn't speak English, as he lived in a Gaeltacht, but he's gone now. I speak with my aunt in Gaelic pretty often. She's from out in the country, so she much more comfortable with it than English. English is easy to figure out how to pronounce, for the most part. Ninety-eight percent of the time, the word sounds like it looks. Gaelic can be a lot faster than English and it's easier to convey certain things when speaking Gaelic. Other than that, English works just as well. I pick on grammatical errors all the time. It's kind of my job, as I edit for a magazine. XD Nah, Gaelic shares very little similarity to English structurally and stylistically, so it didn't make English any easier. Yeah, it did. Especially with the cardinal numbers. But it was only a minor annoyance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Windu Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 1. Michael 2. United States 3. Vietnamese and English at the same time 4. Since I could speak 5. Cause I wanted to go to school and be like all the other kids and learn. >> 6. U.S. born 1989. 7. Nice place. 8. I don't have a hard time. >> 9. I can pick up dialects/slang from people easily. (i.e. ebonics, prep talk, etc) 10. Nope. 11. Not so much fear of the foreigners, but just small feelings of superiority I guess. Nothing happened. 12. All that live in America 13. It's mixed with Vietnamese when I speak 14. I can communicate better (yes, I know, sad.) Tons of ways to express things 15. Too many rules 16. I do. But I don't mention it to them. 17. Nothing 18. Nothing Probably not much help <_< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acrylic Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 1. Nick 2. USA 3. Yugoslavian (Serb-Croatian), then English 4. Maybe like, 3 or 4. And I've been speaking it ever since, which is like, 12-13 yrs. 5. I kinda live in the USA. Haha. 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - 10. I have a mid-west american "accent", so not applicable. 11. Nope. 12. How many of your friends, family, and colleagues speak English? 13. Yes. 14. Its easier, because I'm surrounded by American people all the time. Well, I am American, but yeah. 15. Yugoslavian just plain sounds cooler. 16. Yeah. No. 17. Yes, I don't know why, but I've ALWAYS been good with grammar, and I believe it's due to Yugoslavian as my first language. 18. Not at all. Hope this helped! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datheus Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Thanks for all your responses, everyone! You've helped me very much. Anyone else want to take a stab at it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagobahn Eagle Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Øyvind W. Norway. Norwegian, English, German (still learning German, gave up on Spanish). I started learning English in school in third grade (at age nine), although of course I picked up some words before that. I didn't. It is mandatory on all Norwegian grammar and middle schools. Oh yes. Been to England as a tourist and lived in the USA for three years (my dad got an assignment in Houston). Good and bad. You know what High School is like:p. The most difficult thing is that while you can explain what you mean in Norwegian if you're stuck in your English class in Norway, you can't when you have no other language than English in common with the person you're talking to. If I'm missing a word, pronouncing it unclearly, etc., tough luck, I'm stuck. Most of the time I'm eventually understood, though. Some kids making fun of accents, but nothing serious. Same Have you ever witnessed citizens in your home country acting xenophobic towards visiting English speakers? What happened? All of them, even my cousin at age 5 (she's bilingual, though, so she's a special case). Not really. The similarity of some words to Norwegian counterparts. Grammar is a bit tough. I don't think so. I hope I'm not making any that others learn from me. Some spelling is similar. Besides from that, not really. Not really. D. E. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie™ Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Ailo Norway Norwegian, (a bit of) Lappish, English Was around 9 when I first started learning it, but had already visited the US by then, so I probably knew some from before It's mandatory here I've been in the US three times, and one of the times it was for a year. This was mostly because we have relatives there, but when we stayed for a year my father had been offered a job at a university I had a good time on the two regular trips, even though I was very young. Living there for a year was okay I guess, but I didn't make many friends. It's a friendly country anyhow. Sometimes things were a bit hard to follow, but it didn't take too long to adapt. People are often quick to understand that you're not a native speaker, so most people are patient and helpful if you're having any kind of trouble with the language. I can't recall anything like that. No, not that I can think of, other than racistic slurs, but that has very little to do with language. All of them, some better than others though. Sometimes I replace Norwegian words with English ones while talking to friends, but nothing other than that. That you can communicate with people from all over the world using it, and that the English language has around 3 times as many expressions as the Norwegian. Norwegian sounds better. <_< I'm often annoyed by people making a lot of spelling/grammar mistakes, especially native speakers. That they are both rooted in Germanic languages. Nothing I can think of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Knight of Keno Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 1. Teo A.K. 2. Finland 3. Finnish(first), then English(second) 4. Since I was 9. Now it's been five years 5. It was forced down my throath by all the programmes coming from TV. Then I grew up to like it 6. Never been 7. Look above 8. I sometimes forget words(You have so many T-T ) 9. They speak English. Doh! 10. Nope 11. Nope. Never seen 12. All my friends speak english, and my brothers do too 13. Just when playing around in tongues 14. English is spoken almost everywhere 15. I dislike nothing 16. I pick on theirs... Muwahahaa 17. Nope 18. Nope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Jones Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Uh--Ray? Germany. German. Russian. English. 11. Since then. Because of school. And would have anyways. UK. Class travel. Vacation. Ohh-teh-food! Uiii-Teh-GIRLS! Accents. *Cough* -- Nothing special. Just dumbheads you'll find in any country. Nothing special. Just dumbheads you'll find in any country. Many. Yes. Simpliciteityc--simpl--It's easier, yet as powerful. Nothing. Yes. And this is good. Nothing major. No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jokemaster Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 1. What is your name? Carlos 2. What country are you from? Mexico 3. What language did you learn first? Spanish (Second?) English (Third?) French 4. How old were you when you learned English? How many years have you been speaking English? at the same time I learned spanish, 14-15 years 5. Why did you choose to learn English? We moved to the USA for a year 6. Have you ever been to a country where the spoken language is English (America, Canada, England)? Yes When? USA: 2 months, Canada: 4 years old, England: 6 years old Why? USA: Health reasons, Canada: Skiing in Whistler, England: Family trip 7. What was your experience there? Good. 8. What did you find to be the most difficult about interacting with people who spoke English natively? Slang, misuse of words 9. What did you find to be the easiest about interacting with people who spoke English natively? Casual conversation 10. Have you ever encountered any sort of xenophobia outside of your own country due to your accent or manner of speaking English? Kids making fun of accents 11. Have you ever witnessed citizens in your home country acting xenophobic towards visiting English speakers? See above 12. How many of your friends, family, and colleagues speak English? Parents, sister, some of my uncles, most of my cousins, all my friends 13. Do you ever converse in English with friends or family despite that you have a common native language? With my sister 14. Compared to your native language, what aspect of English to you appreciate/like the most? People don't mind misuse of words and grammar specifics 15. Compared to your native language, what aspect of English to you dislike the most? Abstract grammar rules 16. Do you ever pick up on grammatical errors of native English speakers? Or do they pick up on your errors? Both, I mostly pick up theirs 17. Do you feel like any part of your native language made it easier to learn English? Some similar words. 18. Do you feel like any part of your native language made it more difficult to learn English? Nope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sabretooth Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 1. Rahul 2. India 3. Marathi, then Hindi and English at the same time 4. Since I was 4, or 5 maybe. I've been speaking English since, though I speak Marathi and Hindi as well. 5. It's the international language and I would have been stupid not knowing it. Besides, I go into an English-Medium School. 6. Never. Not even stepped outside my state. 7. N/A. 8. Accents, fast-speak and slang. 9. Clear Speaking, but nothing much, really 10. Never. My English is good enough to interact with native-English speakers. 11. Not as far as I remember 12. Um... my dad, my sister, and two friends. Others can speak, but prefer not to/aren't too good. 13. With those above, always. 14. The alphabets are easy and the language is extremely simple to understand. Also, almost anyone can learn English. 15. None, I dislike things in my native language though... 16. I don't recall picking their errors, but I think someone on the net must have caught mine. 17. Similar words and often phrases. The sentence formation wasn't too similar, but worked. 18. The sentence structure. Sometimes, I speak English with Marathi sentence structure or vice versa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoM Posted December 6, 2005 Share Posted December 6, 2005 1. Anton 2. Sweden 3. Swedish, English, Spanish. 4. I was 7, 6 years ago. 5. I learnt the basics in school, then I played a lot of games and watched movies in english. 6. No. 7. (See 6.) 8. Nothing at all, I'm good at english. 9. Everything, just like speaking swedish. 10. No. 11. No. 12. At least 50. 13. Very often. 14. English is much easier. 15. Apostrophes! 16. Yes! At least 40 times a day! I've even corrected my english teacher when he said "was" instead of "were"! I hate when people can't spell correctly, and it makes me bloodthirsty! 17. They are very different in many ways, so...No. Still, I've never had a problem learning english. 18. They are, like i said above, very different, but it didn't make it hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datheus Posted December 6, 2005 Author Share Posted December 6, 2005 Thanks for your help everyone! I'm still picking away at this paper. No more responses are required, but if anyone else feels like speaking up, I'm sure we'd all be interested to listen to your background anyhow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Knight of Keno Posted December 6, 2005 Share Posted December 6, 2005 2. Sweden Boo! Sweden boo! >.> <.< *Runs away screaming like a little girl* I keed, I keed ^.^ Sorry, I just had to do it... I am truly ashamed of my behaviour. I go cry in my corner now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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