English as a second or third language

[Norgy]

This little community was always multi-cultural and multi-lingual. From bmolsson's barely legible Swedo-English to The Brain's and Syt's perfect English.

Despite all the reading and listening I do in English, I feel my grasp has deteriorated quite a bit. When I travel, I am on the level of the people I speak to, although with a British accent.

And, to be honest, that doesn't always improve relations the way 25 gold in EU IV would.

I have, for some reason, found it easier to express myself in English than Norwegian. Which is a drawback when your job is, uhm, let me check my notes, yes. Writing. Stuff.

So I have two questions:
1) How do you native speakers think we are holding up?
2) For us with English as a second or third language, how much of the information you consume in a day is in English? And how do you keep up with slang?

There are English words I have read so many times yet still fail to understand. Like "maladroit".

[celedhring]

To be completely honest, Spanish is probably my third language nowadays. Catalan for my family/friend interactions, English for professional stuff and general internet life. Spanish I think nowadays I only use for posting on the Spanish Paradox forums and the occasional Spanish work gig.

And yes, my job is also writing stuff. I feel there's a decision one has to make between learning more languages "just" to communicate in them or learning one well enough that you can use it professionally. I kinda dislike that I never learnt anything other than English (I dabbled semi-seriously in German years ago), but English is what keeps me employed nowadays. 

What I do is try to keep me immersed in as much English as I can. Movies, media, even beers with expat friends, etc...

And slang is a bitch indeed. Not as much understanding it, but using it properly (I very rarely try).

[Zanza]

2) For us with English as a second or third language, how much of the information you consume in a day is in English? And how do you keep up with slang?

I guess two thirds of my work-related communication is (simple) English as all the techies are from India.

Privately, significantly less. But I do regularly consume English media (news, other online content, Netflix, video games, etc.).

I make no active effort to learn slang. I pick up the business bullshit terms in daily communication anyway.

[Jacob]

I live 95% of my life in English (except right now as I'm visiting Denmark), so no problem at all. I still make a few mistakes when speaking/ writing - enough that attentive people can identify that am an ESL speaker, but nothing that interferes at all.

As for Danish - I keep up with it through reading news and listening and reading online every so often. I probably have to think a bit more before I speak and occasionally use non-standard Anglicisms (there are a lot more accepted ones since I left). I probably also speak a little more old fashioned than the cool urban youth - but that could just be age too.

[grumbler]

As a native English speaker, I would say that it would be hard for me, if I had no prior knowledge, to reliably sort the ESL writers here from the native-English writers.  Part of this may be due to the fact that some of our native-English writers (maybe even including me) don't make enough of an effort to communicate clearly and concisely.

[Norgy]

I live 95% of my life in English (except right now as I'm visiting Denmark), so no problem at all. I still make a few mistakes when speaking/ writing - enough that attentive people can identify that am an ESL speaker, but nothing that interferes at all.

As for Danish - I keep up with it through reading news and listening and reading online every so often. I probably have to think a bit more before I speak and occasionally use non-standard Anglicisms (there are a lot more accepted ones since I left). I probably also speak a little more old fashioned than the cool urban youth - but that could just be age too.

Danes and Norwegians do not understand each other well when speaking. I always wondered how it was going off and living in a new country like you did.

I guess in my work, I am 100 percent Norwegian. However, most of what I consume in my spare time is in English, be it books, TV serials or audiobooks/podcasts.

By using the Duolingo app, I managed to learn some Italian, which actually is the easier of the Latin languages to pronounce for a Norwegian. Spanish is not easy, and the only way I recognise Portuguese is by the sibillants. Bom dia my butt.

I wish I had kept practising my German, but when I was in Berlin two years ago, I was  and spoke mostly English.

[Barrister]

I'm a straight-up anglophone.  Studied French in school such that I can pick up the odd word or phrase, took a course in Ukrainian but can't really say more than a dozen words.

Trying to think of the non-English speakers from Languish I've met.  I guess that's Tamas and Martinus.  Both of their english was excellent in person if accented (this was a long time ago I'm willing to bet that Tamas's accent has faded substantially living in the UK now).

Other than BMolsson (or going back maybe I-killed-kenny), everyone's written english is indistinguishable from a native speaker.

So we hosted international students for several years here at the Barrister home.  One of the primary reasons they come to Canada is to improve their english.  From my observations it really depends on how much you throw yourself into a language.  We had three girls from Spain, but their english was already excellent when they arrived.  We had two boys from Germany - their english was rougher but they were watching english media and throwing themselves into talking with us, so their english really improved.

We also had a girl from Japan.  Admittedly going from Japanese to English is a bigger transition than from German or Spanish - but she really didn't try much and we were still having to rely on google translate pretty regularily just to have fairly basic conversations with her.

[The Brain]

Books, movies, TV shows, games etc are overwhelmingly but not exclusively English. Professionally it's a mix of Swedish and English. There's a lot of difference between different subject matters; some I feel very confident writing about in English (like history for instance), others find me searching for the right word.

Slang I guess mostly through YT videos.

[Norgy]

Books, movies, TV shows, games etc are overwhelmingly but not exclusively English. Professionally it's a mix of Swedish and English. There's a lot of difference between different subject matters; some I feel very confident writing about in English (like history for instance), others find me searching for the right word.

Slang I guess mostly through YT videos.

Your English has always been impeccable. Some Swedes' on the P'dox forums, not so much. Peo. If you remember him. 

[Grey Fox]

"maladroit"

 

[Norgy]

 

[crazy canuck]

There are errors that are made every now and then.  Some of the French speakers make some grammatical errors.  But it is always easy to understand what they are trying to communicate.  Oex of course writes better than most English speakers here.  Me included.

[The Brain]

Books, movies, TV shows, games etc are overwhelmingly but not exclusively English. Professionally it's a mix of Swedish and English. There's a lot of difference between different subject matters; some I feel very confident writing about in English (like history for instance), others find me searching for the right word.

Slang I guess mostly through YT videos.

Your English has always been impeccable. Some Swedes' on the P'dox forums, not so much. Peo. If you remember him. 

Thanks! Remember him, yeah maybe his English wasn't always perfect.

[Norgy]

So I am basically almost alone in not using English at work, it seems.

[jimmy olsen]

Despite all the reading and listening I do in English, I feel my grasp has deteriorated quite a bit. When I travel, I am on the level of the people I speak to, although with a British accent.

...

I have, for some reason, found it easier to express myself in English than Norwegian. Which is a drawback when your job is, uhm, let me check my notes, yes. Writing. Stuff.

This seems contradictory. Your English has deteriorated, but you still feel it's easier to express yourself in it, rather than Norwegian?