Non-native English speakers of OB

[Eraser 1,039]

Just curious as a person who only speaks English, how did you guys find picking up the English language and did joining OB help?  I've been in other communities before where people learned English only through online interaction.

[Blyss 975]

I was really young when I first started to learn english. I went to a private primary school and we had english classes there but what helped me the most was watching cartoon network and playing pokemon (both full english without subtitles or anything similar so I slowly started to understand what the words meant). I quickly learnt the language and I've always had straight A's since primary until my last year of high school. I honestly don't remember studying once, I spent most of the classes just talking with friends or helping them with their homework but tbh my grammar used to be way better, I'm just lazy so I don't really put some thought into what I'm typing which may lead to some ridiculous typos. If I do move to the UK I might take an advanced english course, mainly to improve my pronunciation which is beyond awful.

Now if we talk about german I studied it for 3 years in high school and I forgot about 90% of it. Good memories tho, the teacher kicked me and my group of friends out everytime we had oral presentations because there was this guy that couldn't speak german to save his life and so we just laughed our asses off the entire presentation or the random bird that crashed against a window which scared the shit out of our teacher. I miss those times :(

Edited October 7, 2016 by Blyss

[Ekitai_Hebi 42]

Ezpz lemon squeezy

 

In all seriousness though it did take me a couple of years to learn english properly.

I had to put in alot of effort to get rid of the Dutch accent.

However starting young really helped me as its easier to learn it at that point.

Mind you though i pick up languages quite easily.

[Raw 188]

To start out, in The Netherlands, English is litterally everywhere. If you watch a serie on TV, it is in English but subtitled in Dutch. Also, a lot of new words that come up with technology and hypes are stolen from the English, like smarthphone (we don't have a Dutch word for it, if we had, it would be slimme telefoon = smarth telephone which makes no fucking sense). I started to learn english from watching TV, playing games on my PS1/PS2 since there are 0 games in Dutch. In the last 2 year of  primary school, we had lessons in English continueing in high school, and even on college/uni we have lessons and books fully in English. 

To focus on me, i learned English primarily from gaming and TV since there is no way to get around it, and to even use it. Besides that i use it quite common for work and to communicate with tourists (too many here). Also, in the Dutch and English language there are a lot of words the same, or they look like each other which also helps alot. In the case of grammar, I still suck afaik but i think my English in general is good when it comes up to writing and mediocre in my speech. The point where OB helps out is mostly in speech, and to get rid of that shitty dutch accent everyone hates since you start to copy what others do like you got an accent where you come from, mostly because of your parents but somehow you will get rid of it. To summary it, English is quite easy for me to pick up, but it is also not possible for me to go around it. Still don't know why some people's english is still shit in the Netherlands after hours of TV and Netflix.

On another note, since i live quite close to the German border, I do also speak German. Had class in it on high school, but also when i go out for shopping in Germany i have to use it alot since germans refuse it to talk other languages or they cannot speak it. Wouldn't say my German is as good as my English, but it's not bad.

 

[gaffeR 1,380]

Living in Oldham it was really difficult learning English, in my language of yonner we tend to miss words out and sometimes complete sentences.

"GOIN T SHOP"

"WERS ME BREW"

Learning English has opened many doors and I would like to thank outbreak for that.

Cheers guys

[Storm 84]

Well since I was 5 more or less I was in English classes outside school and thanks to that I discovered OB (because if I didn't know English I wouldn't have spoken to anyone),  I watch tv shows and stuff in original version (translated versions are absolute shit) and the list goes on and on. What I've learnt about English in OB are insults: Cunt, twat, cuck, mongloid, etc.  And a more british accent (I'd rather listen to a British accent than an American one too).

 

[Kartoffel 55]

Started studying English in primary at the age of 10-11 and then studied it once a week for the following 5 years. I'd say English was quite easy to pick up with all the American TV shows that are constantly on in Finland, also picking up 'murican phrases and words at the same time. What I'd say helped me the most was the fact that I moved to the UK and worked in customer services leading to me talking to 20-50 different people from all over the country each day. Being online hasn't made a huge change in my English in my opinion, but you do every now and then still learn new words and phrases. 

[Liutvi Mestan 606]

 Here in the Slavlands of Bulgaria, English is a really distant language to all the primitives that live in this country. You can study english in school but it's like teaching mathematics to a monkey. The only english i knew when i was a child was from stupid americanski tv shows, but when i started private lessons for cambridge certificate examination that is when i learned most of it. Outbreak actuly helped me learn allot of new words and improved my speaking, even tough my pronunciation and accent is still worse than a somalian kid's
I studied french quite allot and i picked up russian as it goes quite easy becouse of its slavic and cyrilic origin.

[Scrobbesbyrig 422]

6 hours ago, gaffeR said:

Living in Oldham it was really difficult learning English, in my language of yonner we tend to miss words out and sometimes complete sentences.

"GOIN T SHOP"

"WERS ME BREW"

Learning English has opened many doors and I would like to thank outbreak for that.

Cheers guys

Why are your posts always going beyond the boundaries of 10/10's?

[VENGA BUS 2,027]

Love gaff and liutvi. 

 

Kind of related but my French improved when I played on a French only server. I also know unseen learnt Danish or something by playing with a team in a game (I think call of duty) ages ago.

 

To get an insight into how valuable being in a foreign speaking community is, it's probably best to talk to people who actually aren't bombarded with English language media. Or people trying to learn a language they never learnt previously, as I learnt Spanish at school and I doubt unseen learnt Danish prior to playing with his team.

 

But really the most rewarding thing is trying to help Chris Lord learn how to pronounce the word 'year'.

[Twiixtor 252]

I started learning English in school in Poland when I was around 8 years old. Learned it for about two years before moving to Ireland where I began attending school so that pretty much did it for me. Attending school where English was the only language used to communicate with others. That and my mom helped me a lot in the beginning. Now I teach her English every day :p

Now that I spent almost half my life abroad and mainly speaking English, I find the Polish language quite cringey at times but I absolutely love it. Especially when I'm out and about with my Polish friend so we can just naturally switch between languages and nobody knows what we're talking about :D

Edited October 8, 2016 by Twiixtor

[Finnley 565]

started learning English at the age of 6, by playing Medal of Honor Allied Assault. As a 6 y/o I needed to be ready to shittalk the people in the game so I started learning. I also did make some English friends, but like being friendly is going to help me with English, right?

Then after many other miscellaneous games I started really learning English at age 10 by playing Runescape. I was a diehard trader in the Runescaped days (pre-GrandExchange). On top of that I did most quests under guidance of my cousin, which made my English improve a lot as well.

After that I learned English from multiple sources. School, TV, Games and most importantly Youtube. I have had a time where I needed an escape from the real shit happening around me, so I watched a ton of Youtubers. I probably watched Youtube videos for 8 hours a day at the time. By listening to actual English, i.o. some fake English people you listen to at school, you start picking up their way of speech. You learn slang and metaphores and what not. That REALLY improves your English, even though school doesn't always approve slang.

I started speaking English more after I joined a Gmod TTT community, I was 16 or 17 at the time. After that I litteraly started thinking in English. Then some time later I got into Outbreak and here I am, speaking decent English. I hope.

"I hate your American accent!" -Lewis