English as your Second Language

[Cast No Shadow]

Hi guys,
Once again, I'm shamelessly asking for your help, in return for cookies!

I would like people who speak English as their second language, to answer these questions:

What challenges do you face when writing/speaking in English?
What would make these challenges easier?

Thank you 😀

 

[Tome]

Hi guys,
Once again, I'm shamelessly asking for your help, in return for cookies!

I would like people who speak English as their second language, to answer these questions:

What challenges do you face when writing/speaking in English?
What would make these challenges easier?

Thank you 😀

FREAKING 'H's'! Arrrrrrrrrghhhh. 🙁 Whenever I speak I put a 'H' where there shouldn't be one, and I don't put one where there should be one. It's an *easy* fix, though. If I take my time and enunciate better, it goes smoothly. I think most of the mistakes I do when I speak are caused simply because I try to say stuff too fast.

As for the typing, I did have a couple issues, but I had a friend to help me out. 🙂 Now I'm usually proud of my written english.

 

[sk]

Well, I guess that the lack of an active vocabulary is the main problem.
I often find myself not being able to articulate what I want to say because I just don't know how to say it, what words to use.

When writing it's not that bad 'cause I can usually spend some time thinking about it, google a bit and so on.
While speaking I end up just humming and looking like a fool. 🙂

Since I also hate to look like a fool I can get very self-conscious about it. Which only makes it even harder to come up with the right words.

The only thing to make it easier is more practice.
Don't get much practice in speaking English, that's too bad actually. Writing I do at times though... 😉

/SK

 

[Professor Walsh]

What challenges do you face when writing/speaking in English?

I get stuck with idioms. As much as I love using them in my native language, I never feel I can get the hang of them in English.

What would make these challenges easier?

Moving abroad (again).


Cookies?

 

[This Year's Girl]

I have trouble spelling words that are alike, to know when to use the right one. Like where and were. Maybe some nifty rhyme to remember would help? 🙂 also, to spell difficult words. Like definately <--- probably spelling it wrong right now 😀

 

[Miss Kitty]

Like sk13 said, the lack of vocabulary is the main problem. I'm also not sure if my sentences are gramatically good, and it took me some time for writing in (I hope) some understandable way. And one of the things which is the most frustrating to me is not knowing the usual expressions or ways of expressing yourself with some "fun" vocabulary (you know, we all have our own ways of inventing or distorting some words which actually don't exist, lol 😛 I always do that in French, but when it's not your maternal language, it's a lot more difficult).

One thing I have some trouble to do while reading English is imagining the person saying it. The tone is a really important part of the understanding to me, and since I'm not used to listen the English language (except on my DVDs, which are a good way of practicing), I miss that. I'm also afraid of being misunderstood or afraid that people read my posts in an agressive way while it isn't, or stuff like that...

Discussing/reading on forums, reading fanfictions and watching episodes/movies really help me to progress. I also translate some fanfictions in French sometimes, it helps 🙂

 

[Gum Gnome33]

I'm a native English speaker, but may I just drop in to say something?

It seems that every time I learn that someone on these boards doesn't consider him/herself to be "fluent" in English, I am always surprised and genuinely impressed. All of you write so well, and express yourselves so clearly; I am truly inspired by the level of skill you've acquired in a foreign language, especially considering that a lot of you aren't exposed to it on a constant basis.

You all inspire me to kick my butt into gear and finally get myself fluent in French; I've been taking my time and allowing myself to be satisfied with "enough to get by" for too long now!

Just wanted to tell you all that. 🙂😀

 

[Ianigsy]

I have trouble spelling words that are alike, to know when to use the right one. Like where and were. Maybe some nifty rhyme to remember would help? 🙂 also, to spell difficult words. Like definately <--- probably spelling it wrong right now 😀

I see those mistakes made by native English speakers every day of the week.

Funnily enough, I was thinking about this the other day- I have a Polish colleague who's really funny to listen to because she's really intense and excitable when she speaks, but sometimes she doesn't get the force of words right and swears when she doesn't mean to. And in a Yorkshire accent.

A couple of times a month I meet up with a lot of people from different countries and chat either in English or French- what I like about hearing people who have English as a second language is that because they don't use the cynicism and fatalism which is in a lot of our expressions (the only time we'll say "another beautiful morning" is when it's throwing it down with rain), they often sound so much more positive without trying.

 

[Vamp Jenny]

As I said in another thread, when 2 "H" are at the beginning of 2 following words (ex.: he has) I have a hard time pronouncing.

When I write I frequently forget what is the word, but that has been happening when i speak French too, lately...

And when 2 words are almost the same (like bear and beer), I have a tendency to pronounce both like the first one I learned. But after a while I get to it (took me 3 years to realize that "carebear" wasn't pronounced "carebeer".....)

Oh and the damn irregular verbs vs regular verbs.... like learn... do I say learned or learnt? Or are both acceptable???

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

One spelling thing I'm always unsure about is when to write compound words together or apart. In German, we just always write them together, in English I pretty much have to guess. One example I stumbled across today is 'press conference'. In German that would be "Pressekonferenz". This is probably also why a lot of people feel intimidated by the long words we use, but if you really take them apart it's not so scary anymore. But anyways, I don't get why you have to write that apart, while 'toolbox', for instance, is pulled together.

Another thing I'm never sure about is punctuation. We use way more commas in German, so in English we also tend to overuse them.

In spoken English, I think I'm doing pretty good. A lot of people can't guess from my accent where I'm from, so I'm taking this as I've mastered the typical German pronunciation errors.

 

[Cheese Slices]

The most difficult thing for me would be all the different kinds of prepositions and in which case you use this one or that one. You seem to enjoy these little words a lot, which is very different from french. Syntax is different as well, but I (more or less) manage.

I think practice is the only answer. If you can't afford to go abroad, you have to try reading, or watching movies, or your favorite TV show 😀