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Originally posted by Roarkiller
Surprisingly though, that age barrier doesn't apply to everyone in general. Some people can master languages quite late in life.

@Phyrra: Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, HongKong and America are a few of the countries that widely practises bilingual education. And forget English, the most widely used language in the world is Mandarin; English is 2nd.

And I'll be glad to partake any new info on Japanese, but the problem isn't with the language; it's my memory. It's leakier than a sieve.

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i totally agree with you, in spain they are forcing me to learn spanish, but its not going to well >

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♥Boricua Anime Freak 4 Life♥

For us Japanese, it's very difficult to master English.
Generally, European languages are quite different from Japanese.
Chinese is more similar to English than Japanese.
All Japanese students learn English for 6 years. But most of them can’t master it. As far as we live in Japan, we don’t need speaking English at all. So to master English isn’t an urgent matter for most of Japanese.

For me, as I’m aged, learning English is much harder.
As Roarkiller said, my brain is quite a sieve, I can’t get memorize many words.
In addition, the hard-drive in my brain is getting smaller, only 5 or 10 GB. And I don’t have any opportunities to speak English in my usual life.
My English hasn’t made any progress since I was a high school student long time ago.
Everyone, Don’t blame me for poor English. Blame English. Is English really suitable for international language??

Not really. The only good reason to learn English is because the business world uses it a lot. Especially dealings with America and several European countries.

Plus, software is always written in english anyway (sorta).

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I am me.
I am who I am.
I am Roarkiller.
No one else is me.

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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Originally posted by Kanta
Is English really suitable for international language??
For us Japanese, it's very difficult to master English.
Generally, European languages are quite different from Japanese.
Chinese is more similar to English than Japanese.

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No. I find English to have far too many exceptions in its grammatical rules, that it is too unstructured to be a language effectively learnt by the mass as a second language. Indeed, a considerable length of time is needed to polish the language skills, even just for the level of everyday-use.

But why the heck has English been chosen as "the one?" Blame US to be the current superpower of the world and UK as the preceding one. Well, if Martians invaded us during the beginning of the 20th century, and continued to play the role of world police, I can guarantee that Martian would become the official international (or interstellar?) language, as well as the default language in all fields, including but not limited to business and information technology.

(somehow a weird image pops into my mind, with the president of Mars yelling at US, calling her the axis-of-evil and threatening war if she doesn't get rid of her nuclear warheads )

Anyway I understand your pain. I was forced to learn English by a retarded colonial educational system and I really hated the language during the early years of struggling through it. Yet with increasing practice and exposure, you can find yourself to be capable of using the language in greater varieties of situation, which you can certainly sense some kind of achievement. Not to mention the joy of enjoying high quality English literature in its original format. Howl's Moving Castle and the Eathseas series come into my mind.

Back to English learning, there is simply no shortcut in second language acquisition. All you can do is to have continual and consistent practice. I find forum discussion a nice way of keeping me to read and write in English on a regular basis. Frankly, my high school English was not much better than yours. And I am only a Year-1 university student now. So I can guarantee that your effort will eventually pay off.


P.S. I don't think Chinese are really at a much better position than Japanese in the case of learning English. Chinese as a language differs from English as much as Japanese, if not more (katakana pops into my mind ) . The major difference at work is that, quite some of the Chinese you can meet on the web usually have been studing the language since primary school rather than secondary school.

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My light novel review blog: ラノなの！@ novel.co.nr

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posted by Jiji

But why the heck has English been chosen as "the one?" Blame US to be the current superpower of the world and UK as the preceding one. Well, if Martians invaded us during the beginning of the 20th century, and continued to play the role of world police, I can guarantee that Martian would become the official international (or interstellar?) language, as well as the default language in all fields, including but not limited to business and information technology.

(somehow a weird image pops into my mind, with the president of Mars yelling at US, calling her the axis-of-evil and threatening war if she doesn't get rid of her nuclear warheads )

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To Jiji
Thank you for good advice.
For mankind, it is a huge good luck that Japan couldn’t have conquered all over the world.
I can easily imagine that all people on the earth would suffer much from learning Japanese.
Then they must choose to be invaded by Martian without hesitation , I’m sure.

Your popping up image of Martian and American president remind me of the movie “Mars attack”. US should be added to the axis-of-evil ??I agree.

"We will be much more welcomed than Japanese. hehe"

i just wish school would only incurage a student to learn another lanuage insted of forcing them to learn. if anyone learns anything it should be out of intrest and passion of the subject. being forced to do anything dosnt help.

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♥Boricua Anime Freak 4 Life♥

The fact that there is a lot of people speak in Mandarin is becoz there are so many Chinese in the world. This doesn't mean that Mandarin is going to be the international language. I find it would be harder for people to learn Japanese or chinese rather than english. I think the problem for me in english is becoz i normally talk in my own language, read novels in chinese. The way you can speak well in a language is you have to use it all the time or you will forget about it. it is only my own opinion...

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Originally posted by ting
The fact that there is a lot of people speak in Mandarin is becoz there are so many Chinese in the world. This doesn't mean that Mandarin is going to be the international language. I find it would be harder for people to learn Japanese or chinese rather than english. I think the problem for me in english is becoz i normally talk in my own language, read novels in chinese. The way you can speak well in a language is you have to use it all the time or you will forget about it. it is only my own opinion...

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Ditto. Total submersion is always the best way of acquiring a second language. Since I had no opportunity to study abroad when I was in high school, the speaking part can't be helped. But I tried my best to read and write everything in English. Joining English forums of your interests really helps. I had gotten an F in English before I knew anything about the Wired. After getting a PC, my marks on every single subject got into a downward spiral, with the exception of English. Actually I was doing all those meaningless newbie stuff and arguing with the others on the most trivial things. But at least I tried to write cohesively in English (well, just for the sake of l33t and pwning the others) .

Later, I returned to the more regular (read: boring) fashion of learning English and sank myself into the world of English literature. I actually find English novels to be much more interesting than their Chinese counterparts, as there are signature titles in every category you can name of. The Chinese literature world really hasn't progressed much after the collapse of the last monarchy.

As for the difficulty in learning Chinese or Japanese when compared to English. I actually find Chinese to be the simplest of all, if one can jump through the hurdles of Chinese characters. The grammatical structure is much simpler, and the phrases are constructed by a inductive, rather than a coded manner. Once you can master the basic rules and character sets, you can write and read anything without the need of a dictionary, grammar book or any external assistance (the last time I flipped open my Chinese dictionary was like 10 years ago ). Indeed, an average Chinese kid can easily read newspapers by the age of 11, while Japanese and British/American kids of the same age can find newspapers a great nightmare (Japanese: obscure kanji / English: political terminologies).

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My light novel review blog: ラノなの！@ novel.co.nr

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Originally posted by ting
The way you can speak well in a language is you have to use it all the time or you will forget about it. it is only my own opinion...

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That's completlely true, ting.

My favourite teacher is the English teacher who taught me last year... I have mentioned her before, but she speaks seven languages. Swedish is her first language, but the other languages are French, German, Dutch, Japanese and Chinese. She now teaches English ~ despite it not being her first language.

She is able to go to so many contries and immerse herself in the environment. I couldn't do that, I couldn't go to Germany without language help, nor Japan or China, amongst so many other countries. I can go to Amercia though... hooray *sarcastic cheer*

"Language is the business of interpretation" she told me once ~ and that's so very true. Where are we without language? Language is the bridge which connects masses of islands. The bridge of language is long and many people give up... I believe that language is more powerful, and more useful than anything else in the world.

Even food and water... well... perhaps

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Thanks to mpw3d who made ths amazing sig! The avatar was made by Sarah, from www.digik.net

I´m from Portugal.

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"When you're old, all you want to do is stare at the scenery.
It's so strange. I've never felt so peaceful before."

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Originally posted by LittleWing
I´m from Portugal.

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Originally posted by IluvHowl06

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Originally posted by LittleWing
I´m from Portugal.

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ohh! how do you say hello? i have a brazilian boyfriend, but i can't even say a word in portuguese

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hehehe

Well... hello = olá

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"When you're old, all you want to do is stare at the scenery.
It's so strange. I've never felt so peaceful before."

thanks dude - or should i say... obrigado!!!

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i am from missouri us...i am also new to the forums..hi peoples!

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Hello nanafan! Welcome to the forums!

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"When you're old, all you want to do is stare at the scenery.
It's so strange. I've never felt so peaceful before."

thankies! i feel welcome! yay

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Originally posted by nanafan
i am from missouri us...i am also new to the forums..hi peoples!

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i see lolz.. your from ireland cool! i so want to go there someday...

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hey! Im from Greece!

i was origannaly from irland bt now im just in preston uk i wonna move to america do wot u reccon da bst state is, im thinkin manhatten coz i liv big citys bt i also lyk south caroliner bt i think it will be a bt to hot 4 mi dwn there.

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