That’s interesting. Would you say that your English ability is typical of what an intelligent German speaker could attain through the Internet?
For Koreans, learning English well enough to comfortably learn in it is extremely difficult short of living in an English speaking country for multiple years at a young age. I hear that the Japanese also have this problem.
I knew that it’s easier for speakers of European languages to learn English than for East Asian languages, but your ability is way above what I thought would be feasible without spending insane amounts of time on English.
If you are typical, well that explains why RichardKennaway belowmentioned choosing to learn English as if it were a minor thing. You see, I have this perception of English as a “really hard thing” that takes years to get mediocre at. And I believe this is the common view among East Asians.
I recall reading a news article that claimed that the difference between the kids who play a lot of video games and spend a lot of time on the English-speaking Internet, and the kids who do not, is very obvious in the English classes of most Finnish schools these days. Basically the avid gamers get top grades without even trying much.
My personal experience was similar—I learned very little English in school that I wouldn’t already have learned from video games, books, and the English-speaking Internet before that.
That said, this doesn’t contradict the “it takes years to become good” idea—it did take us years, we just had pretty much our entire childhoods to practice.
I strongly suspect that they’re still a lot better off than native speakers of (say) Mandarin or Korean or Japanese. To be more specific: I suspect German is somewhat better for this purpose than Italian, which in turn is substantially better than Russian, which in turn is substantially better than Hungarian, which in turn is substantially better than Mandarin.
English and German are both Germanic languages. They share a lot of structure and vocabulary and are written with more or less the same letters.
English and Italian are both languages with a lot of Latin in their heritage. They share some structure and a lot of vocabulary and are written with exactly the same letters.
English and Russian are both Indo-European languages with some classical heritage. They share some structure but rather little vocabulary, and their writing systems are closely related.
Hungarian is not Indo-European, but largely shares its writing system with English.
Mandarin is not Indo-European (and I think is decidedly further from Indo-European than Hungarian is). It works in a completely different way from English in many many ways, and has a radically (ha!) different writing system.
I would guess (but don’t know enough for my guess to be worth much) that the gap between Hungarian and Mandarin is substantially the largest of the ones above, and that one could find other languages that would slot into that gap while maintaining the “substantially better” progression.
I don’t think the writing system would account for that much of a difference, since learning the Latin Alphabet is something everybody is doing anyway, and it’s not much extra work (compared to grammar and vocabulary). I still suspect Hungarian-speakers might find English easier because of closer cultural assumptions and background.
I knew that it’s easier for speakers of European languages to learn English than for East Asian languages, but your ability is way above what I thought would be feasible without spending insane amounts of time on English.
I probably do spend insane amounts of time on the English internet. An amount of time that a Japanese student simply couldn’t because he’s to busy keeping up with the extensive school curriculum in the Japan.
East Asians tend to spend a lot of time to drill children to perform well on standardized tests with doesn’t leave much time for things like learning English.
Another issue is that a lot of the language teaching of English in East Asia is simply highly inefficient. That will change with various internet elearning projects.
An outlier would be Singapore where as Wikipedia suggest: “The English language is now the most medium form of communication among students from primary school to university.”
East Asians tend to spend a lot of time to drill children to perform well on standardized tests with doesn’t leave much time for things like learning English.
I’ve seen them spend a lot of time drilling for standardized English tests, but those tests miss a lot of things, and quite a few students do well on those tests but can’t have a conversation in English. Or know what “staunch”, “bristle”, and “bulwark” mean, but not “bullshit”.
I personally didn’t learn my English in the formal education system of Germany but on the internet.
I think that countries like Korea, China or Japan don’t really provide students with much free time to learn English on their own or use MOOCs.
That’s interesting. Would you say that your English ability is typical of what an intelligent German speaker could attain through the Internet?
For Koreans, learning English well enough to comfortably learn in it is extremely difficult short of living in an English speaking country for multiple years at a young age. I hear that the Japanese also have this problem.
I knew that it’s easier for speakers of European languages to learn English than for East Asian languages, but your ability is way above what I thought would be feasible without spending insane amounts of time on English.
If you are typical, well that explains why RichardKennaway belowmentioned choosing to learn English as if it were a minor thing. You see, I have this perception of English as a “really hard thing” that takes years to get mediocre at. And I believe this is the common view among East Asians.
I recall reading a news article that claimed that the difference between the kids who play a lot of video games and spend a lot of time on the English-speaking Internet, and the kids who do not, is very obvious in the English classes of most Finnish schools these days. Basically the avid gamers get top grades without even trying much.
My personal experience was similar—I learned very little English in school that I wouldn’t already have learned from video games, books, and the English-speaking Internet before that.
That said, this doesn’t contradict the “it takes years to become good” idea—it did take us years, we just had pretty much our entire childhoods to practice.
The important category is probably speakers of germanic languages; Italians and Russians probably don’t get as big of an advantage.
I strongly suspect that they’re still a lot better off than native speakers of (say) Mandarin or Korean or Japanese. To be more specific: I suspect German is somewhat better for this purpose than Italian, which in turn is substantially better than Russian, which in turn is substantially better than Hungarian, which in turn is substantially better than Mandarin.
English and German are both Germanic languages. They share a lot of structure and vocabulary and are written with more or less the same letters.
English and Italian are both languages with a lot of Latin in their heritage. They share some structure and a lot of vocabulary and are written with exactly the same letters.
English and Russian are both Indo-European languages with some classical heritage. They share some structure but rather little vocabulary, and their writing systems are closely related.
Hungarian is not Indo-European, but largely shares its writing system with English.
Mandarin is not Indo-European (and I think is decidedly further from Indo-European than Hungarian is). It works in a completely different way from English in many many ways, and has a radically (ha!) different writing system.
I would guess (but don’t know enough for my guess to be worth much) that the gap between Hungarian and Mandarin is substantially the largest of the ones above, and that one could find other languages that would slot into that gap while maintaining the “substantially better” progression.
Agreed.
I don’t think the writing system would account for that much of a difference, since learning the Latin Alphabet is something everybody is doing anyway, and it’s not much extra work (compared to grammar and vocabulary). I still suspect Hungarian-speakers might find English easier because of closer cultural assumptions and background.
I probably do spend insane amounts of time on the English internet. An amount of time that a Japanese student simply couldn’t because he’s to busy keeping up with the extensive school curriculum in the Japan. East Asians tend to spend a lot of time to drill children to perform well on standardized tests with doesn’t leave much time for things like learning English.
Another issue is that a lot of the language teaching of English in East Asia is simply highly inefficient. That will change with various internet elearning projects.
An outlier would be Singapore where as Wikipedia suggest: “The English language is now the most medium form of communication among students from primary school to university.”
I’ve seen them spend a lot of time drilling for standardized English tests, but those tests miss a lot of things, and quite a few students do well on those tests but can’t have a conversation in English. Or know what “staunch”, “bristle”, and “bulwark” mean, but not “bullshit”.