aaleks's log

[Neurotip]

still I feel that I start doubting myself.

Aaleks, if it helps: reading your English is like listening to someone speaking with a very slight accent - i.e. no extra effort at all. If I ever achieve the level in any other language that you've reached in English, I shall be very happy (and surprised).

By the way, since the 'Caitlin' question got a lot of airtime but the other one didn't...

She started to move for the door, then stopped." Why "started to move" but not "started moving"?

As far as I'm concerned, both are completely correct and the meaning is almost identical.

[aaleks]

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[StringerBell]

I'm sorry they got you so down, especially because they are wrong.

Your English writing is really very good. I have never once noticed anything strange about your syntax. When I read what you write in English, I get the feeling that English is a very comfortable language for you. There might be tiny things here or there that give away you are not a native English speaker, but I want to emphasize that these are very minor, and very infrequent.

I have a strong suspicion that the people on that other forum are incredibly self-conscious about their abilities in English and are attempting to cut down everyone else as a way to make themselves feel better. This is a really common human trait, unfortunately.

Language is first and foremost about communication, not perfection. We, native English speakers, do not write perfectly - not even close! So why should people using English as a foreign language be held to a higher standard than natives?

Every time I read something you've written, I am continually impressed with your abilities. I don't think I will ever have such abilities in the languages I'm learning. And I do agree that reaching a C2 level is very different from speaking like a native. Those exams test very different skills. Many native English speakers would not be able to pass a C2 exam in English. And I think that plenty of people who can pass a C2 exam would have a "deer in the headlights" reaction if instead of writing they had to instead converse with native speakers, especially ones with regional accents. From my understanding, the C2 exam lasts 4+ hours, but only 12 minutes of that time is spent on talking, and that 12 minutes is probably not using a lot of colloquial language and slang.

Since you are also learning Italian, I am going to link an article that describes in Italian something that I think is very relevant to your situation with these people on the other forum (Il Camion della Spazzatura/The Garbage Truck): https://www.efficacemente.com/felicita/vivere-felici/

[aaleks]

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[StringerBell]

It's a bit difficult for me yet but I started reading the article anyway, and I'm going to finish it. I'm feel happy every time I can understand a sentence even if not every word of it . I think that probably that's what I need to do now - start to read articles in Italian on regular basis.

If there's anything you can't quite figure out using google translate, reverso context, word reference, or whatever translation site you like to use, feel free to ask here! Whenever there is some Italian expression I don't understand, I always ask my husband to explain so I should be able to explain anything in that article that you're stuck on.

That website has a lot of really great articles (at this point, 500+) and I like the way Andrea writes; he uses a good combination of colloquial expressions and higher level/less frequent vocabulary. When I first started reading them, it took me a long time (more than an hour) to get through an article. It was really difficult for me, too. I must have improved because now I can get through one in 10-15 minutes and I don't come across as many unknown words/expressions. If you want to give your Italian a boost, reading articles is a great way to do it!

[aaleks]

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[aaleks]

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[aaleks]

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[StringerBell]

IMO, my biggest mistake as a language-learner was my approach to learning grammar. I have already written about that many times, of course, but I'll re-tell the story anyway . I'd been learning English more than 4 years already when I made my first attempt to write in the language. And even though I could understand Englsh almost as effortlessly as my native tongue it seemed I couldn't string two words together witout making such basic mistakes like dropping "am" in "I am doing" etc. That led me to the conclusion that everything I'd done before was wrong, and should've been drilling grammar as seemed everyone did. So I decided to start from the basics which was that biggest mistake I wrote above.

I found your last post to be very interesting because I am struggling with something similar in Italian and I'm trying to figure out what to do about it. The main difference (and I could be wrong here) is that Italian grammar is much more complex than English grammar (for example, the Congiuntivo mood, conjugations, gender/number agreement, 7 articles, 4 past tenses, etc...). I'm not sure if this difference matters...maybe it doesn't. Hopefully I'm not about to make all the "mistakes" that in hindsight you think you made.

Do you think you should have started writing much sooner than you did? What kind of writing was the most beneficial to you? Did you find it useful to get corrections on your writing? I'm considering doing more writing this year since I've done almost none so far. Is there anything else you wished you'd done/not done differently?

[aaleks]

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