Non-native English speakers

[Dm]

Portuguese, FORMALLY, is extremely close to Spanish, and in relation, relatively close to Italian. I can understand most words in Italian, although I never learnt it, as I have said already. But, we actually shorten words and the way we speak them differ so much from place to place (specially the actual words in the daily conversation) that the unformal portuguese is quite different (and annoying.)

[Pella]

One of my high school Spanish teachers told us that in most cases, Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish reasonably well, while Spanish speakers understand little, if any, Portuguese.  And to think, the two languages grew up in countries next to each other...

[Dm]

One of my high school Spanish teachers told us that in most cases, Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish reasonably well, while Spanish speakers understand little, if any, Portuguese.  And to think, the two languages grew up in countries next to each other...

Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal Portuguese are quite different, including in meaning of words. Likewise, Castellaño or "proper" Spanish, or in Argentina, some differences are also noticeable, although less than with Portuguese and Portugals Portuguese difference. For example:

Socks.

You say it like "Meias" in BR Portuguese.
But it's actually "Peúgas" in PT Portuguese.

Now for a small curiosity: Panties for girls, Boxers for men.

In Brazilian Portuguese, "Calcinha" would be for girls, and "cueca" would be for men. Which means if you want a few boxers, you buy "cuecas" in Brazilian Portuguese.
In PT Portuguese, the word "Cueca" is used as "Calcinha" is here - so, if you go into the store and ask for "Cuecas", much like you would in Brazil, this time you are not asking for Boxers -- You're asking for Panties.

[Pella]

That would not go well for the Brazilians' machismo.

[Jenkar]

If English is not your first language, which is it (second, third, etc.)?  How/When did you learn it?  Did you learn English in your own country, or did you travel somewhere to learn it?  Have you ever lived in an English-speaking country?  Among the non-native speakers you know, how good is your English?  What else do you want us to know about your English skills?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Second. When i was 9 year old. By living in aus for a full year. Amongst non-native, pretty good, though my spoken english is absolutely horrible on the accent side.

[AnonymousRevival]

English is my first language to say the least. I've learned it since my parents conversed with me with it. Although, yes I'm of a different ethnicity to Anglicans and being able to speak English like a native is awesome, however, consequently my indigenous language(s) isn't as good. Hong Kong is a Cantonese dominated society, however, it is very multilingual, indicating that English and Mandarin also become part of a mix and so it is there where I learned to develop my English skills. Not intending to be a douche, but while my schoolmates English fluency is adequate due to studying in international schools, the ones I met for my associate degree interview are by far heinous (as in, grammar is not even correct). What I do want to delve further into English though is my usage of tone and word choice. In order to achieve that, I study other languages to get hold of word roots and their grammar structures to be more fluent in languages in general. We are all made to understand different languages, we just need the right approach and the dedication towards learning them.

[Leodip]

I am a native speaker of American English.  I'm migrating toward Canadian English, slowly but surely.

I'm curious about our non-native English speakers.  The language can be difficult to learn, even when it's your first.

If English is not your first language, which is it (second, third, etc.)?  How/When did you learn it?  Did you learn English in your own country, or did you travel somewhere to learn it?  Have you ever lived in an English-speaking country?  Among the non-native speakers you know, how good is your English?  What else do you want us to know about your English skills?  Inquiring minds want to know!

I'm Italian and, like most of the Italian themselves, I don't really know Italian as much as I ought to. Still, my English skills are definitely over the average, for example last time I talked with an English examinator for Trinity tests (tests for English knowings officially recognized) he said my talkative English skills are pretty much the ones from a person that actively studies English and has good grades with those tests, while being 10 years older (I was 14 at that time, and I'm now 16 in less than a month), without having never really studied English. Even so, I tend to get confused while writing, but that's the same even in Italian. I managed to talk with English-speaking persons from pretty much everywhere, for example I got pretty friendly with a girl from Belgium and one from England who were with me on a cruise and I fluently spoke with them. I was overjoyed when I went to London and I could understand what the girl from the Fast-food was saying **
I can speak a little French, and I manage to understand Spanish, French itself, a little Japanese, if I'm lucky Brazilian and a little bit of German.

Answering the questions, then: Second language; I've used computers since when I was little and the (fake) YGO Cards that were sold on the streets when we were little were in english. Both those needs, paired, made my english pretty decent; in my own country but; I stayed three days in London and went on a cruise were I got friendly with lots of English-speaking persons, and I stayed 2 weeks in Egypt (sharm el-sheikh) where we definitely needed English to talk; answered to this before; this too; I can't properly use "to", "in", "into", "at" when indicating movement to somewhere. I manage to use them well because I read a lot of people talking online and hopefully using them the right way and I understood pretty much how to use, but I'm using guts for that, I don't know the rule and I get them wrong from time to time.

[AnonymousRevival]

Lol, its Brazilian PORTUGUESE.

Seems like the Spanish I learned doesn't really helping learning this dialect. I guess it is harder to learn than Greek or Malay. But to a native English speaker, I personally believe my indigenous languages are one of the hardest to learn as it is a logography, and a tonal language on top of that.

[Zso_Zso]

If English is not your first language, which is it (second, third, etc.)?  How/When did you learn it?  Did you learn English in your own country, or did you travel somewhere to learn it?  Have you ever lived in an English-speaking country?  Among the non-native speakers you know, how good is your English?  What else do you want us to know about your English skills?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Chronologically, English is the third language I learned. Native Hungarian, then Russian from grade 5 through grade 12 and even 2 years in University -- yet I can no longer speak it and barely understand a few words. English I learned starting from grade 9 in school. But my language skills are horrible, so I could not communicate verbally at all after learning English for 9 years (4 high school + 5 University) in Hungary. My reading and writing was so-so, i.e. I could understand written English with some struggle and write with a good amount of mistakes.

Then after finishing my BSc + MSc in Hungary I went to do a PhD in Leeds, UK. That's when I actually learned to speak English. First few months were real hard -- nobody around me spoke Hungarian so I was forced to get by somehow. Yorkshire accent of the local people did not help one bit  Fortunately my professors and other PhD students did not speak Yorkshire-ian (I made that word up) so it was easier to communicate with them. by the end of the 3 years, I was confident enough to give talks at international conferences. I traveled a lot in the US presenting the software I developed to various pharmaceutical companies. Then I moved to Canada and started up a computational chemistry software company with the help of my former professor from Leeds. That was 17 years ago and I still have a thick accent despite living 20 years in English-speaking countries.

Now I have 2 kids (age 15 and 10) who speak English much better than I do and they make fun of my accent. They also speak Hungarian, but with an English accent and imperfectly.

[suxerz]

I am a native speaker of American English.  I'm migrating toward Canadian English, slowly but surely.

I'm curious about our non-native English speakers.  The language can be difficult to learn, even when it's your first.

If English is not your first language, which is it (second, third, etc.)?  How/When did you learn it?  Did you learn English in your own country, or did you travel somewhere to learn it?  Have you ever lived in an English-speaking country?  Among the non-native speakers you know, how good is your English?  What else do you want us to know about your English skills?  Inquiring minds want to know!

English is my second language and Malay is my first. Learning English is part of the education system here, so I guess it started when I was in kindergarten. I've been here in Malaysia all my life, but I've had the opportunity to work with various people from UK, US, Japan, China and Japan strictly via emails and phone/teleconference. And I must say it's pretty hard for me to understand the different accents.

Among peers, I guess I could say I'm average. I can speak and understand English just as much as the next guy, but I was told that I have a good writting skill - nothing artsy or anything exciting to read. It's just that I found that most of my friends and colleagues usually look up to me when writting reports, letters, emails etc even when some of them clearly speak and understand English better than me; and I have to admit this is more of a curse than a blessing. :|

I never really put much thought in learning other languages though... If I had to choose, I would like to learn Mandarin, Cantonese and Tamil. Well, because I'm fascinated and partly ashamed of my own country - we are a multicultural country, but we still have that language barrier among ourselves.

/snip
Seems like the Spanish I learned doesn't really helping learning this dialect. I guess it is harder to learn than Greek or Malay.
/snip

Why do you say Malay is hard to learn? As I said, I know very little about other languages, so I'm not familiar with any similarity between Greek and Malay. Could you please elaborate? 

[AnonymousRevival]

Ok, well Malay isn't hard to learn. I probably only said that because to a person who's completely new to Malay, he or she will find it difficult. The grammar structure of Malay is extremely easy but the vocabulary is completely alien to other languages. So for people with a hard time memorizing things, tough luck.

I guess I was fortunate to have an experience of heritage, culture and livelihood which allows me to learn such languages.

@suxerz: Don't local Malay schools teach Mandarin too? In addition, I'm pretty sure you have a significant amount of Chinese friends to help you with that

[rem4life]

Same as Zso Zso's, English is my third, after native Lithuanian (which other say is quite difficult) and Russian (which I was kinda forced to learn, as was hehe "Born in USSR"  )
Learned first two from birth, then later at school. Started English in 7th class
Guess it's the easiest language of all
Even Irish can speak it.. ya no wha i meeeean...