Anyone gained fluency in a second language?

[tarheeljks]

i took chinese in college and am "techincally fluent", but in the sort of way that a 10-12 year is fluent in english.

as jay said romance languages are much easier to learn. i haven't taken spanish in 3 years, but i'm more fluent in it than chinese just b/c it was easier to learn

[theblitz]

Been in Israel now for 25 years and am fluent in Hebrew.
However, I cheated a bit cos we lived here for 3 years when I was a kid (age 3 to 6) and then I learned here for 2 years when I was 18-20.
So, all together I have spent 30 out of my 48 years living here.
Maybe English is now my second language?

[its_just_me]

i speak the international language of love baby

[fartman77]

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What kind of job are you looking for where you have to speak spanish?

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Finance, banking, or holding lots of drug monies for Scarface.

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Tony Montana speaks english, you do not need to learn spanish.

[MissChriss]

I'm fluent in Dutch and German but I grew up speaking 2 languages. English is my 3rd language and I can make myself understandable in French.

[keikiwai]

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I'm fluent in Dutch and German but I grew up speaking 2 languages. English is my 3rd language and I can make myself understandable in French.

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ou la la, tres sexieeeeeeeeeeeee

[dboy23]

i think english can be quicker to learn since most of the internet is in english. I think mmorpgs can be great for a false immersion if you are trying to learn english. I once played one and joined a german clan in order to immerse myself and try to learn. It helped alot.

[Sweet James]

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lol @ whoever said english was an easy language. Have you ever talked to a non-english speaker? I've never met one that said English was easy.

I'm fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, but it takes a long time to get there. You can get to a decent level in the classroom, but there's no way around just spending time with natives.

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English is easy. French is my first language and I'm currently in an English college in Quebec (Canada) and have found English much easier to learn than the language I'm working on right now, German. I'm perfectly fluent and most Americans don't notice it's my 2nd language until I tell them so. Unveiled brag. It's easy due to two reasons, one being that English material (movies, ineternet, books, etc.) can SO easily be obtained, and the second being that the structure of the language is pretty simple. Genders and other things of the like are not a problem in English unlike in most other languages. Def. one of the easier ones to learn (although Spanish, to a speaker of a Latin-based language, is even easier since its simplification in recent decades).

As for learning, I've had 4 ways:

- school. I was in a pretty advanced class for 5 years, it was OK, but def. not the best way to learn
- immersion. I went to a summer camp in Maine for 7 years, the first one I could barely speak and the last 3 or so I was fully bilingual. I'd say the 3rd year was when I was always comfortable.
- internet. I played online games (talk), read a LOT online (English), both formal and non-formal, etc.
- TV. watched tv and movies a lot in English.

I'd say that immersion is BY FAR the best and only a few weeks, once you know the basics (from school/tapes/etc.), are VERY beneficial. You need to be immeresed though, so more than 75% of the people around you need to be unable to understand your mother tongue.

If immersion is not possible, I'd say a mix of TV/movies/internet is pretty good. I'd start off by using Rosetta Stone first, it seems like a good software to learn (I'm just starting with it in German now) languages from scratch.

Good luck.


EDIT: books, once more accustomed to the language, are a great way to better your mastery of it.

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good post, thanks.

[its_just_me]

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I'm fluent in Dutch and German but I grew up speaking 2 languages.

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i dont belive you. answer me this simple question: "Meine Schweineleber schmeckt irgendwie nach Kacke, könnte ich bitte oralverkehr mit einer minderjährigen Prostituierten aus der Slowakei haben und dazu einen netten Döner Kebab aus Katzenfleisch essen?" plz k thx

[bpc009]

The reason English is easy is because it's all around you. Being bombarded by the language from many sources really really helps. There are other reasons too though, such as the simplification it went through during the transformation from Old E to Middle E to Modern English.

And OMFG Lol at Barretboy for saying Japanese is one of the easier languages to speak - that's just ridonkulous.