Poll of the Day > in retrospect, grade school managed to teach me some skills that I remember now.

(+) Yeah! (+)

80/80
but not French. I'm disappointed in Canada, especially BC. So many Europeans are bilingual, right? how fucking hard could it be to have kids learn a language? we sat in French class like every day for 8 years. can't believe how little most know. I took one French class in University and I think in 6 hours a week for 3 months I got a further understanding of the language than the entire 8 years of grade school. they really didn't teach us anything during that time. What a waste.

well, it's not surprising that university covers significantly more dense material than elementary school. it's also not surprising that you're more capable of learning as an adult than as a child.

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I think Europeans are bilingual mostly from great exposure to English. Bilingualism in the UK is rare.

There isn't much incentive for English speakers to learn another language. For non-English speakers, the incentive is to gain access to literally 99% of all the cool shit in media, whether it's TV, movies, video games, or the internet.

Almost every person that I know that learned English as a second language did so through exposure. I know a South Korean guy that claimed he learned English as a kid mostly by watching the Pokemon anime. I've heard from people online that learned English by playing Runescape and needing to learn how to converse with the mostly English player base.

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Sahuagin posted...

well, it's not surprising that university covers significantly more dense material than elementary school. it's also not surprising that you're more capable of learning as an adult than as a child.

I always heard that children can learn languages more easily. Maybe not true.

faramir77 posted...

I think Europeans are bilingual mostly from great exposure to English. Bilingualism in the UK is rare.

There isn't much incentive for English speakers to learn another language. For non-English speakers, the incentive is to gain access to literally 99% of all the cool shit in media, whether it's TV, movies, video games, or the internet.

Almost every person that I know that learned English as a second language did so through exposure. I know a South Korean guy that claimed he learned English as a kid mostly by watching the Pokemon anime. I've heard from people online that learned English by playing Runescape and needing to learn how to converse with the mostly English player base.

As a Canadian if you learn French you could gain access to the hidden 10th province! With the cheapest rents in the country. Then again, if all of us knew French maybe it would be just as bad as Ontario.

faramir77 posted...

I know a South Korean guy that claimed he learned English as a kid mostly by watching the Pokemon anime.

Absolutely, in the same way, my motivation was Thunderbirds (back when it was only broadcast subtitled here.)

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I can remember about 90% of what was taught in 1st year Spanish. It mainly covered the infinitive (ser) & present tense of verbs (soy, eres, es, somos, son).

I remember almost nothing of 2nd year Spanish. They tried to cram in every other tense into just a few short months: preterite, imperfect, conditional, future, imperative, subjunctive, etc., when most of us didn't even know what the hell these terms even meant. I still can't tell a preterite indicative from an imperfect subjunctive.

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That is something I never got about languages thought in primary and secondary school, to the average person, what grammatical constructs are called is completely useless, only thing that matters is how and when you use them.

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I took two years of French after one year of Spanish from '93-'95. I still know more Spanish than French after all these years.

Je suis
Tu es
Il est
Elle est
Nous sommes
Vous tes
Ils sont
Elles sont

That and basic words are the extent of 9 years of French.


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acesxhigh posted...

I always heard that children can learn languages more easily. Maybe not true.

as far as I know, technically not true. children don't have any more ability to learn languages than anyone else, they just have way more free time, and have been fully immersed in their primary language since birth. supposed to be that it takes approximately 30 years of immersion in a language to become maximally proficient in it, regardless of age.

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i was born in montreal and my first language was technically french (theres video of me speaking it as a kid) but then i moved to ontario when i was four and now i dont remember any of it. i feel so robbed

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