How did you learn the English language?

[Dictator]

This game


With this thing

[Linebacker]

I can imagine young Sven doing push-ups in front of American Chopper.

Used to love that show,and Mythbusters,and Bear Grylls's ulitmate survival,and that show where two teams build random things in a junkyard and have battles with them.

[Dandelion]

Television (we use subtitles), videogames, internet. School only steered us in the acquired knowledge we gathered as a child, but didn't teach us the language. To add to that, it's particularly easy for us as Germanic speakers.

[kkk77]

In school at first. However english classes became useless very fast once you had learnt the basics... then mostly through reading on the internet (vocabulary) and listening to the radio to get used to a larger variety of accents.

That's what I feel about school too. It might have helped me for the basics, but then it was completely wasteful because we only learned grammar...

Television (we use subtitles), videogames, internet. School only steered us in the acquired knowledge we gathered as a child, but didn't teach us the language. To add to that, it's particularly easy for us as Germanic speakers.

For romance speakers it's not very difficult once we learn the basics. The longer (and rarer) words are usually very guessable.

For example in your post, I'd easily guess the following words: television - televisão, video - vídeo, use - usar, acquire - adquirir, language - linguagem, particularly - particularmente, germanic - germânico; and a little harder: school - escola, add - adicionar.

[Ivan Kramskoï]

Some school education, that wasn't of much use. The rest came passively, through the alienation of American series and such.

Exactly the same here.

[Ouistreham]

some people in this forum know seven or eight language a few even more english is like must know language.

English is useless in Europe.
Anyone who can't master neither the basics of Bavarian-Dutch dialects nor Hispano-Catalitalian gibberish, and even not the elementary concepts for survival on Slavic soil (vodka, piwo, byelo vino...) should better stay at home.
As a tradition in the paternal line of my family we learn German as first foreign language. After that, any other language feels like a piece of cake.
I never use English on the continent. It sounds gay. It's a White language for Niggers.

I can't think of anything more frustrating and infuriating than Italian or Dutch fucktards, when I'm addressing them in their own country in their own language, who want to answer in English. They end up being yelled at in German, with the most obscene curses I can invent. Morons deserve to get some education.

Besides —thanks to Oasis, Blur, and a number of English girl friends— I am always mistaken for a Londoner in Scotland and for an Englishman in Chicago, go figure.

[Geni]

here ...in forum

[Dombra]

Movies, books, video games, school

[nicalandia]

The majority of the people on this forum know how to speak it or they're fluent enough in English to at least have a conversation in it. I know that not every person on this forum comes from an English speaking country like the United States,Canada,United Kingdom,New Zealand,Australia,etc. So how did you pick the language up? Do you live in one of those countries where teaches teach you English as a foreign language from a young age. Did you have to read self help books or listen to audio tracks?

I lived in the USA(Ogden, Utah) for 11 years(from 14 years old)

[Prism]

Integrating into western Europe, I lived in England for some years