Nah, you could read my hand written note. So at least your reading comprehension can’t be that bad, haha.
Puts in perspective why you keep repeating you’re so mediocre at things all the time, eh? Pretty high standards.
this x10
I have a long ways to go in lifting, especially if my lifts continue to crawl upward or stay the same each year.
Haha, it definitely took a lot of time. Tons of people can do some insane freestyle football, highly recommend checking them out.
I’d hope I wouldn’t be too shabby after over eleven years of learning German. Though it blew my mind how some of my friends took 4-5 years of Spanish yet could never communicate in the language…
I don’t think I have high standards but rather know how much I do not know or how much more I could achieve.
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Your scientific background/ work reflects very clearly in the first half of that statement.
Although those aren’t opposing. High standards need a wide perspective.
Next video speaking German, haha? I’m just always very impressed when someone speaks German as a non native speaker. Seems like a weird language to learn. I guess a lot languages do, eh? I have gotten to know so many people who still “struggle” after 20-30+ years of learning German in some cases
.
Ha, maybe. Working in science is sillier than people think though.
It seems kind of weird for an average American to learn anything besides Spanish, though I think it is weirder for them to seriously pursue a foreign language in the first place. To me German is a language that is nonsensical in a sensical way.
I have seen a few videos of German natives being interviewed in the streets and saying that they would not want to learn their language as a non-native. However, I sometimes feel that way about English.
I guess I could, even though I don’t like my voice. Might feel kind of scripted. Lucky for you I prefer listening to myself speak German over English. This reminds me of the video where @Voxel spoke English a while ago, which impressed me and others very much.
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As a native Chinese speaker, I do not understand how non- natives learn it.
I really wish I could speak German
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I lived in China, teaching English, for 5ish months and picked up maybe a hundred words and a few dozen useful phrases.
I was conversationally competent (given a certain set of boundaries) after the same amount of time in Sweden.
Spanish was also never particularly hard for me to progress in.
I think the usage of symbols and the complexity around making the correct sounds make it far more difficult, at least if one has the same background as me.
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Whoa, I didn’t know that. Awesome! I’ve recently become close friends with someone in a Chinese graduate program here who has been learning the language for several years, which impresses me. I am not sure I would ever tackle Chinese.
I had Spanish for two years in elementary school until foreign language instruction fell victim to budget cuts. I remember feeling lost, even though in hindsight I know the teacher was explaining the days of the week. 
The Department of State has language learning timelines, where each language is categorized according to its difficulty (i.e. the number of weeks needed to reach some level of proficiency). I more or less agree with the list, and it is no surprise that East Asian languages and Arabic are toughest for native English speakers. But I also think one’s language learning abilities depend heavily on one’s background, so generalizations may or may not be useful.
Tonal languages scare me more than those that simply have a different alphabet – for example, the Cyrillic alphabet is very easy to learn. Still, Japanese would be challenging given the number of characters and pronunciations to memorize.
Sorry for the novel. I love this stuff.
Edit: Several months ago I started volunteering for an organization that helps elderly and younger adults traumatized by war to pass their American citizenship test. I have been tutoring an older Chinese guy who has no desire to learn any English, and it has been one of the funniest experiences of my life.
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I just meant that the phrase “I don’t know what I don’t know” comes to mind as a variation of your first sentence. That’s a “principle” if you will of scientific learning/ research that I’ve picked up, haha.
Yeah Voxel’s writing in particular is probably the most elegant use of the English language out of anyone on here. I have exchanged voice messages with him before (I’m super lazy when it comes to chatting in text form) and can confirm that his English is exceptionally good. I think I personally also prefer to speak English rather than write in it. Although the quality does suffer a little bit if I’m out of practice.
@Bagsy @Koestrizer Wow, I’m positively blushing.
I’ve received positive comments on this in the past but I remain surprised to this day whenever someone suggests that I’m among the more eloquent people on here. It remains a mystery to me what what quality it is that my writing has that other people seem to respond so positively to. I just cannot discern what aspect it has that some of you seem to notice.
Despite my own inability to see it, I’m forever grateful that you take the time out of your day to highlight it. I’m pretty certain @anna_5588 has complimented me on it as well in the past, so I thank all of you for making me smile today and every once in a while.
Personally, I’m pretty confident I owe it to being raised on TV and video games. MMORPGs especially. Playing these games that are set in a fantasy-esque environment back then is presumably what molded me to write the way that I do. As I recall it, “back then” was a different time that didn’t place a premium on responding quickly while being well-spoken was a factor that made other players more likely to consider me as their peer despite my very young age.
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your vocabulary. Case in point: “discern” is a word not really used anymore in conversational English. People will usually say “I can’t figure out” rather than “I can’t discern”
It definitely looks impressive when majority of people use shallow English most of the time
Also, @Bagsy I think it’s just the dunning-kruger effect, if you’re familiar
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Maybe I watched Dead Poets Society at just the right time. I had to check the quote, I didn’t remember the motivation being girls and I wasn’t very motivated by that at any point as I grew up.
so maybe there is some other explanation.
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Yes, I’m pretty sure your English is better than mine at this point 
Yeah, I know what you meant. I don’t disagree with it, though a lot of times (at least in my field) success hinges upon not necessarily knowledge but rather whether something works… because most stuff takes a lot of time and ends up failing.
Totally agree, I can’t forget his writing.
I’m this way with German now, but I used to be much better at writing than speaking. Makes sense because I’m not writing any Aufsätze anymore. I do think writing is easier in general, but of course it depends on various factors.
It’s very obvious.
English is spoken so poorly nowadays by natives. New learners often prefer to learn from someone who is not a native speaker.
Lol, I am familiar. But I am not sure what you are specifically referencing.
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Wow. I’m not even gonna tag everyone this applies to, but: I’m so impressed by the polyglots here. I didn’t even know Voxel wasn’t a native speaker! Aldebaran, also, writes quite well and I assume speaks French natively. Koestrizer I assume speaks German but you wouldn’t know it from how well he writes. And Bagsy of course learns languages for fun. Pretty sure Anna speaks Chinese? and her parents probably use it at home!
I also have friends who speak perfect English, yet I learned that at home, their parents spoke only Spanish their entire childhood - and even today. It’s amazing to me, as I have no talent with languages other than English.
Furthermore I’ll echo the sentiment that I wouldn’t want to have to learn English if I didn’t natively speak it. The idioms are ridiculous. Use a dictionary to define “look”, then to define “up”, then try using that to define “look up” (as in, look it up in the dictionary).
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I don’t think there are any polyglots here I get what you mean though.
People who can communicate in a select few languages without hesitation impress me more than those who can have only basic conversations in a dozen tongues, so I aim for the former.
Please don’t take this negatively, but have you had to genuinely try? Foreign language instruction is generally not great here. At the same time many average Americans do not find learning another language – even Spanish – very useful. Then there’s the whole notion that “learning a language is impossible after you reach adulthood,” which I suspect is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Of course one’s background can be very helpful, so if a child’s family speaks multiple languages at home, they’re bound to stick. Then many European countries teach foreign language far better than we do.
My parents didn’t know one word in a foreign language, but I like to think that my early background (you might understand my rationale, maybe not) makes it easier for me in some cases.
Exactly, not to mention that many words in English are not written how they sound, and many native speakers rely on simple verbs to construct sentences that would sound “off” to a non-native.
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I regret not putting more effort into it. I put a small amount of time in to learn at least the very basics in Mandarin but ended up being in southern China (Guangxi) where almost no one spoke Mandarin by default and some never spoke it. Made it more difficult but I could’ve progressed further. I was saying the score one time in a basketball game a few weeks after I got there and one of the guy was like no that’s not right and says a different score in a dialect I didn’t know. Kind of stopped me in my tracks.
I spent two months in Costa Rica volunteering and living with a Costa Rican family then took 3 or 4 classes in college on top of the 2 I took in high school, I was never super close to fluent but I could hold decent conversations and read magazines and not super complicated books. Hearing the words from a young age probably helped me, actually, grew up in Las Vegas which has a significant Spanish speaking population.
I’ve lost a little love for it being back in the States but I still find languages fascinating and learning them incredibly worthwhile. I’ve been toying with actually going back and studying Spanish again (by myself, at first) in my free time.
When I moved to Sweden I got a job at a Subway (shitty sandwich restaurant) like 5 weeks in which was owned/run by two Arabic guys, i got a serious appreciation for how hard that language is. I also was so bad at Swedish at that point I failed to delineate the difference between the two languages a few times lol
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Now hold on, am I crazy?
I was using it in the noun sense shown here:
And: No, I have never had to genuinely try to learn another language. From curiosity I’ve played around with Latin and Greek as a kid, and learned an astonishing amount; and with Spanish as one does in my circumstances, but never enough to hold a conversation; and learned a few French words, but again, not enough to communicate.
As you point out, there’s very little incentive for a typical American to learn other languages anyway.
Did I mention that book to you?
It was a fun read.
coughs quietly
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Don’t be sad. You still have your looks, king.
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