The thing that got me when finally speaking to natives was how fast natural speaking is. You think you can understand things fine but that’s because the teachers and apps are speaking clearly and slowly and waiting for you to parse each sentence. Natural conversation isn’t like that.
Accents as well. You can have the rain in Spain falling mainly on the plain as much as you want, but it’s not going to help any foreign visitors to Newcastle or Liverpool.
And local colloquialisms as well. I can tell you the secret to a Boston accent is to replace the r after a vowel with an h, and that’ll help you pahk the cah at Hahvahd yahd, but won’t do a damn thing when somebody tells you the food at a restaurant is wicked pissah, but warns you that it’s rainin’ feckin’ hahd out deyah so yeh better off takin’ the T to Southie.
I dont think i had this problem, but then again i had been learning a few years by watching movies and listening to songs before i met some actual English speakers. The benefit of a two way conversation is you can always ask them to repeat.
this made me realize how different learning is via lessons and immersion, i never had that experience when learning english since i did it by watching english media, it was just that one day it stopped being gibberish and started being language.
one day it stopped being gibberish and started being language.
I think that day is awesome for any language learner. When you realize you actually understand what someone is saying instead of trying to translate in your head. 🤌
Is ‘my owl language’ the language you’re learning using Duolingo? Or is it a typo and you meant ‘my own language’? It’s interesting because normally I’d assume the latter, but in the context of this thread, the former makes some weird sense.
Everyone I talk to says watch TV shows in the language, you get better at hearing and understanding more fluently, for my dad English was his second language and he gave me a lot of tips about getting fluent with a language. One learn all the swear words, avoid accidently saying them, and know when people are attacking you, let go of translating, gato isn’t cat, gato is gato. Don’t translate, that’s a skill in and of itself that’s very challenging to aquire. His brothers made fun of him for making faces on sounds, particularly sounds not found in his native language, don’t avoid that, sink IN to sounds outside your language roll those rr’s until you sound like your purring, hit those gutteral sounds hard, and soften those native sounds that don’t belong. LET GO of feeling embarrassed, be a goof, say things you don’t understand, make people laugh, you can’t be precious about it. Dork it up! My dad still had an accent, but he was one of two out of his four siblings that had complete fluency.
The thing that got me when finally speaking to natives was how fast natural speaking is. You think you can understand things fine but that’s because the teachers and apps are speaking clearly and slowly and waiting for you to parse each sentence. Natural conversation isn’t like that.
Accents as well. You can have the rain in Spain falling mainly on the plain as much as you want, but it’s not going to help any foreign visitors to Newcastle or Liverpool.
Slang as well. Apparently my grandma was hood af so when I tried to use what little German I knew my teacher was like that’s some informal shit.
And local colloquialisms as well. I can tell you the secret to a Boston accent is to replace the r after a vowel with an h, and that’ll help you pahk the cah at Hahvahd yahd, but won’t do a damn thing when somebody tells you the food at a restaurant is wicked pissah, but warns you that it’s rainin’ feckin’ hahd out deyah so yeh better off takin’ the T to Southie.
I dont think i had this problem, but then again i had been learning a few years by watching movies and listening to songs before i met some actual English speakers. The benefit of a two way conversation is you can always ask them to repeat.
this made me realize how different learning is via lessons and immersion, i never had that experience when learning english since i did it by watching english media, it was just that one day it stopped being gibberish and started being language.
I think that day is awesome for any language learner. When you realize you actually understand what someone is saying instead of trying to translate in your head. 🤌
I’m sorry for foreigners, I never learned how to properly pronounciate my owl language. It’s OK not to understand me, other natives struggle too XD
Is ‘my owl language’ the language you’re learning using Duolingo? Or is it a typo and you meant ‘my own language’? It’s interesting because normally I’d assume the latter, but in the context of this thread, the former makes some weird sense.
Maybe we just met a second speaker of the infamous bird/dolphin language
Obviously they were raised by owls and speak an owl language.
Oooh!
hooo*
Whom
Who?
I really wanna know!
Everyone I talk to says watch TV shows in the language, you get better at hearing and understanding more fluently, for my dad English was his second language and he gave me a lot of tips about getting fluent with a language. One learn all the swear words, avoid accidently saying them, and know when people are attacking you, let go of translating, gato isn’t cat, gato is gato. Don’t translate, that’s a skill in and of itself that’s very challenging to aquire. His brothers made fun of him for making faces on sounds, particularly sounds not found in his native language, don’t avoid that, sink IN to sounds outside your language roll those rr’s until you sound like your purring, hit those gutteral sounds hard, and soften those native sounds that don’t belong. LET GO of feeling embarrassed, be a goof, say things you don’t understand, make people laugh, you can’t be precious about it. Dork it up! My dad still had an accent, but he was one of two out of his four siblings that had complete fluency.
I can’t even manage that in my native language.