In my great foresight i already basically wrote up the long one before deciding to go with the above, so i’ll just finish that now.
what is your preferred language?
That would be English.
In case that wasn’t what you meant to learn: i was raised with German as my first and only language. At eleven years old, i began learning English at a German secondary school. A few years later (uncertain how many exactly) i began to actually learn English, outside school, mostly using literature and internet content. And yes that’s primarily written language. Speaking and listening to spoken English remains more difficult for me (seldom practice that) but i have been complimented on my wordiness even in that.
I could have looked up an entry for “pernicious” in an English dictionary just as easily as a translation. Using translations most of the time is now out of habit rather than necessity.
My preference for English isn’t universal (so the first line is a bit contrived) but for written content especially net-wise, i do now prefer reading and writing English most of the time. The preference is certainly informed by jargon both in software development and obscure variants of feminism etc being primarily available to me in English. (Software jargon is typically used as untranslated English loan words in modern German today, and about feminism jargon in German i don’t even know because i too seldom examine that.)
And yes i’m well aware that i deviate from English language norms, most notably in not capitalising some pronoun, quote mark usage, using too many commas, generally many long and unwiedly run-on sentences, and using “complicated” words often. Guess which of these won’t stand out here and is the last one. Some of the listed quirks are my conscious decisions, others are my conscious decisions not to do much against them.
That’s everything relevant i can think of now. So that was the long answer!
I don’t, but first you have to choose whether you want:
the mathematician’s answer only,
the short answer, or
the long answer.
(Lower-numbered answers are presumably included.)
Hee! Um. If the long answer takes more than 5 minutes to write, I want the short answer; otherwise the long answer.
In my great foresight i already basically wrote up the long one before deciding to go with the above, so i’ll just finish that now.
That would be English.
In case that wasn’t what you meant to learn: i was raised with German as my first and only language. At eleven years old, i began learning English at a German secondary school. A few years later (uncertain how many exactly) i began to actually learn English, outside school, mostly using literature and internet content. And yes that’s primarily written language. Speaking and listening to spoken English remains more difficult for me (seldom practice that) but i have been complimented on my wordiness even in that.
I could have looked up an entry for “pernicious” in an English dictionary just as easily as a translation. Using translations most of the time is now out of habit rather than necessity.
My preference for English isn’t universal (so the first line is a bit contrived) but for written content especially net-wise, i do now prefer reading and writing English most of the time. The preference is certainly informed by jargon both in software development and obscure variants of feminism etc being primarily available to me in English. (Software jargon is typically used as untranslated English loan words in modern German today, and about feminism jargon in German i don’t even know because i too seldom examine that.)
And yes i’m well aware that i deviate from English language norms, most notably in not capitalising some pronoun, quote mark usage, using too many commas, generally many long and unwiedly run-on sentences, and using “complicated” words often. Guess which of these won’t stand out here and is the last one. Some of the listed quirks are my conscious decisions, others are my conscious decisions not to do much against them.
That’s everything relevant i can think of now. So that was the long answer!