Let's Learn & Share Our English Language Levels

BaldJean wrote: try learning German. the articles and pronouns alone will drive you mad.                                    table of articles                          male              female      neutral nominative          der Mann       die Frau    das Kind genitive              des Mannes    der Frau    des Kindes dative                 dem Mann     der Frau    dem Kind accusative           den  Mann     die Frau    das Kind

I'm not much of a "the teacher sucked that's why I couldn't learn" type of guy, but my German teachers REALLY sucked. During middle and high school, our teacher ONLY did his lessons in the level of the geeks (who were the majority); and at university, I decided to choose German as the elective second foreign language course (as it was the only 3rd language that I had had some familiarity with); and our teacher was horrible at Turkish, I was horrible at German and that's why my 8 years of German education granted me almost nothing. If only I had chosen French at university, we learned that the teacher was excellent and was giving awesome marks at the same time. My German course grades definitely negatively affected my overall grade point average. Misfortunate...

Edited by Shadowyzard - February 13 2021 at 08:19

C1. Honestly, I expected less. Really enjoyed the test, thank you for sharing it with us.

Shadowyzard wrote:

Absolutely.

Shadowyzard wrote:

triptych wrote: I'm a certified Cambridge examiner involved in the CEFW and I can safely say that quite a few native speakers don't pass the Proficiency exam, let alone IELTS !!! This goes to show that most native speakers use the language very well to communicate, but when it comes to explaining the grammar, they just flop.

I agree. It seems the same for the natives of any language. There was an Azerbaijani woman that I met who was studying Turkology, and to my amazement, her Turkish seemed far better than mine technically and grammar wise. I inquired if she had been living in Turkey for a long time and/or if her parents are from Turkey, but no! 

I think this situation is related to "how" and "when" one learns a language. Non-native speakers are taught grammar for years since childhood or later, whilst natives begin to learn since babyhood. In the latter case, your brain sucks the language like a sponge, whether it is from a "clean" source or not. So, if your parents don't have a flawless command of the language, you're likely to end up with having a flawed command of the language; and it is not an easy thing to correct it, as the flaws also operate like the ingrained/embedded codes of your self-expression.

Edited by Shadowyzard - January 19 2021 at 04:56

I'm a certified Cambridge examiner involved in the CEFW and I can safely say that quite a few native speakers don't pass the Proficiency exam, let alone IELTS !!!
This goes to show that most native speakers use the language very well to communicate, but when it comes to explaining the grammar, they just flop.

Edited by triptych - January 18 2021 at 23:56

BaldJean wrote: and since I read Shakespeare and a lot of literature from 18th and 19th century too I know a lot of ancient words

Like Bellbottoms?

I just done crushed that Pabst Blue Ribbon can like a skeeter by the cement pond. Yeehaw!

and since I read Shakespeare and a lot of literature from 18th and 19th century too I know a lot of ancient words