【Chat】When did you start to learn English?

[唬爛客 10]

I'm curious, did you learn English in a natural environment?

Because even when reading your posts aloud, it still doesn't sound as if you're a native speaker.

nah~ but i do have a lot of foreigner friedns here...

they do agree with what i said though...

about last friday my classmate told me that she consider English as a TEST !

not even a language anymore... poor her

[唬爛客 10]

i stayed in new zealand for 'bout a year when i was 6

i didn't really realize what's grammer then but i did my conversation well

but after i came back

uh……

school teaches grammer and always make it quite complicated(especially from junior high…) now I'm extremely careful about what I'm going to say or to write

sometimes my mind STUCKS!!!

bty, my accent changes (totally british to totally american)

uh! how much i hate this kind of education

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

o whatever…………………..

Ha ha .. totally agree with you... btw , i went to NZ when i was 9 or 10 alone for about

7 days... i love the home stay... and i surely do miss Auckland city ! lol...

Besides, i don't quite care about what teacher said about me, as long as i like English,

i'm going on my way anyway~ hope that you'll get ur british accent back though...cuz

i don't think i'll ever make it...( Speaking in american english and poor british accent XD)

cheers !

[MikiRei 10]

Auckland city...man, that place is like a mini-Sydney. It's so weird. I remember it was 10am in the morning and there was literally, hardly ANYONE in the city at the time. Sydney would have been crowded and smoky by then (not that I mind. The open space is really cool :D. NZ is a great place! )

[spacedunce-5 10]

nah~ but i do have a lot of foreigner friedns here...

they do agree with what i said though...

about last friday my classmate told me that she consider English as a TEST !

not even a language anymore... poor her

And that is EXACTLY the problem with English classes in Taiwan!!!!!!

Btw, I wish I lived in NZ, little light pollution makes for great stargazing.

[MikiRei 10]

And that is EXACTLY the problem with English classes in Taiwan

More like education itself? Everything's test, test, test, test, test as oppose to understanding. =.=|||

[spacedunce-5 10]

Well, you can't become good at maths by reading about it, can you?

[MikiRei 10]

Well, you can't become good at maths by reading about it, can you?

Maths = understanding the basics and practice. Anyways, you've missed my point. My point is the education system placed far too much emphasis on PASSING tests. All they care about is the numbers that gets scrawled over your report card at the end of the day as oppose to ensuring that you've actually LEARNED something and understand the concepts. In terms of maths, in fact, in terms of most subjects, there are two types of tests you could possibly get. One is a test that just repeats the same style of questions and so the only good way of doing well in these tests is getting used to the STYLE of the questions and practicing the typical METHOD of solving these questions. The other types of test are one that actually test the CONCEPT. In other words, past exam papers of these kinds of tests will vary test to test and at the end of the day, there is no method to familiarise yourself with, but rather, a concept to understand and use with ease. Not to say that some people don't think through questions that are given through the first style of test papers (afterall, once you've understood a concept, no matter which method you do it, so long your logical process is correct and is hole-proof, there is no way a marker can mark you wrong....provided you come to the correct answer) but the fact is, many education system seem to miss the point - that is, they give you the first style of test papers - rote learning in getting the marks as oppose to understanding the actual concept.

Oh, and by the way, by this point, I'm not just talking about Taiwanese education system (seeing that I don't understand how it works fully), I'm talking about MANY education system across various nations. Many have become mark-oriented as oppose to concept and understanding-oriented.

[jhr342002 10]

Ha ha .. totally agree with you... btw , i went to NZ when i was 9 or 10 alone for about

7 days... i love the home stay... and i surely do miss Auckland city ! lol...

Besides, i don't quite care about what teacher said about me, as long as i like English,

i'm going on my way anyway~ hope that you'll get ur british accent back though...cuz

i don't think i'll ever make it...( Speaking in american english and poor british accent XD)

cheers !

wow u went there ALONE by that age?

well, I miss Auckland much, too

I was in long bay, north shore city then

n I still remember that when we were learning about “sea” at school

we actually went to the beach, looking 4 starfishes and shells!

n we learn maori culture by learning their language, dances, paintings, etc.

(not just sitting still on chair watching boring videos but we danced, sang, and drew!)

they DO respect the aborigines and preserve their culture

totally different from Taiwan!

o i just wanna go to nz againT_T

btw, cheers to u too!:)

[spacedunce-5 10]

To MikiRei:

Because it's easier to design systematized tests rather than innovative ones.

The Ministry of Education NEEDS you, girl!!!xdxd

[Richtu 10]

Actually...If you're a native speaker of English, you can score higher than 95 in tests if you don't listen in class since you'll probably miss a phrase that you have never heard of...EVER.

As for the accents...they're not that important as long as you can communicate in the language.

I don't know anything about grammar other than nouns, verbs, adjectives and the tenses XD Reading helps more than anything :)

Everywhere in Canada (the West Coast at least) is empty at night...once I flew back to Vancouver 3 years ago after my grandfather's funeral here, and on the drive home, I didn't see a single soul on the street...only a lone jogger...that's when i realize how peaceful it was in Canada:o

[spacedunce-5 10]

If only the light pollution density were like the population density...xdxd

Actually, on grammar, I used to know as much as Richtu,

but reverse-educated myself out of necessity:

our last English teacher was THE authority on grammar; including useless grammar.

[john0000 10]

Well

I learned English as a native speaker

I had lived in America for 5 years

From 0 to 5

But as soon as I came back to Taiwan

The surroundings made this language fading away from my brain

Now I need pratice to learn vocabs and grammer

But sometimes I still think in English

[~*嶄&辛*~ 10]

I started to learn English when I was ten.In that time I had learned to write A.B.~Z by myself.when my mom decided to sent me to learn English.I even thinked that maybe I

can teach others how to write A.B.C......when the first class ended .I suprised in any other's english were much better for me...that's the time I lose confidence in English..

[MikiRei 10]

Have anyone noticed? People who use English predominantly tend to write comments in big long chuncks of paragrpahs (I always do - though I try to conform to one line per phrase when using Chinese - kind of hard since I'm not used to it) while people who use Chinese predominantly will write in a new line per PHRASE

.....Just something interesting I noticed. Don't mind me.

Corrections:

Well

I learned English as a native speaker

I had lived in America for 5 years

From 0 to 5

But as soon as I came back to Taiwan

The surroundings made this language fading away from my brain

Now I need pratice to learn vocabs and grammer

But sometimes I still think in English

Well, I learned English as a native speaker. I had lived in America for 5 years between the age of 0 and 5 but as soon as I came back to Taiwan, the surroundings made this language fade away from my brain. Now I need practice to learn vocabs and grammar. However, I sometimes still think in English.

In that time I had learned to write A.B.~Z by myself.when my mom decided to sent me to learn English.

In what time? You've mentioned starting to learn English when you were 10 but you didn't state an end date.

Anyways...

During that time, I had learned to write the ABC by myself when my mom decided to send me to an English school.

I even thinked that maybe I

can teach others how to write A.B.C......when the first class ended .I suprised in any other's english were much better for me...that's the time I lose confidence in English..

At that time, I thought that maybe I can teach others how to write the ABC in class. However, when the first class ended, I was surprised that there are many others who had better English than me. That was the time I lost confidence in English...

P.S. I am not correcting you to make you lose further confidence in English (contrary to what many people tend to think when people correct them). Just pointing out the areas needed for improvement. :) Good luck!

[damoko 10]

Have anyone noticed? People who use English predominantly tend to write comments in big long chuncks of paragrpahs (I always do - though I try to conform to one line per phrase when using Chinese - kind of hard since I'm not used to it) while people who use Chinese predominantly will write in a new line per PHRASE

Indeed - does anyone know why do Chinese comment like this? I can switch to different 'comment modes', though, since Ive visited so many Mcfly fans forums :p

[MikiRei 10]

McFly Fans Forums? What's that?

[S.Y.M 10]

I started to learn English when I was 3. I tried to memorized the alphabets as ABC and something like "A of the Apple" . But...Unfortunatery, my English is not well to this day.T_T

You are ao early.

I start to learn English when I was in the elementury school.

[ひかる 10]

I have learned English since I was six years old.

I rememer that my parents bought me some cards ,which were written in English to let me know what English is.

But now I can't find the cards any more.

[Jack the X 10]

well......for me , i started english at about......7. you know, learning about ABC and stuffs like that. at the time , didn't really like english, becasue of the teaching method. and when i was probably .....10, i went to a different class, and i'm really of fond of the way they teach. i consider that as the start of my interest in english!!!!!

[Ice Cream Cat 10]

OMG you guys are premature English learners..... T.T For me, I started learning English while i was about 11 or 12 years old, pretty late hum? I remembered I had English courses in my elementary school since 3rd grade, but the problem is that I have never paid any attention to the classes, I didnt even know how to pronounce all of the characters at that time. And while I was in 5th grade, I once struggled in a quiz that I couldnt even memorize the spellings of the numbers from 1 to 50, I knew just 1 to 10,maybe plus 11 and 12, LOL ..... and it's probably why I dont have strong foundation of English, and my pronounciation sucks even I spoke it to my internation friends everydayT.T

I am far away out of the points. Honestly I started learning "real" English from 7th grade, which is the year I became a junior high school student. But still, it's all limited in grammar and reading, and they all proved to be useless after I came to the USA.....

Well learning English is a freaking long journey, lol

[Janet Sung 10]

McFly Fans Forums? What's that?

a british band, my friend is one of their biggest fan

I started to learn it when i was four or six years old, becuz my family was going to stay in america for a few years for some personally reasons. But eventually, we didn't. After all, the preschool doesn't really work for me. I still need to take the ESL classese here, even though I've learned English for nine years. I think the environment is much more important. One of my chinese friend who just arrived here for a half of year told me that she couldn't speak any english before she came here. But she was in a small town and her previous school doesn't have an ESL program, so she took classes with american. Just a half year, she improves so much!!!!!! Though she sometimes still can't totally comprehend with others, but much more better than the time she just arrived, according to her.

[Ice Cream Cat 10]

OMG you guys are so fortunate and brilliant, if compare to me.

It's just my second year studying oversea, lol, and my English doesnt improve as much as my Taiwanese friends do.

Well I have few opportunities to improve English while I was an elementary schooler, but I just reluctantly repudiated to learn any language such as English--- at that time I thought it is unimportant, L O L, and apparently, those ignorant thoughts soon paid back their pricesT.T I had to take much more time and efforts to catch the average level, well I dont know if I accomplish that. Compare to the students of top high schools in Taiwan, I could easily be defined as "a guy that studies oversea but lacks of English", LOL

and I have a question. I know we can add " to V" and " Ving" after START and the two usages are grammatically and literally different, but for the title of this forum, shouldnt it be "start learning?"

Thanks for explaning this to me and correcting my mistakes:)

[Chaya 10]

I can't exactly remember when I started to learn English...since I spent my childhood prancing around in the US. Probably in kindergarten, I think. All I remember is that I couldn't understand what my teachers were saying, and I kept on smiling and nodding even when they were scolding me. XD Ignorance is a bliss~

[jim800121楓☆霖 10]

Well.. I started to learn English when I was five years old. I was free-will to learn English. It was said by my parents that I had talent for many language. But during three years I was a junior high school student, I didn't learn any new vocabulary or grammar except for school curriculum. So I learn English hard in senior high school. >"<

[Janet Sung 10]

i started at 6, cuz my parents thought we would move to the states which in fact is not the truth. i didn't go to any after school class except english, so i really got a chance to concentrate on it.....but i didn't. :P the only motivation that push me to improve my english is that there are so many great english fansites for japanese stars. most of them have a really fast media section and the only way to communicate with them is to use english ~'~