Everyone seems so good at English so I wondered how many people learned it to such proficiency and how many are just natives

  • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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    6 hours ago

    I’m Dutch, but due to the large amount of English content I never really had an issue with English. While I struggled with German and Fr*nch, I never had to pay attention or study for English lessons. I just did what felt natural and ignored the homework etc. Not that I’m a great English speaker or anything, my vocabulary is sometimes a bit limited which makes me have to search for the right words to use. But when watching or reading I can follow pretty much anything. I also sometimes feel like I’m more resilient to accents than native English speakers, maybe because we get exposed to British and American English and therefore kinda learn a more generalized representation of the language? Idk, maybe that’s not a thing

    • bluesheep@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      I like to think I learned most of my English from watching nickelodeon past eight. Watching drake&josh, iCarly, the Simpsons and Southpark with Dutch subtitles on was a big part of me when I was younger.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 hours ago

      A bit of the same boat (minus the 3rd lang. Am only bilingual).
      My struggle is primarily switching and mainting the speed but also the vocabulary at hand. And I feel more pressured while talking than writing.