Chit-Chat: best coast california

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Genesis said:
Whenever I look at you guys getting straight As and Bs, I just wanna cry at how stupid I am ;-;
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Psshhhh don't be like that, only I'd have reason for that I think...
(haven't gotten anything other than Ds and Es in French this whole half school year until now)
And generally my grades range from Bs to Cs, occasionally an A in some subjects I'm sorta good at
 
KhiliaGro said:
Psshhhh don't be like that, only I'd have reason for that I think...
(haven't gotten anything other than Ds and Es in French this whole half school year until now)
And generally my grades range from Bs to Cs, occasionally an A in some subjects I'm sorta good at
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I'm actually quite good in French.(mother tongue duh)
Also we get the same grades except I have Fs too such as Literature, Spanish and Physics ;-;
 
Genesis said:
I'm actually quite good in French.(mother tongue duh)
Also we get the same grades except I have Fs too such as Literature, Spanish and Physics ;-;
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I've never really gotten an F for the subjects themselves, if ever, only because I missed homeworks or something like that.
Also I'm pretty sure I could be better in French and like it much more if our teacher wouldn't've been such a [most offensive description for a human being you know] for all these years, ruining the language for us...
 
Genesis said:
Well, I think the same of all the Spanish teachers I had. What amazes me is that I managed to have Cs and Bs in Spanish while I can't even translate a decent phrase. But English <3, always getting A.
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It's the same over here, although only maybe because our expectations in English are considerably low. I mean, look, I can "speak" it fluently and without too many flaws, thus I pretty much always got As in the subject so far, whereas some of my classmates can't even properly use the simple past forms and whatnot.
 
KhiliaGro said:
It's the same over here, although only maybe because our expectations in English are considerably low. I mean, look, I can "speak" it fluently and without too many flaws, thus I pretty much always got As in the subject so far, whereas some of my classmates can't even properly use the simple past forms and whatnot.
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I know the feel, a lot. Some people even believe I went to a specialized school to learn English even if I keep saying that I didn't.
 
Genesis said:
I know the feel, a lot. Some people even believe I went to a specialized school to learn English even if I keep saying that I didn't.
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Haha, some people think that I like, secretly study for English because I don't have anything better to do, or that I'm totally nerdy just because I somehow know how to count up to 2000 in Russian or know other such useless yet interesting things and stuffs.
Although...technically having conversations with others in English when it isn't your mother tongue sort of counts as learning, right?
 
Speaking of languages, I find it interesting how we basically have two different Englishes. American English basically edited England's English to form their own dictionary & whatnot. I want to know this. Why didn't America just use the same exact language as England? Did England opposed to this, which forced America to do some editing?
 
Sector said:
Speaking of languages, I find it interesting how we basically have two different Englishes. American English basically edited England's English to form their own dictionary & whatnot. I want to know this. Why didn't America just use the same exact language as England? Did England opposed to this, which forced America to do some editing?
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To answer this question the most plausible way I can think of:

because 'murrica
 
Probably the same way the accents changed, we started out with England's english and over time slang and other mannerisms changed the language.
 
Languages change all the time. It's never fixed, it's ever in the making. That's why I don't like it when people say "you're not using/speaking/writing English correctly", because people end up getting the idea that languages have these codified rules like the Ten Commandments etched in stone and stay that way to the end of time, which isn't the case. I'm sure the first settlers took along their regional variation of British English - considering how North Americans pronounce our r's, I'd venture a guess that most of the first settlers came from West Country. And then things happened. I think even in the 1700 and 1800's English wasn't even standardized, people were using double consonants where they should've been using single consonants and vice versa, and all these other variations that were eventually taken away when some old dudes in universities decided we should come up with "rules". Or something like that.
 
Genesis said:
Yup, that's how I got better. Also the reason I learned English was video games. How unusual.

What exactly is the difference between those two Englishes?
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From what I personally know there are some differencies between Grammar or vocabulary (grey/gray; neighbor/neighbour etc.)
 
Dakota said:
I have a 3.3 GPA at the moment. Two Bs, a B+, an A-, and an A. I need to step it up so bad. :I Aiming to get that GPA at 3.5 or above next term. Which means straight As, basically. Think it's possible, with me taking English, Calculus, and History. I'm just worried about Statistics and Philosophy. Agh.
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Go big or go home, aim for a 4.0.
 
About the English thing. Intercourse used to mean a chat, now it has a completely different meaning. Try reading a Shakespeare script; it's obvious that it's English but obviously no one talks like that anymore. Language evolves all the time everywhere, and since the US is it's own place they obviously developed the Queen's English differently than how it changed here. It's weird yes but it makes perfect sense when you think about it.
 
BlahISuck said:
Languages change all the time. It's never fixed, it's ever in the making. That's why I don't like it when people say "you're not using/speaking/writing English correctly", because people end up getting the idea that languages have these codified rules like the Ten Commandments etched in stone and stay that way to the end of time, which isn't the case. I'm sure the first settlers took along their regional variation of British English - considering how North Americans pronounce our r's, I'd venture a guess that most of the first settlers came from West Country. And then things happened. I think even in the 1700 and 1800's English wasn't even standardized, people were using double consonants where they should've been using single consonants and vice versa, and all these other variations that were eventually taken away when some old dudes in universities decided we should come up with "rules". Or something like that.
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Interesting point. Thanks!

People also mention that English is the toughest language to learn. Is that actually true? To me, I would probably want to say Chinese/Japanese, because they speak so fast! :o
 
Whether it's difficult or not also depends on the native tongue, imo. In my country's case, for example, there are not many people who understand easily that one word in English can have 32645835423 different meanings depending on its context. And while translating words literally, well, sometimes it goes wrong.

Not in my case, though, mainly because thinking in English helps. Also I started learning at about 6. Video games helped a lot! Mainly Pokémon and Age of Empires.

I'm terrible at other languages, though. I'm just awful at French despite having 3 years of classes, and can understand Spanish well because it has some similarities to my native language (along with 2 years of classes to learn the main differences). Everything else, well, no.
 
Yeah, I'm terrible with other languages too. Though that's only because I haven't really studied anything besides spanish and I haven't used spanish much since finishing all my classes, so my spanish vocabulary is limited.

Can still read it and understand it better than I can speak it or understand it spoken.
 
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