How about YOUR knowledge in English?

[Hoppla-Daisy]

I had the pleasure to stay at my friend's house during my last 2 weeks in London. They were Irish (Irish people living in Brixton :-D). My friend's accent was ok, but his parents' accent was groase to my ears!!!!!!!!! Gosh, once again I thought I didn't know any English at all!!!!!! But I got used to it rather quickly :-))

The Irish are wonderful people. They didn't know me that well, but they gave me my own key and showed me where I could find this and that. And we all cried when I had to leave *wheeep*

[Muriel]

oh yes, that sounds indeed very Irish :-)

[dreamchaser]

Well, I started my English career quite young, maybe at the age of 1 or 2: since my aunt is married to a Welshman and they live in Wales, we often went there and my mum started to talk in English to me from the beginning (one of my first books was "I can read German"). Unfortunately, I refused to go on with it, when I was a bit older - and I had to start to learn it again, when I started with high school (where I was realy eager to learn it, since my parents talked in English to each other, when they didn't want me to understand), only that I already understood everything the teachers said, and it became quite boring. So I went on with these English classes for 9 years, with exchange to Cambridge - after my school-leaving examinations I started to study English and German at university and got my first diploma in English. Having changed to medicine, I had to look for new opportunities to speak english. So I started to work for the exchange organization "dfa", where I got to know many students from all over the world with their different accents - quite challenging! And now I have friends all over the world, with which I keep in touch. Just that I sometimes mix it up, to whom have to write in English and to whom in Italian (I'd consider my french from school as completely lost).

[etlien]

Since I was little (ok, I am still not very tall... bad joke), I am fascinated by the english language. It started early, I can remember me sitting on the kitchen table trying to count: "one, two, three, eins, zwei, drei" while my father was enjoying what I did (BTW neither he nor my mother is a native speaker, he just enjoyed teaching me to count ;-) )

Later, I must have been in primary school (because I could read) I found in my fathers room a small book, a german-english dictionary. I can still remember what it looked like: It was blue and had really old, brown pages. But that didn´t bother me at all, I made my own dictionary with all the words I had already learnd to write in school (in german of course): Baum=Tree, Haus=House and so on. I am really sad, I don´t have this self-made dictionary any more.

In 5th grade I started to learn English, in 8th grade I did a language course in Margate, England, in 9th grade a students exchange from school. In 12th grade I chose English as major course.
I went with church to a small town in the east of England and the "final journey" in 13th grade was of course to London - where else?

Last year I went again to London with my boyfriend, who had never been there, and had the time of my life (I just like the sound of real British-English*hihi*). At the moment I am planing PJ in England, but all the questionnaire make me go crazy.

I love speaking english although I know my grammar and my spelling are worse. I try to speak english as often as I can, but in most cases I do while talking to myself (which I do more often than you should know). On the one hand, this is good, because I am used to speak english... on the other hand there´s no-one correcting my mistakes...

So, I have to go and think of a birthday present for my mum.

Bye, etlien :-) :-)

[Kedar]

Well, as most people I learned my first english words in 5th grade at school. But fortunately we moved to Norway when I was about 14, so there I learned quite a lot english (no norwegian TV shows at all, if u don´t cout Hotel Cesar ;) ) So that improved my english, then I studied chemistry in english for about one year and now I´m studying medicine in english. Most of my friends down here are native english speakers (just one german and 2 scandinavian friends).

[Flauta]

I'm sooo impressed, how many contacts you had to the English speaking world.
Until now I thought, that my English was quite ok but when I read all this, I feel like a very beginner....

[Ösiman]

Nice thread... keep it up!

Usually I hate spam, but this one is rather nice...


>
>The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English
will be the official language of the European Union rather than German,which was the other possibility.
>
>As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that
English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English" .
>
>In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will
make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
>
>In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted
to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
>
>Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have
always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
>
>Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag
is disgrasful and it should go away.
>
>By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th"
with "z" and "w" with "v".
>
>During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining
"ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
>
>Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
>
>Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in
ze forst plas.
> :-))

[WWU2013]

@ Öziman:

This was AWESOME! I enjoyed reading that article on how the English lanuage will be modified to better fit the European Union.

Is it just me though or does it sound a lot like French people when they try to pronounce the English language. (No harm intended and yes, I know, it's kind of a bad joke).

Anyway, keep up the posts. As long as we are having fun employing the English language it will help us to keep the spirit alive.

Cheers!

[Schimmelschaf]

I've learned english ääh.. 11 1/2 years ago in the kindergarten, only a lot of words and so on... At the end of the 2nd class /grade (?), the teacher began to define us the grammar, which I didn't / don't understand :-)) I have to learn this language actually every day... I'll hope, the new Harry Potter book and this forum (bulletin board ?) help to correct (?) my bad english.

[wobster]

Alrightie, 100 letters performed step by step in my approach to being validated for the medi-learn game shouldn't really be a problem, and as I cross the finishline I can't help but congratulating myself for this wholehearted effort.

Seriously, to add something to the topic at hand, I read quite a lot of english texts, be it litterature or random stuff online, so I feel comfortable in conversation as well as writing, eventhough I without a doubt make small mistakes now and then.

A small tip would be to watch plenty of english movies without that horrible translation thing the german movie industry cripples good films with.

[Sackbauer]

...As quite obvious from the title on this board only discussions led in English are appreciated...

Ach ja, man wuerde eher sagen "discussions in English", dh. das "led" weglassen.
Und auch eher "title of this board".

[etlien]

Oh, you should have said that in english.

Do you all read english books or newspapers? If yes - Harry Potter :-) as most or other books?
I have read Harry Potter so far, Miss Marple and my next "triology :-D" will be the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
What about you?

[Hoppla-Daisy]

Und auch eher "title of this board".
Read it again, loud and clear...... "AS OBVIOUS FROM THE TITLE(,) on this board only discussions led in English are appreciated".

[Sackbauer]

Then you definitely have to put a comma after title. And remove the "c" from "Englisch." , Ms Diplomuebersetzerin. :-D :-D

[Hoppla-Daisy]

NITPICKER!!!!

[Evil]

NITPICKER!!!!
At last... I've been looking for this for ages :-))

[Flauta]

My English is so good, that I absolutely have to buy a new battery for my small translating computer.
The biggest problem is to understand the American accent.

[Meuli]

Don't worry, you'll get used to it in no time :-) And for your own American accent - I'd recommend you always have a chewing gum in your mouth :-)) that'll help :-))

[Flauta]

Ok, I will directly take some chewing gums in my luggage (how is the orthograph of this word?).
I once worked in an orchestra from the Miami University of Ohio and I didn't understand a word at the begining.
In the worst case I speak by handy and feet in the guest family.

[Meuli]

Ok, I will directly take some chewing gums in my luggage (how is the orthograph of this word?).

Hm, luggage is right, I think, but Americans would rather call it "baggage" (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't spoken English for a while, so it's a bit rusty I guess :-blush)


In the worst case I speak by handy and feet in the guest family.

Yeah that should help, has your host family already had foreign guests before? then they should be used to it :-D Besides, Americans in general are very friendly and helpful ... don't worry, you'll be doing fine :-top