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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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My second language was German - then I was forced to pick up a third in high school. It was English...
I sucked in both those mainly because I didn't want to learn. I chalk it up for my undiagnosed dyslexia - that didn't help to make it fun at all.
What made me to stick to English is: everything was English on the Internet, all the games and so on.
Then I wanted to read some not yet translated book series so went to read in English. I wasn't speaking it.
Then moved to the big old USA and now I'm 99% English only. I do understand some German but ohh boy did it move into passive knowledge...
So when you have no choice you will learn. (Tho there are so many people who don't speak English and proud of it... That's the one thing I can't wrap my head around. How can be proud of your refusal to learn.)
Edit: forgot to recommend something - I believe it is phenomenal in some cases: language transfer I tried the English to Spanish and it is amazing for a native English speaker - hut there is value for non native speaker also!
My job is to teach English to Japanese people, both kids and adults, but anyone over 12 seems really set in their ways when it comes to grammar and sentence structure. I have a really hard time getting them to write coherent sentences like you do.
Have you tried to give them american comic books? Or some very popular teenager adventure stories?
It is hard to grab someone's interest if it's just schoolwork....
It's very common for people to watch Netflix shows and youtube... but I dunno, I just can't seem to get them to grasp what "sounds natural." It's like they're constantly translating (using an outdated version of Google Translate from the 2010s) in their heads instead of thinking in English, you know what I mean? But you may be on to something. Even though I would lose my students, I always tell them to leave Japan and live in an English speaking country for a month or two because the full immersion and necessity will do them more good than 1 year's worth of lessons with me.
Both you and OP would never be thought of as a non-english speaker. You guys really picked it up.
Appreciate the compliment!
My accent is really strong and that won't change. I don't have the ability to do that.
Interesting to note: I noticed that native US speakers actually struggle more to understand really strong accented second language English.
They don't have a problem with the southern deep deep "crocodile hunter" English, but watch something with a very strong accented English - even some Ted talks - and they start to struggle.
I struggle with Scottish, but I think that's because they have a lot of slang mixed into the typical English words. If they took those out, I would hope I would get the rhythm. Japanese accents can sometimes be hard, but most of the time I have no issue. That might be a speed issue as well. I think exposure has a ton to do with it.
Yeah gaelic is made for people to struggle. /S
I've had coworkers look me in the face and claim that they simply can't understand what someone is saying if they have an accent. I happily take all the calls they don't want to bother putting even a little effort towards.
Of course they never struggle with southern accents and the like.