Question for those for whom English is a second language

[backstept]

ok here's a new question along the same lines for everyone:

Which language do you find to be more pleasing to listen to?
Take poetry for instance. Which language would you find poetry to be most pleasant to listen to? Your first language or another?

 

[trampledamage]

One of the side effects of this I've found is that I feel I have a better ability to communicate with others in non-verbal ways.

Which ways are those? Through touch, gesticulation, or something like that? I find British people are not extremely comfortable with either (that doesn't go for everyone of course)...

Hmm...

I mean like body language, or if I needed to communicate something to a person who didn't speak english, or teach such a person something, I'd feel confident that I could do that without verbal language.

Whereas I am pretty certain I couldn't!

I need words, I think in words. If I'm travelling by public transport I'm much more comfortable using trains where all I need to do is remember names of stations, rather than a bus where I need to recognise my surroundings.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Which language do you find to be more pleasing to listen to?
Take poetry for instance. Which language would you find poetry to be most pleasant to listen to? Your first language or another?

If prefer media in it's original language whatever that is (assuming I speak that language. ). I've heard people say that German is an ugly sounding language, but to me it's all the same.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Another question for those people to for whom English is a second language

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

 

[Niorah]

Which language do you find to be more pleasing to listen to?
Take poetry for instance. Which language would you find poetry to be most pleasant to listen to? Your first language or another?

I have always strongly believed that Italian -is- the best sounding language in the world. The balance of vowels and consonants, the small tweaking that we have devised through the ages in order not to have clashing sounds within sentences, it just flows like sweet music. So my answer is, I prefer to -hear- poetry, or anything else, in Italian.

On the other hand, sometimes words in another language carry a slightly different weight and meaning, and touch the subconscious in different ways, so I might prefer poetry (or a joke, for that matter) in English because it -feels- right, it -feels- better.

I hope I was able to explain myself.

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

I try to use British spelling, I only use a "slangish" spelling for when I'm joking with someone, to say things like: "Lemme be, will ya?"

At school I was expected to use British spelling, and our teacher was actually a very strict one, so she made sure to drill into our heads all the grammar and spelling rules -very- thoroughly.

 

[Sky]

English is my third language. Now I live in a country where the language is neither my own nor any of the languages I've studied previously. I communicate mostly in this country's native language or in English, but have lately noticed that my "internal monologue" is in all three - my own, my environment's, and English - all mixed up.

As to which language I find most pleasing to listen to.. I guess I'm partial to my native Finnish. I also really like Chinese because of its tonality (even though I cannot understand it at all). I prefer to read books in their original language if possible, for the reason stated by Niorah: "sometimes words in another language carry a slightly different weight and meaning, and touch the subconscious in different ways".

 

[Hitman]

I think in the language I'm either talking or writing. It is just simpler to do that, not to mention time saving.

 

[trampledamage]

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

I try to use British spelling, I only use a "slangish" spelling for when I'm joking with someone, to say things like: "Lemme be, will ya?"

At school I was expected to use British spelling, and our teacher was actually a very strict one, so she made sure to drill into our heads all the grammar and spelling rules -very- thoroughly.

In which case, you probably speak and write better English than I do!

In moving to Canada, I am having to learn a new variety of English - Canadian English is halfway between American English and British English, so it has the 'u's in colour etc. but biscuits are called cookies, trousers are pants and so on.

I do try to remember the differences but if I'm just talking at home I usually forget, so my kids are growing up bi-lingual in the two forms of English

 

[Jadzia]

^ We have pants in England too

 

[trampledamage]

^ We have pants in England too

Yes, but they are different things! That's something I've been very careful to stick to the Canadian usage about.

 

[ST-One]

So I would like to ask people here who first language isn't English - do you ever think in English for example when you are posting on Trekbbs.

Usually when I'm writing something on TBBS I just do it without thinking about it German, other times I do translate what I'm trying to say from German to English. But what you're describing is very common in my experience when you spend enough time with a language, especially when you're using it every day.

I read, write and think so much in English because of visiting this BBS and a few other fora that it has started to affect my German grammar; I often find myself unable to finish a sentence when I talk to friends or family because I started it using an English sentence structure... it's quite annoying

 

[Shaytan]

ok here's a new question along the same lines for everyone:

Which language do you find to be more pleasing to listen to?
Take poetry for instance. Which language would you find poetry to be most pleasant to listen to? Your first language or another?

Always in the original language, if we're only speaking of the sound not the meaning. Poetry is very dependant of the rhythm of the language.

Another question for those people to for whom English is a second language

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

British because it's what I was teached.

 

[Roger Wilco]

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

Not only do I use British spelling, I even insert "u"s into wourds where they doun't beloung occasiounally.

 

[propita]

No wonder I could never learn a language other than English--I only think in English! I took French in high school and Spanish at college, but everything in my head was translated into English.

Hubby and I had discussed this. He said I liked words (English) so much that my brain wouldn't think in another language.

He spoke Spanish first--he came to the US when he was 6yo and speaks English without any accent. He says he has to translate into Spanish most of the time.

But he's talked in his sleep in Spanish (and English sometimes). Doesn't happen often. Doesn't say much. I ask, "Que?" H wakes up.

 

[Count Zero]

Interesting insights, tsq and Finn.

As to the OP: English is my second language. I've always had an intuitive understanding of it, so at school I never had to really study for it. When I read or hear something in English I don't translate it into German in my mind. Whenever I have to translate for my parents, it's quite difficult for me to find the right words because of that (but I've gotten better by practice). So, yeah, I do think and dream in English, I guess, but it's not really English in my head, just my general mind language, so to speak. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering whether I heard or read something in English or German.
Sadly, this is not true for French. I'd say that you've mastered a language if you don't have to translate in your head.

ok here's a new question along the same lines for everyone:

Which language do you find to be more pleasing to listen to?
Take poetry for instance. Which language would you find poetry to be most pleasant to listen to? Your first language or another?

To me, the most pleasing sounding language of all the languages I've had some contact with is Italian. However, I wouldn't understand the poetry . I can read Italian fairly well, but that's it.
That said, I like my first language, it's the language of Goethe and Schiller, after all, so it can be very pleasing to read and listen to. So can English. It also depends on which variety of it is being spoken.

Another question for those people to for whom English is a second language

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

I'm pretty certain that we learned Britsh English at school, but strangely enough, I used to use American spellings when I started posting on the internet. I guess that's due to the prevalence of American English on the net, but it's weird since British spelling is closer to German. I felt kind of sorry for British English, so I made it a point to use the British spelling.

 

[BigFoot]

Yeah, I think in English quite often.

A couple of years ago, when I was studying in Canada for two years, I thought almost exclusively in English.

EDIT: I didn't notice the second question when posting. I always use the British spelling.

 

[Emher]

I think LOTS in English. In large part it's because I thought I was moving to the US a few years ago and set myself for that mentally, and the thinking just stuck. Quite like it, Swedish is a bit...limited as a language.

Another question for those people to for whom English is a second language

When you use the language do you use British or American spellings? Which of the two were you expected to use at school?

I tend more towards American. I was tought the Queens English at school though.