Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#131

Post by robocat » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

el_cid wrote: post #68

robocat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mimicking is the critical skill for spoken English. I bet you have ugly flaws in your spoken English, although I also bet that your written English is better than many brought up speaking English. I often deal with tourists, and I detect serious flaws in their speaking as a result of their learning to read and write first (transliteration is a problem too). Common ways of teaching English in schools are deeply flawed…

Sorry but I disagree. Limit reading and limit learning grammar/spelling?

> Limit reading and limit learning grammar/spelling?

From my comment: "Limit reading and limit learning grammar/spelling until after you have a good grasp of the language."

You have misquoted me.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#132

Post by lambdaphagy » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #110

louwrentius wrote: post #103

Dutch people learn English because it's such an important part of our education. Most people under 50 will speak English at a decent level. Also, all our foreign movies and TV shows are subtitled, not dubbed, that is also important. For me, early on I understood that English is the language of the computer world. So that makes learning English a necessity.

> Most people under 50 will speak English at a decent level. Most people, period. In fact the Dutch speak English so well that it is hard for an English speaking foreigner to learn Dutch because everybody will automatically switch to English at the first sign of foreignness.

This is frustratingly accurate. When I was learning I wanted to tell people that I didn't speak English, only... halting Dutch with an American accent.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#133

Post by brooklyn_ashey » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

Watch the same movie in English with the subtitles on. Pick some characters' speeches to memorize. Do this until you truly can do this in the voice of whichever actor interests you right now. I mean until you can do it on your own without the movie going. You will start to get a feel for the larger chunks and idioms, not to mention therhythms and melodies of it. I'd say we speak as much in rhythm and melody as we do in word choice. I'm a native speaker of American English, and I have trouble understanding David Tennant sometimes because of his chunking, melodies and rhythms- so different from American English. One has to get flexible with these. Regionally, just within the United States it can be tricky.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#134

Post by Strom » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 1:35 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #123

Strom wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a sad brag, because it's conceding entirely the ability to become good at making original things. That's a non sequitur. Being good at dubbing/tracing doesn't concede originality any more than Hollywood studios making remakes concedes them from originals. The dubbing/tracing/remakes are just work for money, but probably actually increase your ability to make good original content of the same nature.

It's a sad brag because if they had a good homegrown film industry they'd be bragging about that, which would actually be impressive. But they don't so they can't. And there's a lot more to the entire art of filmmaking than what's encompassed by dubbing. The Hollywood mention is the non sequitur, because Hollywood does produce lots of original work. There's no better film industry in the world, and certainly no highe…

> The Hollywood mention is the non sequitur, because Hollywood does produce lots of original work.

Hollywood producing lots of original work is exactly why I chose that example. You seem to be agreeing with that, but somehow at the same time wanting to disagree with me. It's puzzling.

> And there's a lot more to the entire art of filmmaking than what's encompassed by dubbing.

Absolutely, although this modifies your original claim, which was making original things as opposed to film making. Curiously, that makes the non sequiturness even stronger.

At best I can attribute some correctness to your original statement in the way of opportunity costs. In that being good at dubbing concedes one's ability at being good at film making the same way as being good at mathematics concedes one's ability at being a good dancer. There just isn't enough time to be world class at both. Was your original statement about opportunity cost, or how else would you say that it follows from being a good dubber to conceding the possibility of being a good film maker?

--

PS. I'm not making any claims whatsoever about whether Italians are good/bad at dubbing or film making. I'm merely talking about a critical logic mistake in your statement.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#135

Post by brooklyn_ashey » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 1:42 AM UTC

sunstone wrote: post #72

Some people, though very few, can become native English speakers on their own. The people that can divide into two distinct camps, musicians and heavy movie watchers (English movies of course). Musicians by training are talented listeners and heavy movie watchers, whether talented listeners are not, get exposed to so much real sounding English that they can't help but to learn it subconsciously if in no other way. Ty…

Musician here. I completely agree. But I think anyone can do this. We musicians transcribe solos of jazz players- not because we want to play like them, but because we want the feel in our vocaulary-- because we want to hear and understand better. Every musician I know learns languages easily and many are good at immitating accents and word choice. This is exactly what we do when we improvise in the style of... Mozart or whoever. It works!

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#136

Post by xuesj » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #18

First of all read a lot. Read local communities like Reddit, HN (here), slashdot, etc. This will make you familiar with the daily language. Second, listen a lot. Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles. Try to understand, try to make sense of it. If you listen English songs, try to listen a little more attentive. Then write a lot. Try to take your notes in English. Comment your code in English. Try to…

Great idea, Excellent suggestion. read, listen and write a lot for a long time.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#137

Post by Izkata » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #18

First of all read a lot. Read local communities like Reddit, HN (here), slashdot, etc. This will make you familiar with the daily language. Second, listen a lot. Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles. Try to understand, try to make sense of it. If you listen English songs, try to listen a little more attentive. Then write a lot. Try to take your notes in English. Comment your code in English. Try to…

> Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles.

Something I've heard over and over is that using subtitles actually stunts your growth, because it's too easy to fall back on instead of making sense of what you hear.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#138

Post by wallflower » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #137

bayindirh wrote: post #18

First of all read a lot. Read local communities like Reddit, HN (here), slashdot, etc. This will make you familiar with the daily language. Second, listen a lot. Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles. Try to understand, try to make sense of it. If you listen English songs, try to listen a little more attentive. Then write a lot. Try to take your notes in English. Comment your code in English. Try to…

> Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles. Something I've heard over and over is that using subtitles actually stunts your growth, because it's too easy to fall back on instead of making sense of what you hear.

Yes, I believe some polyglots recommend that you never watch a movie with a disconnect between subtitles and the audio track.

English audio/English subtitles is fine. Assuming you are French, English audio/French subtitles is bad. French audio/English subtitles is also bad but not as bad as the previous combination.

The reason is that if you have subtitles in your native language, you will tend to just focus your brain on reading them and kind of ignore the audio portion.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#139

Post by irq11 » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 2:34 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #125

FabHK wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be more apropos for learning Chinese (where premature focus on reading/writing can distract from actually learning the (spoken) language). I think in learning English, reading will help, because the sound/spelling correspondence is sufficient (even though English arguably has the worst orthography after the logographic ones).

> because the sound/spelling correspondence is sufficient I strongly disagree. Firstly on listening to tourists, some of the worst pronunciation mistakes I hear are because they have learnt the spelling: you can hear mistakes that can only occur if you know the spelling (or are due to use a "general" voicing rule). This shows up clearly when you are in another country and you tell someone a word for something and the…

You are really overgeneralizing your personal experience. I’m a native English speaker too, and I guess pronunciations all the time. I’d argue that it’s part of the skill of English fluency.

Stop discouraging people by telling them that your way is the only way.

Re: Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

#140

Post by weishigoname » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 2:38 AM UTC

if you want to learn foreign language, make it into your daily routine, you don't need to spend much time, just about 10-20 minutes a day, which help you to refresh your brain, build your foreign language conscious.

like your native language, this practice need to be consistent.

another important thing is try to learn culture, which can help to understand the way how they think.