[cabst90]

I spent two years in Japan teaching on JET. I had a ton of free time and languages fascinate me. So, I learned Japanese fairly quickly and well. Now I am teaching at a Japanese school in Mexico City. I am using basic Japanese regularly and speak Spanish. I am planning on doing a Master's degree in Mexico.

Going through the process of learning another language, the frustrations, the mistakes, where your native language gets in the way of learning the foreign language, figuring out good learning strategies, etc., is invaluable to TEFL.

[Whistleblower]

I am always spending my free time reading and listening to Korean. I have spent a year in Korea and can read and write Korean to a good degree. Say I hear someone speaking, I can actually write down what they are saying, but have some limitation of understanding what they are saying.

My speaking and listening however is probably the same as an infant in Korea. I can listen to it but have trouble actually speaking it. I can compose some sentences and questions in Korean, but verbs really seem to get me. There is apparently 24 different ways of speaking the same verb. This includes honorific formats and well as informal formats.

I am pleased with my progress within a year because a year ago I couldn't even read or speak Korean. I plan to be in the country for about 10 years or so and I hope after this period to be able to be able to speak to any native without any hesitation.

Nonetheless, the Korean language fascinates me because it's so natural and simple to learn yet so difficult to master.

[Frauke]

I have been living in Barcelona for 14 months now and when I arrived I didn't speak more than "Hello", "Thank you" and "how are you" (in Spanisch of course ).

I took private classes twice a week together with a friend and went to an intensive 4-weeks-course in the summer. I can speak about things I know and use the grammar I know, I can understand the weahter forecast and traffic news and I can follow almost every conversation, but still, I do have a lot of problems to express myself at times. I feel I should be fluent after one year having lived here and sometimes feel ashamed that I'm not. But hey, my first language is German and I speak English all day/every day and my flatmate's French.... I get the languages all mixed up sometimes.

Basically I don't have opportunities to practice. I also feel that I'm losing my English listening to "Spanglish" every day and I'm glad to hear that this is obviously even happening to native speakers!!!

Things like "more or less" (más o menos) or "I took the sun" are running gags here. I'm glad I haven't started saying "I'm not agree", "I don't sure" or "I don't know nothing"

[Donney]

Being spanish and having started my own school right here in my hometown means I speak the language of the country I live in fairly well.

But it is very interesting to read all the things you go through when you move to a different country.

Frauke how about all the thing we do ourselves in Spain? Like "me opero" (I operate myself) or "me corté el pelo" (Icut my hair)... I bet that's rather surprising if you are not a spanish speaker.

[keithsgirl]

I studied Spanish quite extensively before I came here to Mexico...I´m not fluent yet, but I get around easily. Thank goodness it´s not a language like...Mandarin. =)

[iankendal]

Well i try to start learning the new langauge but i seem to move every 8 months or so to another country and therefore never actually master a certain language. I have learned bits of Thai, Korean and Spanish!

[Frauke]

Donney,

actually I don't have so much trouble with the reflexive part of the language as I am German and German is reflexive, too. You just have to accept how it is used.

I have more trouble with the fact that Spanish has two "to be" and for "for" you can use "para" and "por". Sometimes it's unclear to me when to use it.

[Donney]

I didn't know German was reflexive too, but I haven't studied any German

It's easy to imagine that the two "to be" are quite hard because even if there's a general rule it doesn't always apply.

"Por" and "para" are as difficult as any other preposition, imho, just like in French "par" and "pour" or in English "for", "by" or "to"

Sometimes I wonder why we like languages.

[DaveESL]

My Mandarin is OK, but not as good as it should be. I can read a little, and speak pretty well, and my listening is better than my speaking. I'm a lousy student, though. I'm not particularly social, and in my freetime I usually listen to English radio or read English books.

My girlfriend's Mandarin is much better than mine, even though she's only lived here for 3 years (compared to my 5.5). But she reads novels and <gasp> enjoys talking to people so...

I told myself that I would be a better language student after I finished my MA. That was 4 months ago, no improvement yet.

Take care,
Dave

[Motivated]

I have Mongolian lessons twice a week, I have a great teacher who comes to my apartment - saves me the hassle of going out anywhere in minus ur balls temps!

When you are surrounded by a different language every day there's really no way you can't pick up at least some of the local lingo. I make an effort to speak to Mongolians in their native tongue (completely useless outside the borders), and it generally opens a lot of positive doors and closes a lot of negative ones eg: gettin' ripped off by taxi drivers, dealing with the corrupt police who want $10 out of your wallet for no real reason etc.

[emile]

I can speak Malay well enough to have a simple conversation. I sometimes have to answer the office phone and take a message in Malay.

Malay or very similar languages and dialects are spoken in Malaysia, Southern Thailand, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia. That's over 200 million people I can chat to!

[dwes3140]

Hi, my name is dave. I hope Im not breaking in on this thread's original topic, if so- consider this totally off the subject. New to esl HQ! Im being called to do a special class at the last minute "What are your favorite school subjects?" here in Japan for a 5th grade class presentation. I have the usual curriculum content but would like to put on a more interesting class. ANy ideas? I could use a good ice breaker for it, a good interracting activity , and a possible game. WHats usually done is theyre requested to draw their favorite subject and then present it after drilling key phrases, and Ive always shied from doing only that. I could use a bit of enegy in this one! I'm at dwes3140@yahoo.com, or a reply here on the thread will be fine! Thank you all in advance!

[Eric]

Hi Dave,

Welcome to eslHQ. I imagine you'd get a lot more answers to your question if you posted this as a new thread. I can move the post to its own thread if you'd like. There are a lot of folks here that could give you some good ideas.

Let me know,
Eric
btw, i wouldn't post your email address in the forums as spammers could easily take it and, well, spam you. that's what the private messages are for.

[Ainka]

I live in my own country, so there is not a problem for me But if we are talking about languages I can say I learn French, know some basic Ducth and Russian

[Pernickety]

I live in France and speak French well (studied it for my degree and married to a Frog!) and I think it makes for more comfortable living. I know when I lived in Japan and my Japanese was poor to very poor, I was fairly miserable most of the time. Oh and yes, I do resort to French in class quite a lot but only when it suits me, not when it suits them

[kisito]

I speak daily Chinese fluently, make calls in Chinese to Chinese people and they can't even tell I am a foreigner on the phone. I shop, do banking stuff, order food and stun Chinese with my accent which most Chinese say is very standard. BUT, I can't read any Chinese characters. When you show me text in Chinese, I go blind. So where do I belong?

[antonya]

To Happy Camper - are you actually teaching English yourself? Should it not be "How many people actually speak the language of the country they're in?", as opposed to "...of the country their in?". I do hope that your students do not pick up on your bad grammar.

In answer to the original question, I teach in Thailand and I do speak Thai to a reasonable degree of fluency with good pronunciation and I believe it does help me in understanding the pronunciation mistakes and word order mistakes that my students frequently make. However, I know many teachers here in Thailand who do not speak much Thai, if any at all and they appear to be doing OK.

[Micro67]

In Micronesia my Chuukese was pretty good. It's an easy language, but my Vietnamese leaves something to be desired. The things that must be done in Vietnamese can be done and usually the listeners know what you want anyway (bathroom, restaurants, etc.), but when I've tried more complex conversations with people who are not learning English something is lost. The tones are crucial and even, 'How are you, Ma'am?' - 'Chi co que khong?' sometimes just doesn't fly.

[Siddhartha]

It’s amazing how fast your English can atrophy. You’d think that daily reading, frequent movie watching and some degree of small talk with fellow native speakers on a consistent basis would keep your fluency in pretty good shape, but it just doesn’t seem to be so.

Any time I’ve gone home for an extended break, I’ve found that it takes at least two months for me to feel like my own communicative ability is back up to 100 percent.

[Beatrix]

Quote Ainka

I live in my own country, so there is not a problem for me

Likewise. Actually don't understand people who are staying in some foreign country for a longer time period and don't ever manage to learn the language. Shouldn't learning at least its basics be considered as a mere sign of politeness? You can't expect everybody to speak English there just for you
At least I would do so, try to speak with native people (especially pupils) in their own language